The ninth GoedWare Game Jam is over. Everyone who was able to make a game within the 10-day deadline submitted it. We had 30+ entries, nice! We are hoping to get even a few more at the 10th GoedWare Game Jam in January 2024! 

We really enjoyed organizing this event and we will do so again in the future. So watch out for the tenth GoedWare Game Jam ()! We hope you will join us again

First, thanks to everyone for participating and forwarding your games! Without you there would be no Game Jam. We hope you had fun creating, testing and playing your games. I know we did. 

And now for the results the winners in the various categories are listed below:

#Overall winner

The overall winner of the ninth GoedWare Game Jam is: Dual Dimensions by HansLiu111. Congratulations!

#Runner-up

The runner-up  is: Defying Gravity by OriginalStone8.

#Gameplay

The winner in what can be called the most important individual category for a game is:  Dual Dimensions by HansLiu111.

#Graphics

We all love eye candy and the winner in this category was Dead Weight by ephemerald

#Audio

Our ears loved this one: Defying Gravity by OriginalStone8.

#Theme

This game represented the theme "BROKEN PHYSICS" the best:  Dual Dimensions by HansLiu111.

#Devlog

Winner is Temporal Tail: A corg's journey through time. by PowerfulBacon. We all join Game Jams to learn to make even better games that give the player a lot of fun and emotions playing it. This Jam we learned the most of several entrees.  These devlogs give us a nice sneak peek into their development process. Go and read it and learn😊!

#Jury ranking

#1 

Defying Gravity by OriginalStone8.

#2

Nooton by KimsGames.

#3

Broken Knifing by Sebthebeast90. And Flux: Gravity Unleashed by Shuntoon.

#Graphics

Dead Weight by ephemerald

#Audio

Dead Weight by ephemerald

#Gameplay

Nooton by KimsGames.

#WOW

Dr. Physics by SoftDev.

#Easter Egg Challenge

The winner are Robob saves the game! by dragonplant2006 & GravRun by LergondGames.

This is the 9th Game Jam organized by GoedWare ( LinkedIn | Website | Discord ).  Our goal is to let you practice coding, create and finish a game in around 10 days and also learn from the experience, expand your skills and above all have fun and enjoy making your own game and playing other participants' games.

*(Link to previous Jams #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 )

It is always challenging to find an engaging theme. It should provide a solid foundation for game ideas while remaining versatile enough to accommodate diverse concepts. We believe we've discovered that  with our theme: 

"BROKEN PHYSICS"

Some inspiration: the theme BROKEN PHYSICS invites you to challenge the fundamental laws we take for granted. Imagine a world where gravity occasionally takes a break, where time doesn't always move forward, or where light bends in unpredictable ways. Perhaps you'll design a game where players navigate a landscape riddled with pockets of altered relativity or where momentum and inertia play unpredictable tricks.

Consider crafting an intricate puzzle game that hinges on manipulating quantum quirks or an adventure that takes players through dimensional rifts, challenging their understanding of the universe's rules. Maybe a strategy game where planning ahead becomes a mind-bending task as physics behaves differently each turn, or an action-packed platformer where traditional movement mechanics are thrown out the window in favor of something delightfully unpredictable.

Additional avenues to explore could be a narrative-driven experience highlighting the challenges and wonders of a society adapting to these broken physics, a sandbox game allowing players to reshape the world by tweaking its physical laws, or even an educational game that humorously teaches real physics by contrasting it with its "broken" counterpart.

The possibilities are as limitless as the universe itself😊!

We're eager to see how your inventiveness and expertise can turn these suggestions into enthralling games that defy not just expectations but reality itself... Embrace the chaos and think unconventionally 🤔😊🤪!

You can always discuss, brainstorm and exchange ideas with your fellow participants @ our Discord Server.

Good luck to you all and have fun at this Game Jam!!

PS: here you can find a mindmap that could be of help. Feel free to use it as a starting point, reference, or simply for inspiration as you work on your game concepts. It's just to help get your creative juices flowing.

• Anyone, regardless of experience, is welcome to participate!
• An itch.io account to be able to join the jam and submit your entry.
• You can use any engine or framework you like! For example: Unity, Godot, Unreal, Gamemaker etc. You can even make your own if you want. But some of our prizes are Assets for the Unity Engine (you can choose a gift card instead).
• You will have to create a Devlog where you give some insights in your game development progress or inform the other participants how you solved a specific game problem or implemented a game mechanic. In this way we all learn something from each other's experiences.
  • This can be a blog, a video, your daily schedule of the jam, some text or a short story telling us how you made the game, what difficulties you had during the jam and how you solved them. Or an explanation of some of your key game mechanics. How did you come up with them or how did you implement them. Or what you think are important learning milestones for us. It does not have to be much. Every information you can share will be helpful for us to learn to make better games that are more fun for the players.
  •  You can easily add your log to your Itch.io Game Project page or provide a link in the submission where we can read your log.
• You can not edit your submission after the deadline! So be wise and submit your game a few hours before the deadline to be able to tackle any last minute issues.
• Teams are allowed, but we recommend keeping the teams up to 4 members, after that it becomes hard to manage a team in 8 days for a game. (Prizes are only for the whole team, not the individual members)
• If you have the time and can manage it, multiple entries for the Game Jam are allowed.
• Music must be royalty / copyright free and properly credited. 
• You can use fonts from the internet, as long as you have the correct license for it.
• You can use assets you own. For example assets from the Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace.
• Please only use assets you have permission to use, and avoid infringing upon any copyright or trademark.
• No NSFW games.  Games must not contain nudity, or hateful language or visuals.
• Participants who try to manipulate voting will be removed.

All entries will be judged by other participants of the jam, so that includes you (hopefully)!

The categories the games are rated in are:

• Gameplay / User Experience (UX): Basically, how much fun it is to play the game.
• Art Style / Visuals: How cool, beautiful, or eye-catching the game looks.
• Audio / Sound Design: How good the music and sound effects are, and if they make the game feel even better. Do they enhance the theme.
  
• WOW-Factor:  That special something that blows you away or makes the game stick in your mind.
• Theme: Does the game fit into the theme.
• Devlog: How insightful and educational was the log of the developer(s). 

There will also be a Judge/Jury Ranking: a rating by our own panel of judges. They will make a separate ranking from the participating games based on their own tastes, preferences and gaming enjoyment as to who will receive a prize. They will take into account any double or unfair voting in the normal rating. To balance uneven or unfair votes.

The theme will be announced when the jam starts.

After the jam ends, a 1 week rating period starts, in which people can play and rate all of the submitted games.

Don't forget to leave feedback on any game you rate! It's more helpful than just a number, and it helps them find your game 😊.

Note: You need at least 10 ratings to be considered for winning in any of the categories. So make sure you play a lot of games so your game will have a higher chance of getting rated!

*The voting is open, but we reserve the right to take any submissions down that are clearly vote brigaded.

** The number of needed ratings to be considered a winning will be adjusted according to the number of participants.

Yes, this Game Jam will have prizes for the winners 😊. These prizes are made available by our sponsor and organizer GoedWare.

Let's start by saying that if you press that join button and upload a game before the deadline, you are already a winner!  Having fun while creating and finishing your game project is an achievement in itself!  That experience is more valuable than money, but we do have some real prizes for the winners also 😉.

We have a public vote with prizes and we also have a jury ranking (see these prizes under the public vote) with prizes.

#Overall winner

The overall winner will receive a $150 gift card!* + Eternal Glory of winning the Game Jam😁! 
EXTRA PRIZE FOR THE OVERALL WINNER:  Introducing our extra sponsor, PixelVibe by Rosebud AI! 

PixelVibe brings AI-generated game assets to game development, helping you build the game you want faster. During this game jam, all participants get free access to PixelVibe to generate 2D assets, 360° skyboxes, and more. As a bonus, the 1st place winner will receive a game of their choice on itch.io, courtesy of Rosebud AI. Give PixelVibe a try at beta.pixelvibe.com and connect with them on Twitter and Discord to join a community of like-minded devs and artists making game assets. Use beta.pixelvibe.com with a promo code "GoedWare" to get unlimited Pro subscription for the duration of the jam.

* Participants will receive an Amazon gift card for the Amazon website that applies to their country. 

** Bundles may have expired when the game jam starts, but the gift codes will still be valid. You can still get the bundle and its content with the gift code. 

*** For the record for Brazilians. Unfortunately, no gift cards are possible for amazon.com.br and we will give out gift cards for amazon.com online shop.

#Runner-up 

The runner-up will get a $50 gift card.

#Gameplay / UX

The winner in this category will receive a $60 gift card.

#Art Style / Visuals

The winner in this category will receive a $50 gift card.

#Audio / Sound Design

The winner in this category will receive a $50 gift card.

#WOW-Factor

The winner in this category will receive a $60 gift card.

#Theme

The winner in this category will receive a $75 gift card.

#Devlog

The most insightful, informative & educational Devlog will receive a $125 gift card. 
* The Devlog category will be manually ranked by the Jury and not the participants. It is NOT a required part of the Jam if you want a chance to win overall prizes.

#Jury ranking

#1:  The winner will get a $175 gift card!!

#2:  The runner-up will get a $50 gift card.

#3:  Third place will get a $25 gift card.

#Gameplay:   The winner in this category will receive a $25 gift card.

#Graphics:   The winner in this category will receive a $25  gift card.

#WOW:  The winner in this category will receive a $25 gift card.

#Audio:  The winner in this category will receive a $25  gift card.

*Jury ranking prizes will stack with the public prizes.

# Easter Egg Challenge

 

During our 5th Anniversary Edition we held this challenge for the first time and we thought it would be fun to keep this extra prize during this new Game Jam edition:

We will give away an extra fun prize  on top of the prizes that are already there for the cutest, smartest, funniest, cleverest, etc. Easter Egg in your games.  It may be a joke, a super power-up, a short-cut or whatever. But most of all, let it fit the game and give the user a sense of awe.

We will add a separate spoiler channel in Discord and a thread in the community where people can tell about their found Easter eggs and what they thought of them. The judges will then determine the winner based on all the experiences.

While submitting your game, there will be a separate field where you can fill in how people can find your Easter egg. After the Jam we will share this info with everyone so everyone can find and enjoy the Easter eggs in all your games.

PRIZE: That remains a surprise, but we suspect you'll definitely appreciate it 😁!

Discord

All the winners get a fancy Discord server role 😁.

* Because the organizers already know the theme in advance, we will merely be participators. If one of us gets voted to be winner of a category or the overall winner, prizes will be awarded to the next person instead.

** The prizes may change a little bit before the Game Jam starts, but will mostly contain the content as it is shown now. Once the Game Jam has started the prizes will not change anymore!

In my experience, here is what you need to do if you want to win one of the top spots:

• Make your game easy to understand for new players. This is a super common trap a lot of game jam games fall into.  Start thinking about your tutorial or how you want to teach your mechanics right from the beginning!
• Usually it's a good idea to make your game not too hard to win. People spend roughly five to fifteen minutes on each game. In most cases they won't have enough time to reach a super high level of mastery. Keep that in mind when balancing the difficulty.
• Quality over quantity. Keep your game super simple! This is important in this jam but every bit of extra polish can really make your game stand out in a short jam like this.
• Take risk. The winning games are usually those who were brave enough to try something completely new and crazy (while also following the other three tips above). 

Obviously there are exceptions to all rules but still, I hope it helps. 😊

Some resources to help you started.

• Blender, for 3D  models and can also do 2D and/or sculpting: https://www.blender.org
• Freesound.org: https://freesound.org | License: https://freesound.org/help/faq/#wait-this-is-all-free
• 8bit Sound Generator: https://www.bfxr.net/ | License: You have full rights to all sounds made with bfxr, and are free to use them for any purposes, commercial or otherwise.
• Kenny Assets: https://kenney.nl/assets | License: CC0 1.0 Universal
• Color Scheme Generator: http://colormind.io/
• Color Scheme Designer: https://paletton.com/
• Open Game Art: https://opengameart.org | License: https://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-how-to-credit
• Piskel,  a free online editor for animated sprites & pixel art:  https://www.piskelapp.com/
• Mixamo, animations: https://www.mixamo.com/
• Tree It, free tree creation tool: http://www.evolved-software.com/treeit/treeit 
• WOWIE Asset Pack (by Jonas Tyroller): https://jonas-tyroller.itch.io/wowie-pack
• LabChirp, a powerful and versatile sound effect generator: https://labbed.itch.io/labchirp
• Kay Lousberg free Game Assets: https://kaylousberg.com/game-assets
• ChipTone, a free tool for generating sound effect: https://sfbgames.itch.io/chiptone | License: All sounds created using ChipTone are free to use for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, under the CC0 licence. 
• Beepbox, BeepBox is an online tool for sketching and sharing instrumental music: https://www.beepbox.co
• Material maker, for procedural materials: https://rodzilla.itch.io/material-maker
• Audacity for editing audio: https://www.audacityteam.org
• Game idea generator, for if you're completely stuck on an idea: http://ygd.bafta.org/resources/game-idea-generator
• Ship Mixer, create ships that perfectly fit the shmup style:  https://kenney.itch.io/ship-mixer (License see link)
• Creature Mixer, create characters that perfectly fit the platformer style:  https://kenney.itch.io/creature-mixer (License see link)

Question: What is the theme? 
Answer: The theme will be announced when the jam begins.

Question: Does my game have to be a certain format?
Answer: No, but remember that not all users have Windows/Mac/Linux devices. Browser based is a good idea to get as many people playing your game as possible and try to make at least a Windows version.

Question: What assets can I use? 
Answer: The vast majority of code must be written during the jam, but you can use whatever art and audio assets you have the legal right to use.

Question: Can I submit a game that I already started on?  
Answer: No, it is required that all participants make the entirety of the game in the time provided.

Question: Is there a Discord I can join? 
Answer: Yes, click here to join.

• Anything you make during the GoedWare Game Jam is your property. GoedWare claims no rights or ownership of your game. 
  
•  Any game submitted to the GoedWare  Game Jam may show up in a GoedWare YouTube video, Social Media or website without your express permission.