Just like in years past (2022, 2021) here's my post covering my thoughts about the execution of the jam, results, mistakes, and more. This is also a helpful record for us to review if/when Harold Jam gets planned for next year.
Participants: 62
(Last year: 51)
Entries at end of submission period: 36
(Last year - 35)
Entries by end of judgment: 33
(Last year - 35)
By the end of the jam there were:
- 32 valid entries
- 4 disqualifications
- 2 honorary forum post entries
- Infinity Beatdown (but with Lucius) was disqualified for simply copying a previous game (this was a joke on my part). - Downfall of Heroes by Izzy didn’t make the cutoff, so it was allowed to join to get feedback, but disqualified before ratings period ended - Harold and the Proto Dog Demo thing was disqualified for not fulfilling the required elements - Haroldian Civilization was disqualified because it received votes from accounts that were participating in voting manipulation.
2 bonus entries posted in the message board. One was a late entry (Legends of Haroldia by Mopsikus) and one was a MoRPG with limited server up-time (Hrld Friendzy by Lochraleon).
Votes: 510
(Last year - 683)
Initially this was 725, but itch.io automatically removed 25 votes, and a review of the votes by itch.io led to 190 more votes being removed.
Average ratings per game: 16.5
(Last year - 19.5)
Distribution: Max 29, Min 12
(Last year - Max 24, Min 15)
Return participants: 17
(Last year: 20)
New participants: 10
(Last year: 11)
Dual Submissions: 6
(Last year: 4)
Ratings by submitters:
447
Outside ratings: 63
Extra special thanks to super raters! These special folks played and rated all the games.
Berry
Sawyer
Aesica
Gensun
Successes:
Perhaps feedback will indicate differently, but the jam rules, beginning and end, ratings degrees, and general execution seemed to go on without any real problems. There was also no lingering TBA, no issues with submissions being allowed after they were supposed to, so we seemed to have fixed past issues.
10 new people made up more than a third of jam participants! It’s nice to continue getting new developers submitting. It often feels like a totally insular, cultish server activity, so getting some penetration and interest from the wider community, or from members of the server who hadn’t taken the plunge before was a big positive.
This year we encouraged participants to emphasize characters other than Harold, which I consider a welcome and fruitful change. Being the fourth Harold Jam, I think it may be time to open things up to more variety, while maintaining the classic feel of jam, and I think that could be possible moving forward.
Mistakes:
Overall, I think there’s always so much room for more promotions. My general lack of time and focus in other areas made it hard to dedicate the hours necessary to squeezing out those handful of participants or raters.
Next issue is that I announced my sabbatical, without sharing any date, so it seemed like I was departing the community immediately. Got some farewells and nice comments, and now months after some final goodbyes, I awkwardly remain.
I did fully intend to have the submission time extend through the entirety of March, but I forgot that March 31st at midnight leaves 23 hours and 59 minutes in the month. Luckily I don’t think this messed up too many people aside from myself.
I can’t end this section without mentioning the problems with the ratings. Results took a minute to post and 25 ratings were removed from itch.io’s algorithm. A surprise entry took 1st place in 5 out of 6 areas, and few games had a huge amount of 1 star ratings. We suspected and confirmed that voting manipulation occurred, and itch.io support removed another 190 votes. All in all, it took more than two weeks for us to get our final results, which made celebrating the winners less satisfying.
I do want to thank everyone for their patience and maturity. There was not mudslinging or venomous speculation. There was acceptance a lot of acceptance and understanding, and the voting manipulation was totally thwarted, and unfairly boosted submission removed. In my view this was a fair proportionate response, and I am so grateful to everyone for keeping the pitchforks and torches to themselves. I admit my pitchfork was sharpened and my torch was blazing, but everyone else being magnanimous helped me be more mature as well.
Cheating in public voting jams is always a risk, but we will be wise to consider this possibility going forward and see if there are preventative steps to take going forward.
I'm always astounded by the time and energy put into this, and these jams have been the most fun I've had in the community. They remind me why I've stuck around for so long, and why I know I'll be back. Whatever thoughts, comments, complaints, suggestions you all have, please drop them in our feedback form below and help the next Harold Jam be as awesome as possible.