I was thinking that the Authenticity category could be dropped from the entry marking criteria next year. To me, it seems better suited to a binary option - they either followed the rules of the Jam or they didn't.

• Rather than let the anonymous masses decide which games followed the rules - I'd be up for letting the game float on the existing categories and presume that rule-breaker entries receive less positive attention in general.
• As it sits now, any user giving less than full marks for this category knocks that entry back a couple of pages.

Congratulations on everyone submitting their entries. Sound off if you'd like to lend your agreement, or disagreement so this can be considered next year.

Completely agree. I think maybe having a section for the person entering to say/respond on how their game fits into the authenticity of the jam would be better, but getting rid of it altogether would work as well too.

That category was more to do with the "use of space", which, given it is the point of the jam, makes it very important really. So, it will be staying but will likely be reworded to be clearer.

Also, on your point about anything less than full marks pushing someone back several pages, is simply not true. There was some complaint from individuals about being ranked under 100 in that category, and thought that was bad. Where it actually isn't, the majority of games got very high averages in that category, and it's just a matter of "you can't all be first." If you care enough, you can look at some entries and do the math and you'll see. One of the top 10 places, for example, is ranked 93rd in Authenticity and still has lower averages in other categories in which it's ranked higher. And the Overall ranking is based on your averages, and some magic with the number of ratings, thus the ranking of Authenticity doesn't really effect the final positions that much.

Ultimately, I think it's more about people being confused about how the system works, rather than the system being wrong. But I'm open to feedback, we got a while to work this out, after all! :P

2018. :)

It'll be decided in the new year. When it is It'll be announced here and on Discord. Don't clear your diary though, it's still a while to go!