Procedural Generation Jam 2016

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Procedural Generation Jam 2016 community

From a proc gen virgin

A topic by Cam created Nov 03, 2016 Views: 965 Replies: 16

Viewing posts 1 to 9

Cam8 years ago (2 edits)

Hey guys

I wanted to say that whilst I won't be getting involved in this Game Jam (I'd love to but I'm way too green at programming in general) I really appreciate the effort put into setting up the resources. This one and MyFirstGameJam both had great resources which makes a huge difference to making it more accessible to Game Jam rookies like myself.

The one thing I'd love to be different and I suspect it's an itch.io thing over any specific Game Jam is to be notified of an upcoming Game Jam sooner. Currently I get the alerts ~2 days before they start, which for a beginner (programmer and game maker) that isn't a great deal of time to think about it and often ends up in me not doing something.

Anyways, thank you to the organisers and good luck to everyone!

Cam

Edit: I created a new thread to post ideas to help beginners like myself.

ILL OMENSHostSubmitted8 years ago

Hey b4ttlecat! We're sorry you didn't get to hear about us before. We do our best to promote but we need to get better at it! Where do you usually hear about jams? Good luck entering this year, and do let us know what you get up to! :)

Monsi8 years ago(+1)

I only found out about this jam because of the email which came through a few hours ago! It's the first I've heard of it

Cam8 years ago(+1)

Hey Cut Garnet Games,

Like Monsi, I only heard about it this morning via the automated email Itch sends out. It'd be nice if they could send them out perhaps a week before they start, or even two, so you can put it in your schedule and have a think about it!

I've tweeted at itch.io with the suggestion of having the emails sent out earlier, so perhaps if others do the same thing they might consider it.

ILL OMENSHostSubmitted8 years ago

itch.io doesn't normally email out about jams, so we were very lucky to get an email sent out. itch do their very best to help out - really it's my responsibility to make sure everyone knows about the jam! :)

Where do you usually find out about jams? Twitter? Reddit? I need to know where's good to post about them!

Monsi8 years ago

Email is good! Try the Game maker community, I've heard they like jam

ILL OMENSHostSubmitted8 years ago(+1)

Normally we wouldn't have access to itch.io's awesome mailing list, but we'll try contacting tool communities like Game Maker directly next year. Thanks, and I'm enjoying your car generator gifs! :)

Monsi8 years ago

Hey! Thanks! :333

Cam8 years ago

I'm not sure how Itch selects which emails I receive but I've received a few and they've all been of interest to me, so perhaps there's some sort of heuristic to it? I follow Itch on Twitter so maybe tweeting a link to the community early and tagging Itch will get a retweet?

Other than that, I'm honestly not sure how it'd get to me without Itch's input

ILL OMENSHostSubmitted8 years ago

Thanks for this feedback. itch invited us to use their mailing list, it doesn't happen normally, but we're glad they did. Maybe we'll ask nicely again next year! We do get RT'd by itch but I think people might not catch it if it gets buried. I guess the aim is just to keep tweeting, keep pushing, and grow a bit each year :)

bunnybreaker8 years ago(+1)

I also got the email a few hours ago and would appreciate it further in advance. My do something, haven't decided yet, but more notice would make me more likely to join in in future.

Monsi8 years ago

I agree, the emails should be sent out sooner! Although as it happens, the timing is perfect for me. Probably won't be next time though!

ashstampede8 years ago

Heard from itch.io email as well. I have decided to take part, really nervous about not having the time... 9hrs to think of an idea.

ILL OMENSHostSubmitted8 years ago(+1)

Don't stress! We're a very relaxed jam. If you like, you can spend a few days thinking, and just ask for a late submission link. :) Our times and dates are just for people to get together and share their process, but lots of people start early or finish late! Last year I did my entry on weekends only and submitted in December :)

Cam8 years ago (2 edits)

This is steering the thread off a little bit, but is still relevant to the title and you guys have got me inspire:

Could someone recommend some procgen ideas suitable for someone with basic programming experience?

I'd love to use this jam as an opportunity to learn something about procgen, but don't want to get bogged down in something out of my league and end up giving up. If you think it could develop into a useful thread for other beginners, I'll start a fresh one up

ILL OMENSHostSubmitted8 years ago

Let's start a thread, I think that's a great idea! Next year my aim is to improve the tutorials available to people and write some of our own. You might like this, a cave generator tutorial I wrote a while ago for another site:

https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/tutorials/gen...

There's also this post I wrote recently, for entering PROCJAM with no coding at all! All these projects give you an opportunity to think about generative systems without writing code yet:

http://www.procjam.com/2016/10/31/5-ways-to-enter-...

Hope some of that helps :)

Cam8 years ago

Thank you! I'd read that 5 Ways post but I think I get caught up in the definition of procgen and then confused by it all.

I made a new thread as you suggested. Hopefully it gets some traction and can be helpful to others. :)