Prepare for the first edition of the SteemitJam (Game creation event) starting on January 5th!
On January 5th at 8pm EST (January 6th at 1am GMT), I will announce the theme used for the first edition of SteemitJam!
What is SteemitJam and how does it work?
SteemitJam is game creation event where participants are required to create a game under 48 hours following a specific theme. The event will start on January 5th at 8pm EST (January 6th at 1am GMT) and will end on January 7th 8 pm EST (January 8th at 1am GMT). When the event starts, I will make a post announcing the theme that the participants will work on for the SteemitJam. I will use my open-source program trustless-random-generator to generate a random theme transparently (Because I will also be participating!).
Rules
I'm using very similar rules that the Ludum Dare Compo uses.
- No teams, this is done alone.
- You must own all the code, art and sound used for your entry. However, game engines, frameworks and libraries are permitted.
- You must share the code when submitting your entry.
- You must submit your entry before the end of the event (January 7th 8 pm EST or January 8th at 1am GMT).
- You must respect the theme.
Since none of these rules can be actually enforced, Steemit flags can be used to punish cheaters (Explained further below).
How do I join?
Simply wait until the theme is announced, then start working on your game! Once you are finished, you simply need to submit your entry and you are done!
How do I submit my entry?
Create a Steemit post with the following information :
- Title of your game.
- Description of your game.
- How to play your game/Controls (If it is not clear in the game)
- A download link for your game (I recommend supporting more platforms than Windows).
- A download link for the source code (Can also be a link to a GitHub repository).
- Include screenshots/videos (Optional, but recommended).
- Installation instructions (If necessary).
Publish the post with the tag #steemitjamsubmission
Modifying an entry after the jam
If you realized that you made a typo or you have found a game-breaking bug that makes the game crash, you can still change it after the event but please make your change clear. It should look like this in your submission post :
{{link}} Game v1.0
{{link}} Source Code v1.0
{{link}} v1.1 (Fixed typo "your" to "you're" after deadline)
{{link}} Source Code v1.1
Don't modify your entry to add features.
Voting system
The 'Winner' of the jam is the entry where the payout reward is the highest after 7 days (I think this is better than raw vote count, but the author should not upvote his own post). If you disagree on the rewards of an entry, because it is either low quality or a player has clearly cheated, you are free to flag the submission post (Please don't abuse of this, it should only be used when someone is caught cheating and is currently winning).
The SteemitJam will not have any official 'winner'. Instead, I encourage people to write blog posts on their favorite games. These posts will bring attention to the author of the respective game. I will personally review each game (Oh and don't forget to support Linux systems! I also have Windows on another computer though). I will say what I liked about them and what is to improve. I will also pick my personal favorites for different categories (Fun, sound, art, innovation and overall). I encourage people to do so, but it is not mandatory.
Browse the posts on #steemitjamsubmission to see the entries.
Progress blogs and post-mortems
You are free to write blogs about your game before the end of the deadline, showing what you have done so far, GIFs, pictures, videos or more. It is also interesting to read post-mortems and I encourage people to do one.
These posts should be tagged with #steemitjam.
Potential themes
I've compiled a list of potential themes that can come out as the winning theme. If you want to add themes to this list, simply suggest them in the comments.
Floating islands
Limited space
Expanding
Tiny machines
Only three colors
Broken world
Start with nothing
One level, but constantly changing
Death is useful
One minute
Into the unknown
Everything is connected
Signal lost
Parallel worlds
Moving fortress
You are alone
Start with nothing
Machines
Running out of space
On / Off
Connections
Protect it
1 vs 100
It spreads
Different perspective
Infection
Artificial Life
Hive mind
Will the game creation be visible for us to comment and upvote,and will the game become available after the contest?.
Yes, as detailed in the 'How do I submit my entry?' section, once you are finished creating your game, you need to create a Steemit blog post with the tag #steemitjamsubmission with information such as the title, description, download link, etc. (Look at the 'How do I submit my entry?' section). The winner is creator of the game that has the post with the most payout reward after 7 days. People will be able to upvote, comment and suggest improvements to every game submitted by browsing #steemitjamsubmission. Since the posts stay on Steemit, the download links will also stay, therefore people will still be able to play the games after the Jam. If you have another question, feel free to ask it.
So the payout reward is based on the strength of the curators.The games created must be of high quality and fill with excellence then to attract attention.
Yes, I will likely also mention a "vote count" winner, because it would be disappointing if someone won just because a single whale upvoted his/her post.
This is awesome! I'm excited to see the results!
Sorry I just reread and realize the contest can be upvoted
Sure that's fine, I'm not expecting everyone to read it in one shot haha :)
let the fun begin!
some questions here:
if you have art that you've bought. would that count as owning? there's also free ones that everybody owns. or you might have something modular that allows you to stick in any assets you like without changing code.
what i'm saying is owning and creating can be two different things. i'm assuming you can be as flexible and creative as you want and votes would simply do the work?
This is a good point that I've forgot to mention, in all the game jams that I've participated purchasing assets were prohibited. Free sounds and graphical assets are usually prohibited or greatly discouraged. Since I did not actually write it in the rules let's greatly discourage it. However, art that you have created in the past is accepted as long as it fits your game and the theme. Also, the voters may be attracted solely by the art that you did not even make, so I think it's a good idea just to stick with your own assets. The main point of game jams is to have a game that you created entirely in a very short time period, if you take assets from the store, even the free ones, it kind of breaks the point. The only reason external code such as game engines, frameworks and libraries are allowed is because the participation rate would be extremely low, because it is hard to create a game from scratch in c++ with OpenGL (or any under "from scratch" equivalent) under 48 hours.
Free sounds are usually fine. People that can make art + code are plenty, people that can do both and music are basically non-existent.
yes if someone is blatantly using what's not theirs, people can tell.
i wouldn't worry too much about it.
let's see what happens. it's sure going to be fun :)
I'd like to propose identifying a winner by tallying only the upvotes by people that have participated in the game jam. Otherwise it might as well be a popularity contest. And the person getting the largest payout, well, they got the largest payout, that's winning enough.
i think it'd be even better to have an ongoing sharing of gamejams rather than having events with deadlines and winners. afterall this is a community that hates a centralized system. simply throw out an idea and see what people do with it. have freedom and room for creativity.
(tho i'm not a creative person myself.. but i do like the idea of facilitating)
and yes winners will be winners in their own right.
I do think deadlines will incentivize participation, but I understand your point. The 'winner' aspect could be removed, as we are already having payout rewards. What do you think about that? If we have game jams (like this) every now and then at specified dates, but no 'winner'. I do think this would maximize participation without having too much authority (especially if we vote date and times). Instead of picking a winner, we could write blogs on our favorite games. What do you think?
i agree. the votes speak for themselves.
if anybody wants to write a post on their favorite game it's completely up to them.
but in the same sense, nobody's stopping anybody from calling a winner either..
so yea. i guess i change my mind a little bit. calling it "winners" or "favorites", i really don't have a problem.
specified dates and blogs would be great, too. at the end of the day i'm just excited to participate.
I agree too.
And having this as contest every while (with its own website or page on popular gamedev platform) would be a huge achievement.
Not always I can take part in 48 hour game jam. Most of time I won't be able to (depending on the theme I might not take part this time also... But we'll see) If this, Like Ludum-dare is a recurring event it'll be more and more great one.
@poet I really think this is a better idea, this is how Ludum Dare works, but this will be hard if there's a lot of participants (which I doubt for this first edition). My other idea is to remove the winning system completely. Instead of picking a winner, we could write blogs on our favorite games. What do you think?
I like the option you went with. If some curator pops up, they can declare their own winner.
I hoe I can take part on this, 48 hours is too short time for me to do anything. But I'll try~
Are you sure judging by the upvote payout is a good idea? Someone who has a whale friend will have a huge advantage even if his game is crappy, And someone whose game is in better quality and even have more friends but no one of them have enough SP will be disadvantaged.
One vote by curie can make a person win and not all of people are eligible for curie. I think there should be more fair way of judging.
But that's just me, if I enter I won't make winning a priority.
I'm more concerned about how this contest will be viewed in the future, if the winning work wasn't as good as many other entries.
By the way, I'm think sure this contest can be approved in @utopian-io since its about open source games (maybe not) did you talk with them?
I did not talk with @utopian-io, but I think I will remove the winning mechanic, I've just asked @poet and @roundbeargames for their opinion. Tell me what do you think about this : Instead of picking a winner, we could write blogs on our favorite games. What do you think? Also, how would I proceed to talk with @utopian-io for this? Thanks!
i guess people can post things if they don't agree with what the best game is. if enough people feel the same way we should be able to see it in the voting results.
payouts or vote counts or filtered vote counts. they're all legit numbers we can relate to, so any one or (even a combination) is fine imo.
i'm guessing @loomy will announce the winners/personal favorites/reviews/etc at the end of each gamejam. as long as the numbers are there i'm probably gonna agree with his decision. in fact @loomy you can write about a winner AND all sorts of other things too.
as for @utopian-io, if you're following the rules you can post on both sides. i don't even know if you need any talking at all.
I will personally review each game (Oh and don't forget to support Linux systems! I also have Windows on another computer though). I will say what I liked about them and what is to improve. I will also pick my personal favorites for different categories (Fun, sound, art, innovation and overall). I encourage people to do so, but it is not mandatory.
This is Amazing idea, I'm looking forward to it now!!
I don't know a lot about utopian myself, but they're active if you contact them... And you only have to use their site (use your steemit username and POSTING password) and post announcement for this contest there (probably too late since it's already starting).
Oh, you probably have to make a github page for the contest and you might need to put some open source games in it (I suggest putting a copies of the entries and make that a requirement to enter, though I don't know if it's a good idea), But for a start just documentation is okay.
The worst thing that can happen if you do that is @utopian-io folks say to you that "the project isn't accepted." The best thing that can happen is you get a huge sponsors for the contest.
Thanks for the feedback, I will proceed normally with this first edition, but I will try to reach out if we decide that we want another game jam!