This was a fairly rushed and unpolished game we made for a jam some time ago, so we’re not really planning on making further content for it, I don’t even know where I have the old files anymore. Sorry!
No worries, don't stress yourself over it! Also, remember that you don't need to necessarily join over the entire week. If you only can spare a few evenings to make something small, that's already awesome!
That's right, he stopped making YouTube videos to try out some different things in his life. But the gamejams have always been largely community-organised, and since this community still exists there is no reason for us to let the tradition die! :)
I think he made it pretty clear in his last video. For the simple reason of respect we should allow him to do what he wants to do, and not beg him to come back! :)
In general you can use anything you like. I'm just not sure how willing people are to execute random batch files from the internet on their machines, which is pretty smart honestly.
If you are new to gamejams, here are some useful tips that might help you out!
Tips
Aim very small, a week may seem like a lot of time to make a big project, but it never works out that way. Keep it small, make a working game very fast and keep adding features and polishing from there.
Don't worry if you come out of this jam with a "not so great" game. The point of the jam is to have fun working on new, interesting concepts. Think of it as a very stressful prototyping phase. Go crazy with ideas! After the jam you are always allowed to polish it out and get a much better game out of it.
As we, the community, are a programming-focused Discord server, don't worry about crappy programmer's art. The goal is to have a fun, working game.
If you are stuck on something, don't stress over it. Go and do something else in the meantime, clear out your head. Game jams are a long sprint, the best thing you can do is not rush and keep your cool.
Can't come up with ideas? Do something completely unrelated, inspiration comes from weird places you'd never expect!
Vector art will probably take more time to do cleanly, but might look "better" in the long run. It's a difficult style to get through consistently though, so beware of that. Pixel art can be as detailed as you want it to be.
The mechanics employed are pretty well taught to the player without the need for any dialogue! The artstyle is charming and simple, and the puzzle are mind-boggling and plainly fun!
The only thing I would criticize would be the grain effect, which is in my opinion too disturbing, and the repetitiveness of the background atmo. Overall, really good job with this!
You are right, the prizes aren't really useful to people that don't use Unity.
Like you said, with Unity sponsoring the prizes, and the creators the jam is built around mostly using Unity, you could argue that it is a Unity focused jam.
Maybe in the future, we could manage to get engine-neutral prizes, but that would require us to find appropriate sponsors, which, I suppose you can imagine, is not an easy task.
Other than that, the prize would be yours to do with what you please. If that means re-selling it or passing it onto the next winner, that's yours to decide upon!
Interesting question about your own framework. I'm a bit conflicted I must say, but I think it would be unfair to use something that others would not have access to (even though you could argue that's the case with some frameworks), but it would be amazing if you could get around without using your framework.
Pygame, on the other hand, is definitely allowed though!
We'll stick with what the rules say - the winner will receive the asset bundle, and it's up to you what you want to do with it. Whether that means passing it onto the next ranked person or your friends, it's yours to do with what you want!
Before you jump straight into programming to make games, I'd suggest you get familiar with the basics first. If you want to stick with Unity, try some online C# courses, even the Microsoft Tutorial on C# is decent. Once you get the hang of Classes, Functions and all the neat stuff, you should be comfortable enough to figure out Unity.
If you don't want to stick with Unity and C#, other popular languages are for example Python or Java.
What I did for a past jam was to create a timelapse of the work progress, using Chronolapse. While the result isn't that much appealing to watch visually, it's extremely interesting to watch the game take shape!
