i think we'll do late submissions for 2 days, so the 27th. all you have to do is publish the game on itch and share the direct link here & then i can generate a late submission link for you!
i'm very impressed so far by everyone's submissions!! very excited to play through (this was all an elaborate scheme so i would have my vampire games to play 😈)
i did learn some new stuff with twine, blood4blood was a little different from what i usually do and learning how to do the speechboxes by chapelR was actually kinda fun. also being confident enough to use my own art for both of my submissions was surprising but now i feel like it's opened up new doors for me to add more art and get more creative with my projects in the future.
thank you everyone for participating and making this a fun first vampire jam 🖤
how is everyone doing? checking in to see if anyone wants/needs a possible 5 day extension (through the 25th rather than the 20th)? remember demos are fine & you’re welcome to update/edit your game after submissions. there’s no planned ranking period, this is all very casual, but i encourage everyone to check out everyone else’s submissions once the jam is over :-) let me know how you’re feeling!
no worries! and i'm sorry the email still isn't working for you :(
as for the bug, this isn't a bug! there's no option to go visit Lea in the tavern, only the earlier conversation with them. once they leave the hunter's room for the night you don't see them again until morning, in the next chapter. Merry is the only option to visit regardless of relationship or anything like that.
Inspired by our friends that ran Neo-Twiny Jam last year, we've decided to make a donation to the UNRWA matching the number of submissions we get for vampjamp (capping at $1,000). Currently, the UNRWA is one of the few organizations on the ground in Gaza providing aid to Palestinians, and as of this past week, the US as well as 8 other countries have suspended their funding, disregarding the over 2 million people that rely on the UNRWA's support. Donating to UNRWA will ensure that their life-saving aid can continue as they provide food, water, and medical relief to those displaced within Gaza.
hi! i'm not sure why, but it seems like that email was deactivated by yahoo (i assume from lack of use), but i've since reactivated it! you should be able to send in bug reports there again. otherwise you absolutely can comment any bugs you find here or on any other previous devlogs if you'd like, since i don't have comments turned on on the actual game page.
yes that fits the theme perfectly!!! for brevity and directness i chose to use queer in the jam title as an umbrella term rather than the full lgbt acronym; we absolutely are including trans experiences!!
hmm i'd say as long as it's still recognizable as a vampire (which i think still having to drink blood is recognizable enough) i'd say you're good. there are soooo many different interpretations of vampires, it's fine for people to add their own twists to them - we don't expect everyone to just be writing dracula-types!
i answered something similar a while back and just said that as long as it has a narrative focus with text and includes some kind of interaction for the player, whether that be direct choices, clicking links, or just the ability for the player to choose how to move around and interact with the story (anything from a parser to a bitsy), we'll accept it!
my work tends to just be literal interactive novels, but there are a lot of different ways to approach IF and none of us here are interested in trying to dictate or police the definition of interactive fiction, and at the end of the day this jam is just for fun! i look forward to all of the different takes both on the theme and on interactive fiction itself.
honestly a solid definition of Interactive Fiction is kinda tricky, in my opinion. even just going into the IF tag on itch.io you see a huge variation of what people consider to be IF. parsers are the "classic" form of IF but VNs and choose-your-own-adventures are the most popular now, and there are lots more that don't neatly fit in any category.
i'm pretty fast and loose with restrictions here, as long as your game is recognizably interactive fiction - has a narrative focus with text and includes some kind of interaction for the player, whether that be direct choices, clicking links, or just the ability for the player to choose how to move around and interact with the story (like in bitsy), we'll accept it! i'll add this to the overview as well.
i really liked this :-) as someone who grew up on the internet around fandom spaces (i've been on tumblr for 10+ yrs... lol) this felt really nostalgic. the very distinct pre-dashcon kind of posts here really took me back, hahaha.
i've never been directly involved in this kind of thing but again, i've been around long enough to have seen it happen a lot of times. it feels particularly poignant with recent events...
i feel like even beyond the fandom/tumblr aspect this is something a lot of people can relate to - just in general getting older and learning new things about the world & yourself and then revisiting old media you remember fondly only for it not to be the same, or even painful.
i read some of your postmortem and i did seem to miss a few pieces of the story - probably because i didn't reblog enough, or follow karla's lead about stella. i did get the luna ending though !! your reflections on your work was really interesting to read. the "this isn't your story" in particular really resonated with me.
i think my favorite part was actually the fanfic sections. choosing to keep writing or to stop, grappling with it and coming to end that may not be satisfying... it felt relatable & authentic. i also liked how you used the CS themes to differentiate the sections - i've actually never seen someone do that with CS, though that may just be due to the kind of CS games i've been reading.
a lot of the times when i read something that revolves around tumblr/"fandom culture" i don't enjoy it. i don't know, i think it just makes me embarrassed, hahaha. i think since i was //there// when it all happened, it makes me more critical when people try to recreate it, especially when it's clear they weren't //there//, if that makes sense. and in some work it feels very dated, referencing tumblr.
obviously the latter isn't really applicable here, since that's what the game revolves around. but i really did enjoy it. it felt authentic (how many times can i use that word lol) and the characters reminded me exactly of the people i used to know in the internet space, and still see every now and again. and it's refreshing to see fandom explored like this, from a marginalized perspective, and how it can be both an escape & safe haven as well as a space that actively harms the most vulnerable people - it's something i feel like is excluded a lot in fandom-focused media. it was all very bittersweet.
