itch.io

Thank you all for your patience. 

If you submitted, you can scroll right down to the winners. The voting system of the Make-a-Mystery Jam permitted the submitters of games to vote, but I brought in a few judges, including Levin Menekse, the Oscar-nominated co-writer and producer of Please Hold,  and Eric T. Roth, the host of the Bundle Buddies podcast and director of the upcoming short film Coffee & Listerine, as well as other judges.

Without further ado, here is the official list of the winners of the 2022 Make-a-Mystery Jam, including Honorable Mentions for stories that scored very highly, but did not quite win. If your name appears on this list, please claim your prize here. (Itch.io has no built-in feature for messaging submitters, so I am giving people until the end of May to claim their prize!)

If you would like personal feedback on your submission from me, you can request it here.

EARLY BIRD GAMES

TIYANAK - lex lex
Murder in Camelot - mellilla
New Year, Dead You -- eeculp
The Voices of the Dead -- LifeTheUnchosenOne
What Have You Been Eating?! - VideoGameStoryTime

BEST MINIGAME

What Have You Been Eating?! - VideoGameStoryTime
&
Tiyanak - lex lex

BEST TEXT GAME

What Have You Been Eating?! - VideoGameStoryTime
&
Deadly Diamondback by B.E. Rogers

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Capybara Murder Mystery - huurrrple
&
Milla & Princess in Witchy Trigger Fingers - dranger

BEST OFFLINE GAME

Murder in Camelot

GRAND PRIZE

Murder in Camelot

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Tiyanak - lex lex
What Have You Been Eating?! - VideoGameStoryTime
Capybara Murder Mystery - huurrrple

Congratulations to the winners, but more importantly, congratulations to everyone who submitted a game or a story. It is not easy to make a mystery, and you should all be proud of your work.

They should have already been announced, but they will actually be announced on Monday! I had to bring in some special judges to break some ties, and the whole thing took longer than I thought it would. I'll be announcing the prizes here, in the Discord, and in the Detective Club newsletter!

Cool, man. Thanks for participating, and I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it more. Tweeting the games is standard practice, though, so you probably won’t find one that fits your criteria unless you start it yourself. Good luck, and I wish you the best.

He already said he would decline the prizes, though to be honest: garnering attention for your game is an indelible part of gamedev.

I’ve asked people to share their games, to tweet about it, there’s a hashtag system built into itch.io game jams.  It’s not against the rules to tweet about your games: it’s actively encouraged.

I would encourage you to invest your attention elsewhere, rather than explaining the point of my own jam to me. Because you won’t win me over by calling it absurd. Organize your own jam where you prohibit promoting your game. You can run it as you like and have a system you are proud of.

I’m glad to see people are so concerned with the fairness of this competition! It shows that people are excited and engaged, which means it was a success!

I have no problem with people sharing their games on social media or asking people to vote for them: sharing your work doesn’t work against the spirit of the competition, it is the spirit of the competition.

Regarding the allegations that they are sock puppets, though I cannot fathom why a cheater would have his alternates comment instead of just voting, regardless he has said he would refuse any prize if selected. Surely, this will suffice.

Thank you for your concerns, however. I hope that everyone has fun and enjoys this jam not as a ferocious competition but as a collaborative experience. It is not about winning but about working and growing together.

Sorry, everybody. My bad! I'll give the text prize to the text-based game with the highest reviews. So, no worries!

Hey! I wanted to create a thread for people who can draw but can't code or who can code but can't draw. If you make music, post! Find someone else to collaborate with, and you'll make something even better together.

Glad to be back! I hope you're able to participate again, and I'm glad the first one spurred you to make a great game! I opened it up but was having second thoughts about it until you said this. I think there was something appealing about making a text-only jam, but hopefully people will participate in an all-kinds jam, as well!

To me, the key feature of chess is the protection and attack of the king. That you lose the game when this single piece is trapped and cannot escape.

I really liked the repetitive nature. It felt like a fever dream, and it was really spooky. Thanks for submitting!

I really liked the beginning part with "I agree" and how you don't know what it is you're agreeing to. That's a great piece of (reverse?) dramatic irony. Thanks for submitting!

This was great! I liked the first twist of the perspective shift, and I liked the second twist of it continuing. The rating was great, too. You made it into a fun game rather than just a story. Thanks for submitting!

I really enjoyed this story! I like how it doubles back at the end. Nicely done, and thanks for submitting!

I kind of rushed this a bit to release it before the debate tomorrow. If you spot any bugs, please tweet me @gregkarber and I will fix them ASAP!

I'm not making any 3D games anytime soon, so I'll probably never get to use these, but they are absolutely beautiful and you should be very proud of them.

Yeah, sure! The more the merrier! (Or, perhaps, the more horrifying.)

What is your story format? You can find it in one of the drop-down menus. They all have different stylesheet settings, so you'll have to Google your story format, and remove sidebar.

Yeah, absolutely! It depends what story format you're using. You can either disable the forward-back buttons or do what I do, which is disable the entire left sidebar. It makes for a more immersive experience.

#sidebar { display:none; }

You add that to the stylesheet to do that.

There are a bunch of good Twine stylesheets available on the Internet, too. If you Google, I'm sure you'll find some that you like and can modify to fit your game!

You are correct! Total words, not unique ones.

If you make it in Twine, there's a "Word Count" feature.

I messed up the dates! It was supposed to start next Sunday night and go until the night before Halloween. But since I already started it, it's going to end this Sunday, the 25th, at midnight. That means you have 5 more days to make your game.

The word is MONSTER!

I dropped the ball on announcing it, but the special word is MONSTER.