OVER!

NEXT JAM - FJ 6

Hi!

If you participate in this jam, if you try to make a game, your plans will be ruined! 
And most likely more than once! 
It is not about us spicing things up, it just statistically happens a lot.
This Jam Page was supposed to be super cute and adorable and be up in Monday, but it now has a smiling nuclear explosion.

Plans B and C are good things!  Improvising in the last day can bring surprising results!
Also... that giant castle of fire breathing dragons trying to achieve thermonuclear synthesis on a limited princess-budget... Maybe a game can do without it (slashing down complexity is useful).

Yet, since it is a FediJam, here are OPTIONAL FediGoals to strive for

• Multiplayer: Play with friends.
• Game federation: Connect your multiplayer gameservers: Alice hosts, Bob hosts. Alice players can play with Bob's players.
• Federating with the Fediverse: Connect the game to the existing federated networks and utilize that in gameplay.
• Game Fediverse (GamiFediVerse?): A shiny city on the hill. If there are 1+ submissions federating early enough in the week, one can have a common protocol and connect different teams' games between each other! FPS connected into factory sims, RPGs connected to strategies, visual novels connected to... *out of air, gasps, excitedly. Nuclear physicist dragons applaud with wings, liking the idea.*

## COMMUNITY

We have a Matrix room to chat, teamup, and federate. It is on #fedijam:m.wfr.moe and there are ~30 awesome people.
Thanks Jan Jurzitza (https://github.com/WebFreak001) for hosting this small server!

The room is federated. It means, you join from any Matrix server ( List of Matrix clients).
If you join from browser by following the chat link, you can read the room as guest, but to write you will need to sign up. Signing up  just asks for nickname and password, no email or whatever.

You can also see (and post!) news under #fedijam Masto tag. (don't have a server? Find and join one! https://joinmastodon.org/ )

As a community, we are exploring novel ways of using federated spaces to make and/or spread games. Since everything is opensource and flexible, we can shape infrastructure and tools as we go, and this is fun in its' own right ^_^

## THEME

SELF-REFERENCE (proposed by @TheAndSys@koyu.space)

## RATING

• Fun 
  
• Creative Use of the Theme
  
• Originality

Rating stops at Dec 12 20:00 UTC. Rating is public (any Itch user can vote).

## RULES

• The game should be made during the jam.
• Using premade assets (like sounds, models and textures) you have a legal right to use is ok.
• Use free and opensource engines and libraries (see example list below!). This one is not enforced, but some people won't play your game if you don't.
• Publish your sourcecode and include a link on your game page.
• If your game has NSFW, mark it appropriately.
• For non-web (downloadable) games, Linux and Windows versions are required. Mac support is complicated, cannot be required, but encouraged.
• For bots (on Matrix/Mastodon/Pleroma/Misskey/Friendica/WHATEVER_FOSS), the client (if any) should work on Lin and Win and the bot should be up for the duration of rating somewhere OR be deployable from Lin and Win (TL;DR make sure people can play to rate one way or another)
• Have an unfinished/crappy game in the end? Submit! Would like to see it and you can collect the constructive feedback.
• Designing a game to fit in the rules of multiple jams at once is fun in it's own way. Ok if you do so.
• Have fun!

## NOTES & RECOMMENDATIONS

In the sources, try to provide instructions on how to compile (if needed) and run. You can add it after submission, it is a recommendation. 
After submission ends, I will make posts with source code links (or repost you if you do it yourself).

Cool libre engines and frameworks to use (non-exhaustive, propose your fav!):

• Godot (GDScript, C++ and others via addons), Matrix room
• Love2D (Lua)
• Renpy (Python)
• Raylib (C/C++, also a lot of clones/bindings including raylib-d in D)
• SDL2 (C/C++, and a ton of bindings for literally whatever)
• LibGDX  (Java)
• Macroquad (Rust)
• Nico (Nim lang, also see Nim Game Development Matrix Room)

Extra software:

• Blender (3D modeling)
• Krita (2D art, mainly for painting)
• Gimp (2D art, mainly for editing)
• Opentoonz (frame-by-frame [vector] animations. Quirky but can be beautiful)
• Audacity (some simpler sound editing)
• Goxel (Tip: voxelling your assets can be an order of magnitude faster than to use Blender)
• SuperCollider (sound synthesis)
• sfxr (quick sound effects, thx miKaぴょん)
• LMMS (advanced soundworks, thx miKaぴょん)

Some usable music is at https://open.audio/library/ce1fb6d4-fae6-464a-a34a-bdd46209ee82/.
Yes, Funkwhale is a federated music thing ^_^
Thanks https://mastodon.technology/@agateblue for both sharing this library and for Funkwhale itself, too!

## NOTES ON FEDERATION:

We are actively exploring different ways to federate and to use Fediverse. For federation, right now what is _known_to_work_ is plain game federation over Matrix. Since Matrix is really just a decentralised message storage, overhead is low and things are relatively simple.
You can use Godot, godot-python and python Matrix modules like matrix-nio. Obviously, if without Godot/other elaborate engine,  you can use directly any libs you want.

A prototype that uses godot + godot-matrix + matrix-nio: 
https://notabug.org/Houkime/triangle
I have also refurbished godot-matrix module for this jam, check it out (thx vurpo for upstreaming it!):
https://gitlab.com/vurpo/godot-matrix

There are also less explored avenues like having ActivityPub-based federation and Misskey-based gaming.
Please join our Matrix room if you want to federate /and/or advice on how to use fediverse (for your game and in general).

Lemmy discussion on the federated game ideas.

Also any help is welcome on writing the guides. 

## QUESTIONS?

Ask them in the community (here or on Matrix) or on Fediverse under #fedijam tag.
You can also dm or mention @houkimenator@mastodon.technology or leave a comment under the jam announcement