Can't get enough, ever try with crispy onions? Amazing.
Did you know? "Burger" is phenomenal example of rebracketing in linguistics: "burger" comes from "hamburger", which itself is named after the city, Hamburg. This brings us to the overwhelming question of where, exactly, is Cheeseburg? What's behind the door?
I did, actually. It's a fun game, and you should be proud of it. (To be clear, I played the GameJolt version.) It's kinda like Night Trap, but like if you were playing one of the party members instead of a member of S.C.A.T.. And to your credit, it does happen to fit the theme, since the story centers around someone being inside your house. (And you're not alone if the bear's with you, too!)
It's just that the game wasn't started, developed, and released during the jamming period, which is the whole point of a game jam, to make and release a game within a given amount of time. It's not written in the rules section, possibly to avoid confusion on using pre-existing assets, but it's the very first line of the jam's page description ("In this game jam you get to make a game based around a certain theme in just a single week!"). So it's natural for there to be a negative reaction when a game is submitted that was developed and released before even the theme-voting period of the jam, especially when you're posting in the community discussion that you were just starting to write it, because there are people starting, developing, and releasing their game within the timeframe... People who, going against common advice and their own desire, might not be sleeping as much as they should, not eating as much as they need, not socialising with family and friends as much as they normally do, not spending time doing much else but trying to crunch and finish their game in time.
Your game's fun, and you should promote it, it's just that this isn't the appropriate place to do so if that's your goal... At least, not like this. To not just lightly critique but give an actually usable idea, it would be better promotion for your game if you used the same engine and a majority of the same assets to make a sequel or prequel to Look Out, like Majora's Mask using a majority of the same assets and same engine as Ocarina of Time, or made something completely new but relatively short with a good ol' "if you liked this game, check out Look Out!" in the description. And I don't think it's too late to do so, you still have about 5 days so you could easily slam dunk a new FMV game in that time with Clickteam or something, hypothetically you could just change the entire page of the page you already submitted to be for your new submission, upload the new game there, and make a new, separate page for Look Out. (Which, as a bonus, would also give it another shot at being noticed on the "Most Recent" and "Fresh Games" lists on itch, so win-win!) I'm fairly sure that's not against the rules, at least not too badly if so. (Important, don't delete the page you submitted, just change it to be for a different game and make a new page for Look Out.)
As for the NSFW stuff, I definitely agree it's not NSFW from the violence, though it's debatably NSFW just from the amount of cursing. Lots of the "rhymes with buck" f-word in just the first few minutes. Not a big deal to me, mind you, and I think "explicit language" is the one criteria of NSFW that's shrugged off by nearly everyone, but something to be a bit cautious of in future submissions. This is an all-ages jam, after all; Just check out the "Im 14" discussion in the community, we got kids and preteens here, some as young as 9 to 11 years old.
Most likely because they submitted almost immediately after the jam started with a game released on itch.io a couple days before the jam started. (Truth be told, the game was also released on Gamejolt about 21 days ago, so it was finished even before the themes were up for voting. And if we really want to be pedantic, one of the screenshots clearly indicate that their submission is 18+ and contains violence and extreme profanity, which would most likely go against the "no NSFW" rule if true.)
It's possible they hit the submit button early with a pre-existing game to cement themselves as an entrant, misunderstood that a gamejam entry is supposed to be developed during the jam time, or misclicked and accidentally submitted with the game they did. It's just... not a great look if it is that, especially since their post insinuates that they're in the process of making the game.
That said, I don't know why you got downvoted for that.
It's a venn diagram sort of thing, to my knowledge. Not all horror is NSFW, but there is some overlap.
Basically the big thing to really worry about is excessive amounts of bad language and gore. (And, you know, "18+" content). Just, you know, remember that a non-adult could play your game, or may well have to play it as part of the rating process.
Game jam themes are usually intentionally vague/subjective so that you can interpret the theme in your own creative way. So, in this case, your game should be inspired by whatever the phrase "You are not alone" means to you.
Purely for example, "you're not alone" could mean that you're constantly accompanied by something/someone, like an ally or someone you need to take some place. Or, perhaps it could mean that you are being there for somebody else, like you're saying to them "it's okay, you're not alone." Or, maybe something is stalking you in the dark, making you feel like "you're not alone". Or whatever else the phrase may mean to you. Personal interpretation is one of the great things about game jam entries, you'll see so many odd or unique interprations, there's really no wrong answer so long as you can explain how it relates to the theme.
When in doubt, try breaking the words of the phrase down and see what ideas come out from them... And worst case scenario, remember that "Theme" is only one of the rating categories, so don't worry too much about if it perfectly fits the theme and just have fun with it, especially since it's your first time.
Good luck on your first jam!
I second-guessed my original idea and thought up a Zelda-like game, except in reverse... So instead of being an adventurous hero going through dungeons to get powerful items that will help with traversing the world, you're a retiring hero who just finished a big quest and wants to go back to a simple life, returning all the powerful items to the dungeons he/she/they stole them from, making the adventure harder in the process.
... Then I realised I should probably stick with my original plan, seeing as I only have a week and I'm working solo. Might make that game later though, who knows. But anyway, maybe that can spark some ideas!
