itch.io

Hey there!  At present, if what is being sent to the text box isn't defined in the dictionary, then it won't play a voice file. The language setting isn't factored in at all, only what is being sent to display. In your case, it's a bit of a double edged sword, as you could use that to implement dubbed lines if you also had different voice actors for different languages, but as you correctly guessed, you would need to define keys for each language.

That said, it's a feature I could add to the list once the next goal is hit.

Here's a thread for discussing ideas and plans for changes to the next edition of the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam competition!

Should be all fixed up now.  The new version is up as of right now.  You only need to update your MVNSB.rpy file.

I'm pretty sure I found the issue.  If I'm right, I'll get an update out ideally sometime this weekend.   Sorry about that, and thanks for filling me in!

10/26/24 Edit: This is fixed! 

- Extends should now be (properly) supported

- Extend statements will be evaluated for their new content, allowing you to trigger different barks off of subsequent extends.

I'll take a peek at it and see if I can reproduce it.  Is it only with extends and side images together?

Hey there.  Next year, I can include a questionnaire to let folks self declare their genres if anyone wants to help me build a list of them, and then it can be made into a sorting option into the submissions page. 

Sadly I can't fix it this year, but this is a great idea.

Sorry, as we can't judge submissions changed after the end of the jam, we won't be able to requalify your entry.  

This is correct--

The 'Itch.IO Favorite' category is a prizeless award that we offer to whoever manages to receive the most ratings period.  It's sort of an incentive to be proactive about sharing your content with folks.

The rankings with prizes are all determined by the internal panel of judges, and I think if the game has no voice acting at all I think most developers will rightly ignore the category when they see their own scores.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there.  To qualify for judging you need a downloadable Windows build.  Please try to upload one ASAP and make it visible as part of your submission.

Hey there, to qualify for judging you need to have a windows build associated with the entry.  Please try to add one ASAP.

Hey there!  I'm really excited to hear that you found about VN development through our jam.  It's one of our goals to turn people on to VN development through it, so it's great to know it's working for someone!

The other thing I wanted to mention is that Spooktober is just one of many annual events our community runs directly, and we support a number of others indirectly as well, so if you're excited for more and don't want to wait a full year, there's always more ahead.  Winter Jam starts in December.

If you use Discord, you can swing by and check out the hub of the community to connect with the rest of it over at https://discord.gg/devtalk, but if you don't use Discord you can check out the wiki the community also runs. It has a page about all of the VN jams there are that we track.

But in either case, I look forward to seeing what you put out, and hope to see you again soon at one of our jams!

I hadn't realized it was in demand.   It's one of those things that I've known how to do and I spent the time putting it together on a whim.

Hopefully it helps speed folks along in their dev.

Very cool!  Unfortunately this pack doesn't have much that's useful as examples for screens.  The ones that I included are more or less placeholder copies of the default one.

The magic in this pack happens in the Python logic that runs around the screens.  It probably won't help you make nice screens in and of itself, but once you're able to, it should be a force multiplier for your VNs.

Hey there, Your project is marked as private and isn't viewable by the judges.  Make sure you mark it as public before the jam working period is over.

I'm planning on starting up my own blog at some point.  If you have anything in particular you'd be interested in those, let me know and I can make it a point to write something on it.

Known Bugs:

When rolling back in some (most) situations , the camera projecting the Live2D models will rubberband, causing them to briefly shift on the screen a bit before settling down in their correct position.

This is fine.  Many of our submissions every year do not even approach horror.   Sometimes they're costume themed romances, or light hearted tales of kids on a candy adventure.

The interpretation is correct.  

This is mainly to thwart people who, in the past, have made things prior to the jam and explicitly for the jam, released them publicly within the jam's period, and claimed that since they are publicly available they were allowed to use them.  This behavior is generally unwanted since:

• The obscurity due to the timing of releasing the asset more or less promises the team near exclusive use.
• The assets released are often created with a singular aesthetic or focus in mind, giving the original creator a significant leg up in creating cohesive visuals ahead of the competition whereas the average participant uses third party assets to supplement.

The rule has some clear complications, especially with long time creators, tool creators and pack creators, so we do accept exception requests.  If you need to make such a request, feel free to send me a message on Discord via DevTalk or e-mail me at Nai@SpooktoberVNJam.com with details.  We will likely deny anything that was released less than six months ago.  

Next year we are intending to explicitly include assets made by the creator as long as they have a visible and cataloged publish date of some period of time before the jam, though the wording isn't settled yet.

This is where I'll talk about the road map for this game's development!  There's nothing here now because I said so!

I'm loving your drafts, especially that frankly sinister and haunting beauty at the bottom.  You can feel the disenfranchisement from the one wearing the star and the gentleman looks like he's about to either crack the biggest case in history and/or absolutely ruin someone's day with what he has to say.

I look forward to seeing what you bring to this year's competition.  As the host, I appreciate this write up on your reasons for joining, and I'm glad the competition has become something worthy of holding a tradition for.

I don't know if I'd call them wise words but if you're aiming to win, its more important that your submission feels complete rather than long.  You can check my profile for a collection of past year winners to get a feel for length, content and scope.

Generally we're fairly permissive.  Mini games and hybrid style VNs are generally fine.  I can't say I have any direct experience with Red String Club but we're not likely to disqualify a submission as long as an effort was made to be story and reading centric.

Things that are explicitly banned from the competition are listed on the page.  Otherwise you need descriptive content warnings on your submissions.

If you want a more concrete answer, you need to tell us what you're planning on making.

Sorry, for clarification, it needs to be minimally playable on Windows.  Many people submit builds that work in multiple platforms.

Halloween

Needs to be playable on Windows.

Are you participating in more than one jam this season?  Many jams allow you to submit to other jams with the same submission, though few jams have strict requirements like Spooktober Visual Novel Jam does.  Here's a quick checklist you can go through to make sure your jam submission is qualified to be added to the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam!

Cross-Jam Submission Checklist for Spooktober VN Jam

• The jam submission was not worked on prior to September 1st, 2024.
• The jam submission was added to the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam submission list before October 1st.
• The jam submission is a visual novel, visual novel hybrid, or narrative heavy game.
  
• The jam submission has had erotic content disabled/removed for submission to the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam.  We recommend an 'All-Ages' edition to protect our streamer friends who would want to cover your content.
• The jam submission page credits every single person on the team regardless of their depth of involvement.
• The jam submission does not contain AI created works, has never contained AI created works, and has not had work supplemented by generative AI (e.g, paint overs of AI output, code or script created by AI, story supplemented our outlines by AI.)
• The jam submission does not contain endorsements, glorifications, or instructions of suicide.
• The jam submission contains any kind of theme that could be connected to Halloween.  (e.g, Horror genre, focus on candy, presence of monsters, use of costumes or disguises, etc ) OR the story takes place on October 31st of any year.
• The jam submission only contains things assets that are publicly available for free or for sale that were made by a third party (e.g, not you, and not on your behalf), or assets that you and your team created between September 1st and October 1st
• The submission is of an Intellectual Property you own or have been authorized to create.  (e.g, No fan games without getting its owners permissions, but you can make spin offs of your own content.)

For additional information about rules and prize eligibility, check the jam page itself!

Once the submission period opens there will be a button on the page where you can click to submit your entries.  

Shoot, I should've said 'First' in here.

So then, just asking out of curiosity, is there a "time/length limit" the gameplay should be under?

There's no limit to the length of the game.

I'm asking because if I were the judge evaluating these games, I wouldn't have the patience to sit trough lengthy submissions

Well, I enjoy reading visual novels, as do most of the judges so it isn't too bad. 

It's worth noting that our process for judging comes in two phases.  The first being a 'vetting' phase where we quickly go through the submission, which we're expecting to be around 220~260 this year, to determine whether or not it will likely be within the top 10 or be a contender for a special category, then we will moved forward for our second phase, where all of the judges read it in full.

The competition is fierce ever year and it's only gotten more so over the years, so entries that have significant bugs, errors, or obvious place holders will often get put aside.

Winners typically have the following features/strategies:

• A short but complete experience.  Most winners are in the ball park of 30 minutes to an hour to conusme.  By our usual word to time conversion, that's something around 7000-12,000 words.
• Tightly scoped games.  On average, winners have something around 3-5 character sprites at most, a modest sound track and limited game play.
• Cohesive aesthetic.  Everything fits together, because it was made to fit together. 

I have a collection of past winners you can check out here if you want to get a feel for them here:

https://itch.io/c/4692741/spooktober-visual-novel-jam-winners

is there a theme reveal like in other jams?

The theme is always Halloween, and it doesn't change.  It's a loose theme.

If no, how do we prove we didn't start working on our spooky VN before the start of a game jam?

In short: You don't. It's the judges job to evaluate the submissions to determine if a rule was broken.

If that sounds like a lot of work, it is!  Not all of the rules get the same level of application due to the scale of the competition vs the quantity of judges we have to work with. Content rules, like the ones about erotic content, are applied universally because of the simplicity of doing so, where more complex to apply rules are applied only when the violation has either been made apparent OR they are likely to rank in the top 10 and get an aggressive and active investigation.