itch.io

You yourself pointed out the problem with using the URL shortener when you suggested using the URL shortener and pointed out that the username is still visible in the final URL after the game loads. I don't want that. I would like a custom URL for the game page, a URL without the username. I realise now I was less than clear about that, but I also think I provided enough information for you to understand what I mean, and you dismissed that information because you don't understand why someone would want that.

I see from your questions that we're on completely different pages about the needs of this event. I'd just like to point out that I deliberately said "a Secret Santa-type thing" - it was meant to convey broad strokes, not imply every detail is the same. I'll explain more.

> Is this maybe some blind jam thing or similar?

I've done game jams but not blind game jams so maybe.

Imagine a game jam event where instead of making a game (just) for a theme, you specifically tried to make some other participant's dream game for that participant, and some other participant (whose identity you do not know) tried to make your dream game. You get (say) a month to do it, you post by the deadline and then the gifts are revealed. However, for the first week of the games being revealed, you don't know who made what. This serves several purposes: the mystery is fun (and the guessing game is fun, based on people's signature styles and little tells), and creator-blind enjoyment of the games helps form more objective opinions. While the game you made was for one specific person, you usually look at other people's gift games, too, because odds are high that other people made games you like even if they weren't made specifically for you. Then creator reveals happen and you go "Wow, my gift game was made by someone who's never made a platformer before, but it's so good!" or "I had no idea my gift game was made by a close friend". And then (optionally) you go and see what other things they made, if you really liked their work. That's why the work should both be public and (ideally) be on the same account as your other works.

The intent is not to distance oneself from one's work permanently and completely, it's only temporary. If I gift someone a game and they don't know it's me, but they open a page with the URL hekateras.itch.io/CoolGame then, well... takes some of the fun out of it. That's why I was thinking that a custom URL could be a workaround. If they load a game and the page URL is just itch.io/CoolGame, it's a lot less obvious. (There's also the "View All by [Username]", "Follow [Username]" overlays, which isn't ideal either, but asking for that to change would be more ambitious. I'd be fine with just a custom game URL.)

> Especially the gift part. That sounds like a key to a paid game.

As I hope I made clear now, it is a gift because the entire game itself was created as a gift. I do not have plans to monetise the game at any point.

> You can always make a sockpuppet throwaway account to upload a project and be anonymous and change the name of the account later.

That is my fallback options but has many downsides - for one thing, changing the account name will invalidate existing game links, right? Specifically because the account name is in the game URL. This is extremely undesirable. So even if I upload games to a sockpuppet account for this, I would still want a project URL that's not tied to the account name.

I do not think a custom webpage URL that doesn't have the creator in the URL itself would be "an abuse of itch.io's facilities".

> Anyways, there are all sorts of problems. It would be much easier to organize the "secret santa" event on some other platform and have the projects on Itch regularly after the event.

It is organised on some other platform. But that other platform does not allow html5 hosting, which is where itch comes in. I don't know where you got the impression that I was asking for all this to happen on itch; I was only providing context on why I wanted a game URL without the creator name in the first place. (Clearly unnecessary and counterproductive.)