Post by Zeno G. in Confused about source upload? I've got the answers!

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Hi there. Thanks for the info and the quick GitHub tutorial. I'm sure it will help allot of people in using git. Good job 👍🙂 (for total beginners in using GitHub I would recommend GitHub Desktop. A few clicks and the repo is on GitHub)

Just as a side note, I don't really think though that you need to post the source on your game page on itch for everyone to download.

When you submit your Game, it asks for your source, so my guess is that you just enter the link to your source there (GitHub, Dropbox, Google Drive etc), and the organizers of the jam will just access it from there. It's not really publicly available.

I find it a little counterproductive to share a code for a possibly future commercial game and everyone can access it and use it. It's not my case cause my game entry is in best case scenario a "meh" game or "w*f is this s**t?" game 😅, but there are possibly great entries with the possibility of turning them in commercial games.

WayfarerGames2 years ago(+1)

That will still appear on the jam entry page! From talking to the hosts, it seems like the whole point of the source upload is that other people can learn from you and see how you've done things.

A game made during a jam should contain exactly 0 lines of production-ready code 😉 making a game in 10 days means you're going to be doing a lot of things very quickly. If you want to turn your jam game into a commercial project, start from scratch. You'll have a better idea of the requirements for the systems you are designing, and you'll make a much better game!

That said, even if you DO reuse code - who cares? What does it matter to you if someone wants to do the same thing in the same way? You're not going to making the exact same game, people work completely differently and have different ideas about what is fun. And even if they do completely steal your jam code, you're not making any money from the jam game anyway - you don't have to continue to update the repository!

People should stop being so defensive about their code, seriously 😂

Zeno G.2 years ago

I personally am not protective about my code therefore it's o a public repo on GitHub, as requested for the entry, but there are a lot of people showing distrust in sharing their code. (can't really see why because it's not like someone would publish the code for the new GTA 6, but hey, it's their code and have the right to ask 😉)

My idea was that you don't have to add your source code to the store as a zip file in your itch game page, you can share the link to your repo or a public Google drive folder etc. when you submit your game for the jam. 🙂

FrogNot2 years ago

I have no problem sharing my code. It's not that great anyway. I learned and used bits of code from many tutorials. I made mine public domain for that reason. I doubt anyone is going to use it. I've seen some games that a very good and checked out some of the code. Yes, I found some that I would like to reuse. I doubt that I will be producing a "real" game, but just maybe I will put one on itch.io. I found out how easy that part is.

WayfarerGames2 years ago

This is how your submission's jam page looks - as you can see, the source is still public:

Zeno G.2 years ago

Hi again, yes, this is my submission page where you can find the link to the source page, but the game page does not contain the source code. 🙂

I am new to itch, but I think there might be some difference between the game page and the submission page.

WayfarerGames2 years ago

yep that's right, they are two different pages - there should be a button on the right that says something like "submission to gamedev.tv jam" - that's the one most people who find your game through the jam will see ☺️

Sorry - I assumed you were one of the people who get protective over their ideas and code, and that irritates me 😉

Zeno G.2 years ago

No problem man.

I mean there is literally tons of free available code on the web, it's not like in the '90 or early 2000 where you had to read books, tests things out and when you finally got the result you hoped for you call it yours and yours only. With all the content available nowadays, you could build a game from ground up almost only by copying and pasting code from the web.

I find that most of the people confuse copyrighting a software/game with licensing. I find that these two are completely different cause copyrighting a software or in this case a game is more complicated as some might think, and implies a lot of money and even notary and attorneys I think, as licensing the source code with maybe Apache 2 License (as I did on GitHub) gives you some reassurance that someone will thank you if they find your code helped them in creating their product. (it's not my case that someone will find it useful 😅, but hey, maybe somewhere, someone will give me a thumbs up 👍 )

Nowadays I find that giving credit to someone for something is more important for the longer run. 😉

Take care.

heckert2 years ago

The Link to the source-code is actually in the open on the submissions page for your entry.

If it wasn't accessible for other participants, it would miss the main point behind it: Allow others to learn from what you've made.

Zeno G.2 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

I know, this is what we (me and WayfarerGames) talked in this post 🙂.

There is a difference between the Game Page and the Submission page 😉

My idea was that you can submit your source link in the Submission form, you don't need to add it to your game page.