Post by Sawyer Friend in Required Elements FAQ!

Harold Jam 2023: Ascent of the Allies » Community

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I can actually answer most of these!

1. A figurative ascent is totally okay as long as the literal ascent is somewhere in the game at some point. You can put the ascent at the very end of your game if you want, and have multiple ascents, figurative ascents, or anything in between. The main important thing is that the literal ascent is present in all playthroughs of the game (so it can't be optional or postgame content)

2. We can submit as many entries as we'd like!

3. I'll let Human answer that one but from what I recall, there's no lower limit to playtime (5 minutes is a suggestion because it's difficult to have anything substantial under that amount)

4. I'll also leave this one to Human's discretion but I think as long as the player will see this ascent during their playthrough (which means including during or after the credits), it should be okay

5. The player does not need to be controllable during the ascent, but I think 'the player must go there' means that all players must see the ascent in some form.

If I got any of these wrong, Human can correct me!

kiyasu1 year ago

Ooh, okay, thanks for answering. Looking forward to seeing if Human has anything else to add, clarify, and/or correct. I have more:

6. Can the entire "game" be only cut scenes like some kind of "movie," "storybook presentation," and/or "visual novel"? (e.g., a "visual novel" made in RPG Maker, except the player doesn't do anything besides pressing the Confirm button to move the writing forward; the player doesn't select anything besides "New Game" or "Start Game" at the title screen.) Just to "tell a story."

7. Also possibly related to #6, but can the entire "game" be one video file the player sees after they choose "New Game"? (After selecting "New Game," the game loads a video file for the "player" to watch.)

Human1 year ago

I agree with Sawyer's answers for all of the above!

6- Yes! Just don't expect great "Gameplay" scores. Sounds like a good way to focus on story/graphics!

7. Wow! This is really pushing the limits of a "game" jam. I'd say as long as there is something controllable, it can count as a game, though a video file you hit "new game" to watch is probably the absolute bare minimum possible.

kiyasu1 year ago

OK, thanks! One more thing:

8. About "the player must go there" and how Sawyer said the "all players must see the ascent in some form" part, does it mean that the characters who set foot on the ascent doesn't have to be characters that the player can control? (e.g., a flashback cut scene for a village's situation 5,000 years ago and way before any of the characters ever existed, or even the boss and villains setting foot on the ascent). Or even: maybe the ascent doesn't have any characters of NPCs on there, but somehow the player gets a "view" of it without being there (e.g., a character falls asleep and dreams of a mysterious ascent-like place that he knows nothing about, and nobody is in the dream; not even himself... the entire dream "goes up" the ascent even though nobody is there.)

Human1 year ago

It can be kind of ambiguous what the "player" is in these, but I can stress that the location has to be a physical location, so it can't be a dream or a memory. However, if the "player" in the form of the 3rd person viewer of events goes back in time to an ascent, but none of the protagonists or antagonists are there or even existed, that could still count as fulfilling the requirement.

kiyasu1 year ago

Oh wow, this is interesting because I thought if someone dreams of a physical location, that would count as a physical location (including if the physical location is an illusion created by the mind; like the player will only see physical land, but in reality it has been nothingness all along, but the player will not know that until later in the end). I guess if someone astral travels to the "spirit realm" above the physical ascent (e.g. think Rave Heart), but doesn't actually set foot on there, then maybe it can still work?

Hopefully these questions I asked will help some people get some ideas as well, including those who didn't think they could "make it in time" with a "proper" jam entry because they just discovered it (like me)!

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