yeah, I've been a big fan of early access themes. Gives me time to set aside...well time. Haha. Also gives me time to try and think of an idea. I wish this was more common among jams. Nothing like waiting 2 weeks, setting aside time to dev and getting a theme that is completely uninspiring to you. I'd rather know that ahead of time. Haha

Edit: fun drinking game, take a shot every time I said time. Haha. Okay, time to go. 

I know one game in particular that was submitted to this Jam which was made over 4 months ago and submitted to another Jam. I won't name it here, because the rules allowed this to happen, and I'm not about to stir up s**t in my own community. The problem is more about the rules of this jam.

Hear, hear. And I'm not lamenting joining this Jam in the first place. I knew the rules going in. I just hope that for future Jams, they tighten the rules, so that all the entrants can put in the same amount of time. I want nothing but success for YoYo Games and Opera, since their success means better tools for all of us.  But I think they can take some pointers from the organizers of the GMC Jams...

Just to be clear, you didn't do anything wrong, You did what the rules permitted.  I'm sure that YoYo will keep a tighter ruleset going forward to prevent the possibility of entries that get twice the time and polish than others.

Thank you! I think it is this FORTHRIGHT HONESTY that a lot of us newcomers seek. If someone doesn't explain this, then we think you've done everything in the jam time here, and it is INCREDIBLY discouraging for those who want to make a living off of games and are using the jam as place to build up their self-esteem. "If this person can make this whole game (concept to polished finish) in this amount of time; how will I ever make it in this industry?" Those kinds of dream-crushing thoughts come to mind. 

It's kind of like wanting to be a singer, and then seeing someone on X's Got Talent. Are you better than them? Of course not! The difference is night and day. Does that make you not want to be a singer? Not necessarily; however, it may cause you to think that it would be a waste of everyone's (yourself, the network's, audience, etc.) time if you tried to audition for X's Got Talent (~ enter a jam with voting).

Now, if someone says that they started this as their first game one year ago at their first game jam, then maybe, a newcomer will think, "WOW, can I actually BECOME this good after that amount of time too?" It's a much different aura than someone parroting "It's in the rules", because that doesn't imply any understanding of why people might be hurt or even caring that people are hurt. In EVERY SITUATION, even outside of gaming, a hurt person mainly wants to be understood and empathized with more than anything else.

Thank you for considering us all like humans that have hearts and NOT just a robot that must output "the best" to avoid being put out of service.

It happens. :) I think a lot of us are from the GMC forums and expected that level of Jam prep/rules. The GMC Jam, however, has taken YEARS to fine-tune into the well-structured jam experience it is today. Itch.io is a completely different format/environment so it's understandable to try something different! Overall I had a blast and hope that you all continue to try and branch out to the community like this more often! 

The cash prize will always make for a slightly bitter experience (imo) since there is a direct monetary reward and people will try to find any way to abuse the system if they can (thankfully that really didn't happen here, but in the future, who knows). I would love for you all to offer the complete suite more often as a reward though! 

Thank you all for the jam experience, and I hope to participate in another one soon!! :D

Hey, I just wanna say, KEEP DOING JAMS! They have so many benefits unrelated to winning (or even competing). While this particular jam might have a little bitterness associated with it, please don't take it to heart. Making games is hard and usually takes a long time and most devs start many more projects than they finish. This leads to a pretty big deficit in the skills associated with finishing a game in comparison to the skills associated with starting a game. Things like scoping, polishing, options menus, audio stuff, crafting a gameplay loop from start to finish, crunching (as in finding creative ways to finish the project when you're on a deadline), etc, etc. There's a lot of things that generally don't get touched on by most people for most of their games. Jams force you to hone those skills. The more jams you do, the more likely any bigger games you start work on will actually get finished (and finished well). They're worth it for that skill building alone, outside of any prizes or recognition.

(I'm not sure how many games you've made previously, so take all this with a grain of salt)

the Gamemaker Community does an unofficial game jam every 4 months. It's a much smaller, but very well organized jam called the GMC Jam, (and yes, it took a long time to get its formula working so well.) There is a clearly defined set of rules regarding how many persons per team allowed, rules regarding start and end dates, and plenty of time to play and rate all the games. (I don't see how anyone can play and rate 194 entries in 3 days.) The community is very supportive and you get informative criticism and encouragement. I recommend you hang around the Gamemaker Forums and check it out. We just finished the GMC41, so the next one won't be for a while, but you won't regret it.

I'm pretty sure that most here would consider that to be a reasonable amount of asset reuse/repurposing. Like I originally intended to use a menu system that I had made a while back for the title and pause menus in my entry (I ended up not using it because it was going to take too long to adapt it to the way I decided to draw GUI elements to better handle variable screen resolutions, but I digress). It's the small handful of games that made it into the jam that were originally completed months (even years) ago that only had a few adjustments made to better suit the theme of the jam during the jam period that seem to be getting people a little salty about the loose rules.

I've left another comment like this to someone else, but just want to say to you too, stick around and keep doing jams! While this jam might've left a touch of bitterness on your tongue, you sound like you worked hard, learnt a lot and came away satisfied with what you achieved. That's a 10/10 score for game jams! Most game devs start a lot more projects than they finish and this leaves them lacking skills from the "finishing" side of things. Because of the enforced time period, jams are a great vehicle to perfect those skills while also not being locked into a project for months (or years, as the case may be).

Things like scoping, UX on the completed gameplay loop, options menus, audio, etc, are all skills that at least some devs leave till last (and consequently don't get around to doing for many of their projects that they don't complete). Hone these skills with jams as often as you can! It'll make any bigger games you work on seem much more polished, as you won't be attempting those "left till last" things for the 1st or 2nd time (or however many completed games you've made), but instead the 20th or 30th (or however many jams you've done).

This stuff alone is worth entering jams for, completely ignoring and prizes, recognition, or even people playing your game. So it's a good idea to keep doing jams, even if the occasional one doesn't go quite as you expected =)

Definitely check out the GMC Forums Jam when the next one comes up! It is every 4 months (the most recent one just finished up). The GMC Jam has been around for a LONG time and thus has a well-defined ruleset and guidelines. Even though this particular jam might have left you slightly jaded, every jam you do will help you develop your skills as a story writer! The best part about jams is that you get the feedback from members also participating, and that in-and-of-itself is a MASSIVE reward, as there are very few mediums where you can actually get constructive, thought-out, and passionate critique en masse! I hope to see you around soon! YOYO tried to do something different and it flopped a bit, it happens to the best of us. Just like us game devs, they will learn from the experience and adapt accordingly. :)

There was no rule in this jam limiting the dev time of submissions to the duration of the jam. As a result, a small handful of the submissions were pulled from some peoples' backlogs of older, completed games. Sometimes with a few adjustments to better fit the theme, sometimes a straight repost. Again, there was nothing against the rules in doing that, but some people feel that repurposing a previously completed project like that goes against the spirit of a game jam, regardless of the rules.

Personally, even if there was a rule limiting dev time to the duration of the jam, I would not consider someone who had been messing around with learning how to make some mechanic/system/etc. and then applying what they've learned to put together a jam entry to be in violation of that. Otherwise, how far are we going to take that logic? Does the fact that I went into this jam already having a fair amount of experience developing in GameMaker give me an unfair advantage over someone who's trying it out for the first time?

Hey Mozarelli, don't feel bad. Even as someone myself who complained about it, I'm not angry or disappointed in the people who submitted previously made games. Everyone who submitted (except for that one person who submitted an unreal project, lol) did so totally within the bounds of the rules. Submitting older projects was within the rules and people who did so are well within their rights and shouldn't feel bad. It's more of a criticism/suggestion for the ruleset itself.