Yes, John has been an Adventuron developer for longer than anyone else barring myself.
Anyway - a brief history of "Guarded by Trolls".
I had the idea for the cave jam at the end of July, after recording the original Cave of Magic video and planning to release the source anyway. I thought it would be fun rather than just releasing the source to make it the basis of a jam because the biggest problem with any new project is getting started. I thought having working source would make it faster to develop something, even something small.
I spoke to John about it as I knew he was very active recently, and literally 2 days later, he had made "Guarded by Trolls". He made it so fast, I hadn't yet had time to create the boiler plate and rules for the jam yet and so I asked John to hold back releasing it until the jam started and he agreed (I didn't see an ethical problem as it's a public vote and there are no prizes for placement anyway).
At the same time as all this, I was talking to Horsenburger about a pre-halloween jam, seeing if he might like to participate as an author - as well as an artist. I had previously commissioned the spooky adventure art from him last winter, then commissioned more art for Hamburabi, which was basically an experiment in using Adventuron for non text adventure games. He's an absolute legend in teletext art.
Anyway - Steve misunderstood the conversations and decided to support adventuron by announcing his own (twitter only) competition, with the prize being him illustrating the winner of his competition for free (what is now the Play Expo game) - extraordinarily generous.
Given the landscape had changed, I decided to hold back on the cavejam until Horsenburger's competition was over.
At the same time as all this, John, waking up far earlier than I do, and upon seeing Horsenburger's announcement on Twitter, assumed it was the cavejam he had been waiting for and released "Guarded by Trolls" all on its lonesome.
It's a real shame John wasn't (officially) in this jam, but let's hope he joins the next.