›

Game Dev Challenges?

francoisvnfrancoisvn
edited in Online Competitions & Jams
So it's been a while since the last game dev challenge, and I fully understand that it takes a lot of time and admin to run something like this (not volunteering myself here), but are there plans for a new challenge in the near future?

I stumbled upon the facility of itch.io to run jams, and it seems like something we could strongly consider using. A ranked jam allows everyone that submitted an entry to judge the others (Ludum Dare style). Seems like this would mean that much of the admin revolving around the judging would disappear, which I gather might be the largest time-sink. Also, this would require little to no dev effort to setup, and it would be trivial for the top-rated entries to start selling their games (via itch.io of course).

More info: http://itch.io/developers/game-jams

What do you guys think?
Thanked by 5Bensonance creative630 jsgbailey Tuism Cheatsi

Comments

  • dislekciadislekcia
    That seems pretty neat, I'll investigate!
  • TuismTuism
    Great great find! :D Any chance to up the value of what we already do anyway is a good thing :)
  • RatelRatel
    Patiently looking forward to a new dev challenge :P, good to see tools being found to help the organisers
  • EvanGreenwoodEvanGreenwood
    edited
    This seems really cool.

    I think if everyone is encouraged to post threads and screenshots at makegames (in addition to posting at itch.io) we won't be losing anything if we use itch.io (because if the whole jam and comments are all on itch.io it might be a little like a non-makegames jam). (The off-siteness of itchio would be my only concern otherwise)
    Thanked by 1francoisvn
  • francoisvnfrancoisvn
    BlackShipsFilltheSky said:
    I think if everyone is encouraged to post threads and screenshots at makegames (in addition to posting at itch.io) we won't be losing anything if we use itch.io (because if the whole jam and comments are all on itch.io it might be a little like a non-makegames jam). (The off-siteness of itchio would be my only concern otherwise)
    100% agree. I may be wrong on this, but I don't think itch.io actually offers commenting facilities, it looks like a jam there is basically just a list of games with the facility to rate other games. I believe we could add a custom field for "makegames thread" and explain that the idea is to do normal prototyping and development on a makegames thread, and just post to the itch.io jam when you're done.

    A month-long competition is potentially a big investment for such a new system, but a small week-long pilot project could be a good idea to investigate the system and ease us into it. Any takers for something like this?
  • FengolFengol
    I see there's an API, so maybe we can show jam information from itchio on the MGSA website.
    Thanked by 7dammit Tuism skinklizzard charly EvanGreenwood raxter Ratel
  • Stray_TrainStray_Train
    Bump! @Fengol @Dislekcia any progress/need help? Challenges need to be a thing again!!
  • JoshJosh
    This looks pretty exciting. Ive used itch.io to upload games before, but never for game jams. Nothing ventured is nothing gained.
Sign In or Register to comment.