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Hey Bardon! We mainly advertise to students  in Boston, but anyone can participate in the jam!

Hello Game Jammers! As the exciting Jam-O-Lantern event approaches, we have some important updates and reminders to share for those who may not have the inside scoop from our Discord server.

Team Formation:

If you haven't already, now is the perfect time to get your team together. We want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to create or join a team. Whether you're a lone wolf looking for companions or a team with an empty slot, we've got you covered. Please use our Team Formation Form to make your requests. If you want to join a team, or if you're looking for additional members for your team, this is the place to go!

👉 Team Formation Form

The form will remain open in case teams want to form after the theme release. However, please be aware that there might be a slight delay in team placements.

Jam Page Participation:

Even if you only have one member of your team available for submission, we kindly request that you join our jam page on itch.io. Your participation helps us gauge the turnout of the event more accurately. It's a great way to connect with fellow jammers and stay updated!

👉 Jam-O-Lantern itch.io Jam Page

Game Submission Details:

Details on how to submit your fantastic creations for the Jam-O-Lantern showcase will be released later this week. Stay tuned to our Discord server for the latest updates on this important aspect of the event.

Event Time and Theme Reveal:

Don't forget to mark your calendars! The theme for Jam-O-Lantern will be unveiled tomorrow at 7 PM in 106 West G (for those joining in person) or online on our Discord server. We can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

If you haven't already, be sure to join our Discord server for real-time updates and to connect with fellow jammers.

👉 Join the Jam-O-Lantern Discord

Let's make Jam-O-Lantern 2023 a fantastic event filled with creative games and great camaraderie. We're looking forward to seeing your ideas come to life! 🎮🎃🕸️🦇

Best of luck, and happy jamming!

Looking forward to seeing the progress!

Thank you! Yeah pathfinding was a bit of a headache lol. I do plan on making this more than just a tech demo in the future though!

Thats all good! Dont worry too much about design decisions early on in development because that difficulty is subjective and its just about figuring out what kind of audience you want to market your game to and what makes it more fun(and fun is also subjective! Its a tough topic lol) :). 

This was a very cool game! Just from seeing the screenshots and description I thought of the lidar game and It Steals. I did not finish the game because I am quite busy. But the user experience was great! I enjoyed the the ambiance of the environment and most of the sound design.

Now for if you would like small nitpicks and feedback

• I agree with @SerenityDev in the fact that the monster may need a buff in lethality, as it became quite easy to not be killed. Perhaps making the monster more hazy/transparent or completely invisible would work well. Since you already have the popup of text to let players know when the monster is near, I think this would still be a fair experience. Also the player would be able to scan for the monster with the sonar gun, so the player would still be able to search for it.
• While the majority of the sound design was lovely, sometimes it was a bit difficult to tell where the monster was based on the sounds it made, if that was intentional design thats great. But it was also a little hard to tell if the sound was part of the atmosphere.
• The sonar gun was great and worked as expected, there was great incentive for the player to use it as it was easier to get lost in the haze without it. One small nitpick I have though is the color theory associated with the dots that appear lol. as far as I can tell, blue = farther away, red = closer to player, and green = monster. When I was playing and I scanned the monster, I assumed that green meant "good" so I thought it was something I needed to pick up. To my surprise, it was the monster instead. Perhaps swapping the color green and red would be a good fix, as red is usually associated with "bad" and would lead to good affordances in game design. Affordances being "I assume [x] because of [y]", the visuals/mechanics/sound/etc. of something implying how it works within your worldspace and how it interacts with other elements of your game.

But in total, very good game! I gave it good ratings and I just wanted to share my bit of feedback

Thank you for the feedback, Christoff! I like to hear that even with the content of the game lacking, it was still interesting to play around with! No worries about low rating the game lol, I already knew it wasn't going to do well in rating, but I plan on working on it more to make it fit the theme more in the future when the PJP discord does the follow-up jam!

Thank you Alex! Yeah I bit off more than I can chew, but I sort of came into the jam expecting to fail the jam but learn a lot since I was solo dev'ing for the first time, so I am not disappointed by my results! I am very much looking into making mechanics for the game :)

Thank you, it essentially took the whole jam lol! The state that its in does seem to not have any major bugs, however as I started a feature branch to convert the tech demo into a turn based strategy, I could start to see that a bit of code would need reworking to refit my needs :) still a fun game jam though. I definitely am looking into using it as part of a bigger and more complex system. 

Very cool!