game-jam-chat

[celest junco]

https://youtu.be/9t20zx8ach0
Made a trailer for my jam entry! Spent way too much time on syncing clipsm with the beat
@edgy fulcrum man I really love ur character design

I can see that u might got inspired by OMNO

maybe?

Journey, OMNO, Lucen, Rime, types of game that I really love

also Ori and the blind forest, despite the camera being sided

[edgy fulcrum]

😄 We had a lot of Journey inspo for the jam, was a bit worried that we looked too much at that one. Such an 'easy' design - simple shapes and no textures

[celest junco]

easy but very good looking

I personally love these types of design

[gaunt copper]

Bte i resume my playthough 240 to go :> https://www.twitch.tv/shadowriver

[brittle tinsel]

@edgy fulcrum I too was low-key thinking about Journey while jamming.

[civic dock]

The #1 game among the submissions right now is from one of my friends here in Portland! 😄

[rocky raven]

[minor hemlock]

Linger? Nice!

[rocky raven]

its blowing up on itch.io and gamejolt, pretty cool to wake up to that today 😄

[minor hemlock]

The blessed Horror tag at play

[rocky raven]

indeed

[civic dock]

Yeah short horror games are trending right now.

Which is awesome because I love playing them.

[glass fossil]

Made Trailer for my Entry: https://youtu.be/AWy8PnNJEjQ

[nocturne prism]

I submit the project in correct time but not show in submission project

https://mohammed-sikkandar.itch.io/conspiracy-file-3xx

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1csgZbTrWuHEsjazWly0-W9AjILEiLtK6

[dim hazel]

Theme was a weird one. Shame to do something tied to a weather condition.
@frozen wharf The theme isnt a weather condition, its a proverb. and basicly means "you cant hide something forever".

This means that the games don't have to include snow at all. 🙂

[maiden loom]

the themes are usually proverbs, so can be taken literally, metaphorically, or somewhere in between

[frozen wharf]

I’m aware the theme doesn’t have to be literal. I like how remorse of revelations added it even

It’s why my original pitch was a bit abstract as well. But some of the games barely mention the theme. Including some that have snow. Which is a shame as some are really good games

But it was still a very tricky theme

[maiden loom]

yeah, definitely one of the harder ones

[crude ether]

guys, can we edit game description in itch io without possible issues for jam? Not on the jam page but on the actual game page

[minor hemlock]

Yes, the only thing you can't do is change the game files

Which is automatically blocked by itch 👍

[edgy fulcrum]

https://i.imgur.com/7zpEZyH.mp4
Wanted to share this: My favourite cheat for smooth gliding - an invisble physics ball that controls the character while gliding.
Used it for my gamejam entry

[verbal tapir]

Did anyone play our game "Accounting Mayhem"? We found a game breaking bug after submitting 😣

[minor hemlock]

@edgy fulcrum I was thinking about redoing my skiing mechanic to be a ball

since the falling/sliding has no concept of momentum going up a slope

[sonic echo]

@gaunt copper saw your stream backlog and saw you played my A Door Between Seasons, glad you thought it was Good, and happy to see the watchers gave it 7.7

[brittle tinsel]

@minor hemlock @edgy fulcrum That's so good. I hacked together sledding for my game by modifying friction and deceleration values, but it doesn't have momentum and can't go up slopes because the character movement controller and capsule don't adhere to slopes.

[minor hemlock]

lol my ski ramps have the illusion of being an upward slope, but they definitely stop at like 1 degree from horizontal

link to your game @brittle tinsel ?

found it 🙂

[gaunt copper]

I start in around 30 min

@sonic echo it was nice ^^

[sonic echo]

thanks

[gaunt copper]

ah there UE4 stream on

[gaunt copper]

Starting the 3rd day of streaming all Unreal Spring Jam entries, 217 entries to go! https://www.twitch.tv/shadowriver

[minor hemlock]

@edgy fulcrum oh yeah that feels better already: https://imgur.com/a/IotcFr1

[spiral holly]

@gaunt copper I just saw your streaming from yesterday, you were playing my game "Inside of a shadow", first of all, totally forgot to make the sound looping, my bad. But when i was watching, for the first few minutes i was saying man attack those fireballs 😂 . Anyways, there are buttons like Q to toggle enemy lock, and R to toggle camera lock from the enemy. The instructions were right there, maybe you missed that. About the gameplay and levels, it's auto generated levels, yeah i should've added more variations to it, but there weren't enough time, Or maybe we could just go with a few custom made levels with good designs. Anyways everyone does mistake, so did we. But thanks for the rating, i thought you might vanish me for not looping the music 😂

[minor hemlock]

Streamers never read instructions

It's a fact of life lol

[edgy fulcrum]

Nice, looks good, @minor hemlock !:)
Now all you need is to align rotate the character to match the slope angle! Maybe add in a bit of lean during the turns

[edgy fulcrum]

😄 Nice - it's not that complicated. You could just align the charMesh on tick to the rolling ball, or you do a constraint setup

@gaunt copper - Saw your playthrough of my game - glad nothing broke down horribly:)
Though sad to see that I wasn't clear enough that you can glide-surf down slopes - otherwise it's a bit tedious to run around the map

[edgy fulcrum]

Yeah I tried the friction and such earlier, was a pain to get it to work even nearly as good as the ball cheat...

[minor hemlock]

I've already got lean and slope matching in the main game :D that's just my test pawn

[gaunt copper]

Starting the 4th day of streaming all Unreal Spring Jam entries, 176 entries to go! https://www.twitch.tv/shadowriver

[brittle tinsel]

@spiral holly IMHO the best game design does not require reading instructions, but rather teaches the player how to play by doing.

[spiral holly]

@brittle tinsel Absolutely right, ha ha.
But after all, it's just a game jam. Everyone is making things for fun, and in a limited time.
Which is why most of the game leaves instructions.

And i didn't mean any offense by saying anything now or the past.
Have a good day ~

[brittle tinsel]

@spiral holly No worries mate. Just offering some advice that I also forget sometimes but try to keep in mind as much as possible when designing

[spiral holly]

Yeah, nobody loves to read actually, so yeah that's a good advice, ha ha.
Thanks ~

[frozen wharf]

depending on how complex your game is its hard to design compelling controls that are also intuitive without feedback. just have to go with your gut : P

our UI suffers from running out of time to fix some of it

[distant ibex]

Tricky Traversal - was an amazing entry you guys should check out.

[edgy fulcrum]

@gaunt copper that last game on the stream seemed really fun!:D

Checked the vod

[gaunt copper]

Starting the 5th day of streaming all Unreal Spring Jam entries, 137 entries to go! https://www.twitch.tv/shadowriver

[sonic echo]

man wonder when they announce the winners and such

[rocky raven]

I think the first week of July

[thick nimbus]

🪐 🚣‍♂️ ✈️

[golden rose]

@gaunt copper Great you played my game BadLuck. It was my first experience as a coder, I knew I shouldn't have added support for mouse at the end of the jam 😄 I should have been more explicit with the way to play the game.
Thanks. Until the next jam 🙂

[gaunt copper]

Gonna start when i clean up soem stuff on hard drive

[gaunt copper]

Starting the 6th day of streaming all Unreal Spring Jam entries, 97 entries to go! https://www.twitch.tv/shadowriver

[hard topaz]

Did the film jam winners get announced during this game jam launch?

[civic dock]

Not to my knowledge.

[onyx kite]

When is the results livestream for the spring jam

[solid abyss]

I heard it would be 2-3rd july

not sure

[worn nest]

Please check out and rate my game Chroma Rails made in 6 days for One Button Jam https://itch.io/jam/one-button-game/rate/664890

[gaunt copper]

Starting the 7th (and maybe last) day of streaming all Unreal Spring Jam entries, 60 entries to go! https://www.twitch.tv/shadowriver

[hoary trout]

the ever growing scope

I wish I uploaded a working build of my game

[lunar spindle]

@hoary trout the landscape looks amazing keep the good work up

[glad wing]

@gaunt copper thanks for playing Blossom! I’m glad to hear it was worth setting up your VR gear for 🙂

[glass fossil]

Hello, new to the discord. Has there been any info on when the winners will be announced?

I can't find anything on the itch page

[fallen smelt]

They are showcasing the winners on the July 2nd stream. I imagine they would announce them then

[glass fossil]

Okay cool!

[plucky terrace]

First of all, congratulations to the ones that finished in time, for us was a blast too participating in the PC VR section of the competition, i guess we'll see the 2th of july, and please if you own a VR headset and you want we would like some feedback on our little game in VR, it's great fun because almost everything is physics based, link in the description of the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cslztVblfRE

[rocky raven]

has anyone sent an email to community@ regarding gamejam inquiries? I sent one but it's been more than a week and no response

[civic dock]

@rocky raven Still waiting to hear back about the movie packaging thing?

[rocky raven]

yeh 😦

[modest prairie]

Hello everybody . I just finished my Labyrinth project. don't hesitate to test it (here is the download link https://mega.nz/file/RHpTmLbB ....)
also don't hesitate to tell me if you find any bugs or problems in the game and also if you have any idea to improve the game and thanks ...

here is the code to decrypt the file : W40Fe6n92a8uXwVRghdPCH74bXYPT9mBFP4iTdFD8bY

to give your opinion on the game I have prepared a little forum for you : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezWloX-d9OLQZMCFPkvLbsfzmjKxSenzkUr-5nBfLeClLHTw/viewform

And thank you

[tranquil matrix]

@rocky raven I responded to your email a couple of days ago, please pm me the email address you sent the email from

[rocky raven]

pm'd

[cerulean wren]

man, no matter how many gamejams i make, always getting a nice-try

i dont know what is to make a fun game anymore :/ sad

[somber hazel]

@cerulean wren If it helps, I know at least 2 people who already won a ue4 jam, but got nice tries from shadow afterwards.
So, I wouldn't bother about one opinion, just keep going and do what's fun to you 🙂

[vapid thistle]

Yeah, I've participated in 8 game jams I think and the best I've ever gotten is a good. Most of them are nice-tries and I've even gotten a meh.

[strong glade]

one opinion is just one opinion lol don’t beat yourself up too much

[cerulean wren]

yea

thanks guys

[obtuse imp]

Actually, on this sorta topic who judges the jams usually for the final results?

[strong ocean]

what is it

[nova oxide]

yeah it sucks, can be disheartening doing jams and getting shit for reviews. i've had a couple where, in my opinion, way shittier games won prizes than the ones i've made. it's kinda killed jams for me, actually 😦

[hybrid lintel]

I always figured doing a jam competitively was a bad idea especially because of that... more like yeah if I do one I'll do it for fun and if it gets good reviews then that's a nice bonus :D

[thick nimbus]

I've done many jams and love it.

They're fun, I get to experiment ideas, more practice with areas I need to practice, more experience with full cycle of dev, and I have a new project that I can catalogue

[strong glade]

yeah this was my first game jam and it was super fun

[carmine kindle]

Most game jam games are going to be pretty terrible anyway, because of time limitations. Just having something playable by the end of it is a win in my book. If you learn something new and become better at making games through the process, even better. For me the competitive aspect is really just there to help you keep yourself accountable and motivate you to actually finish it instead of giving up.

[solid abyss]

plus the jam is also good for measuring what you have learned in the recent while..

[obtuse imp]

The thing with jams is, either outcome has a positive effect, say, it didnt go well, thats a great way to learn from lessons and improve for next one, and if it went well, then it went well, Bohrium's point about finishing it i agree with 100%, Id say its a better outcome than overscoping to have a really advanced game only to end up missing the final deadlines

[loud basalt]

To chase a prize in a jam you have to have an absolutely clear superiority, at a level where the community will become upset on your behalf. Even then you'll lose some to low effort or projects that don't fit the theme, etc.

Don't Jam for the prizes, take a job contract instead.

Love you Epic jam team, regardless. Just my observation.

Also, build a game that says to epic "this promotes our engine well", they won't say it, but it's the main judging criteria lol

If you do that you can ignore theme connection so long as you add something they can use to grasp at straws like a visual element

And always add sounds and art and music even if it's not yours, then declare it of course, it IS factored even if not consciously

Build a single fun mechanic then make it pretty. That's my advice.

[small fern]

yeah, I'm bit upset that entry that won last MegaJam had like weakest theme connection on whole history of Epic Game Jams

we've seen theme connections that could have been bolted on as afterthought before but to let such win the whole thing is bit annoying

[rocky raven]

solid points vaei

[cerulean wren]

when is the results day?

[obtuse imp]

i think its the 2nd of july

i could be wrong though, just from what ive seen here

[rugged plaza]

I know how you guys feel. I cant wait until they announce that I lost.

🤣

I learned some next level stuff this time, at least.

Animation... Audio... even animating audio

[torn laurel]

@rugged plaza This was my first time working with audio in the engine too, and the audio blueprints blew my mind 🤯

[rugged plaza]

@torn laurel they have added a course on Unreal Online Learning called "Ambient and Procedural Sound Design" that has crazy cool stuff in it

[somber hazel]

anybody else who can't wait for today?
for the moment where we will turn extremely jealous of the person who wins the monster rig? 😄

[obtuse imp]

lol

[somber hazel]

and then we all dm victor at the same time saying "game X should have won, you dummy!"

followed by: "btw, your 🐶 is kinda cute 🙂 "

[strong glade]

what time is the stream?

[crude ether]

heh sitting here waiting for a stream, wish they could announce time

[strong glade]

oh 2pm est

[crude ether]

@strong glade oh where did you find time? 🙂

[strong glade]

checked the forum https://forums.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine/events/1782343-inside-unreal-2020-unreal-spring-jam-results

[crude ether]

thanks!

[civic dock]

Can’t wait for today’s stream. Very anxious to find out who won.

[minor hemlock]

today's the day!

here's hoping for homemade charm > substance Kappa

[civic dock]

I hope my friend at least gets honorable mention, if not one of the finalists. His entry is the #1 game on itch.io right now.

People are doing playthroughs almost every day, even now, weeks after the jam ended.

[rugged plaza]

What game?

[strong glade]

guessing this one? https://bioxide.itch.io/linger

[sonic echo]

@civic dock being #1 on itch.io doesn't mean it might be the best game of the bunch. I mean its a Horror game and its appears to be a P.T. clone. The two types of games that big Let's Player's grab which leads to more people seeing it and wanting to play it.

[strong glade]

lol let the guy be hopeful for his friend

[minor hemlock]

horror games on itch are so popular it's wild

same thing happened with My Friend the Raven last jam

note to self: make horror game

[strong glade]

they definitely have virality going for em

[civic dock]

Yeah, Linger that's the one. And sure, obviously being #1 on itch is somewhat unrelated to the jam, but I'm still hoping to see some recognition. It's a good game and it'd be rad to see some Portland rep. 😄

[minor hemlock]

however it's no small feat to make a quality horror game that's worth playing 🙂

I don't make horror games personally because I'm scared of being scared by bugs

[sonic echo]

yeah one horror game I developed took me a month to make

[minor hemlock]

"what do you mean there's a bug that teleports the monster in front of me? alt-f4"

I hope itch itself becomes popular as a result of that bundle 🙂

I wonder how big it was compared to annual revenue

[obtuse imp]

lol speaking of horror games, ive made like 2 more since this one, pretty much just improving on my jam submissions concepts

[minor hemlock]

👍 I'm getting my jam game close to being on steam

but I've been sidetracked by a twitch game idea

[obtuse imp]

have you also thought bout game jolt?

[rugged plaza]

I put a game on itch called SWAT and called it a horror game. All it was, you swat flies and the more you kill, the more show up.

I got hate mail for it

[obtuse imp]

Lmao

[rugged plaza]

These ppl were extremely pissed

[strong glade]

lol

[rugged plaza]

But the pic looked like a horror game. It was hilarious

[strong glade]

super stoked for the stream

[obtuse imp]

im hyped but nervous at same time 😶

[strong glade]

I've been working on my entry more since the end of the jam too

[obtuse imp]

nice

by the way, stream will be on YT yeah?

[strong glade]

twitch

[obtuse imp]

thanks lol, woulda missed it if i didnt know lmao

[strong glade]

https://www.twitch.tv/unrealengine they're going up now looks like

[civic dock]

Just announced it in #unreal-news.

Can't wait to find out the winners. Good luck, everyone!

[minor hemlock]

Is This Real Life: UHF Traveler
https://handkor.itch.io/uhf-traveler

[rugged plaza]

That is awesome

[strong glade]

yeah super cool

[minor hemlock]

Tiny Award: Swift Fox
https://cvives652.itch.io/swift-fox

[rugged plaza]

I knew that one was gonna win something I thought it would win the big one

[minor hemlock]

so the new meta for Tiny games seems to be mobile builds 😛

here comes the big one

Army of One Award: Permafrost
https://skeep.itch.io/permafrost

[sonic echo]

Well didn't win. oh well

[glad wing]

same, but congrats to the folks who did! 🙂

[strong glade]

congrats!

[minor hemlock]

Finalist: Laika
https://shootingshark.itch.io/laika

[obtuse imp]

Congrats, was a well done game

[minor hemlock]

@frozen wharf congrats \o/

[frozen wharf]

: O

i missed it

DAMN MY TIMEZONE

[obtuse imp]

lol

[minor hemlock]

Finalist: Farm and Seek
https://hot-dogs-studio.itch.io/farm-and-seek

[frozen wharf]

its sad people dont realise you can move around the environment in laika

environments actually huge

[minor hemlock]

player ignorance is never to be underestimated 😄

[obtuse imp]

yh, noticed there was like a whole other area round the left corner to at the start

is the map like a square?

[minor hemlock]

having trouble seeing the theme connection in farm & seek but it does look legit fun 😄

just explained by Victor on stream 👍

[obtuse imp]

lol

[strong glade]

heh seems like some people are wringing their hands a bit over it

[minor hemlock]

not as much as last jam

[civic dock]

Yeah, the theme connection seems perfectly reasonable to me.

It's nice to see a game that interprets the theme idiomatically. That's pretty rare.

[minor hemlock]

Finalist: Aztlan Uncovered
https://slappy-inc.itch.io/aztlan-uncovered

[civic dock]

lmao

[strong glade]

lol

[civic dock]

Someone should make a game called Drumroll Please next time. 😂

[strong glade]

congrats everyone!

[crude ether]

well now I really wonder my game was disqualified or what...

I didn't even see it in preview

[minor hemlock]

keep in mind the sizzle reel is running during the fullscreen segments, your game could have been hidden while they were playing

[crude ether]

well maybe...

shame, did all I could and not even mention, I thought quality was over the top, meh

[strong glade]

could you link your submission?

[crude ether]

sure https://itch.io/jam/2020-unreal-spring-jam/rate/666391

[strong glade]

bummed I didn't place but that's a jam for you

[void hull]

@crude ether honestly I think you did not have a lot of gameplay in it. But the mood was good.

[crude ether]

well it's a narrative game, it's a story, you play through like a movie

[strong glade]

this was mine, saw it in the sizzle reel at least https://rockwalk-dev.itch.io/the-thaw

probably put 80 hours into it over 5 days lmao

[minor hemlock]

I haven't seen mine in the reel but I haven't been peeping

[void hull]

Were there any honorable mentions?

[minor hemlock]

it's not over yet

[void hull]

I can not watch the steam right now

[strong glade]

lol moral of the story is make a puzzle game

[minor hemlock]

if there are I'll try to link them or name them

[void hull]

Ok thanks

[minor hemlock]

make a mechanically interesting game 🙃

[civic dock]

No honorable mentions yet. I'll be tracking them, too, when they come up.

[minor hemlock]

no games on itch named Drumroll Please btw

if anyone wants a secondary theme for the next jam

[strong glade]

well you know what to make next

[civic dock]

Dude, make it happen.

[minor hemlock]

band camp simulator in the style of Papers Please

[civic dock]

I'm sure we'd get a laugh out of Victor for that.

[minor hemlock]

one time at bandcamp I

[sonic echo]

are they gonna give some honerable mentions to the army of one

[void hull]

Well it's really hard to win an award at the gamejams. So many submissions (and great submissions too)

[civic dock]

are they gonna give some honerable mentions to the army of one
@sonic echo They usually do honorable mentions after all the winners.

[void hull]

Count yourself lucky and rewarded if you win once. Repeating it is art...

[minor hemlock]

really have to be a master of all trades to nab that solo award

[crude ether]

@minor hemlock and be very lucky

[strong glade]

lol for sure

[minor hemlock]

luck is preparation + opportunity

[crude ether]

luck is luck

[strong glade]

it's all preferences so luck will always be involved

[crude ether]

most of the time you don't have judges judging objectively, and I doubt that even possible. It also means that could you hit that particular set of people or not

[sonic echo]

in allot of ways you just wonder what they look at in judging and what leads to this being the winner over the other

[minor hemlock]

is that luck, or preparation by researching past winners to get an idea of preference 🙂

[strong glade]

mega lol

[void hull]

We won once and we were super lucky

The idea just came to us and did fit perfectly.

[strong glade]

favorite game I saw in the sizzle real, can't remember the name, but it was a stick hopping

[minor hemlock]

here come the honorable mentions

aztlan was made by previous winners btw 😮

Slappy Board from the megajam

[void hull]

Wow!

[minor hemlock]

very different games 😄

Honorable Mention: Blossom
https://mahalis.itch.io/blossom

Honorable Mention: Cthulhu Frozen Nightmare
https://virtuaworlds.itch.io/cthulhu-frozen-nightmare

Honorable Mention: Celsius Cafe
https://rudecoffee.itch.io/celsius-cafe

Honorable Mention: Pollen
https://doom4e.itch.io/pollen

Honorable Mention: Alpine Ski Resort
https://carlestyle.itch.io/alpine

Honorable Mention: Bean Wish Well
https://alenloeb.itch.io/bean-wish-well

Honorable Mention: Springtale
https://ffuhro.itch.io/springtale

[gaunt copper]

ahhh forgot to watch >.<

ahhh forgot to watch >.<

crap

[minor hemlock]

thanks, my discord is freezing up 😄

Honorable Mention: Spring Fever
https://judah-avery.itch.io/spring-fever

Quick Mentions: Thawed Thoughts, Snow Archaeologist, Roam, Hidden Path to Spring, Mister Thaw, Accounting Mayhem, Tetrees, Quench A Candle, sNOw, Spark, Rivet, Lost and Found, Linger, Tricky Traversal, Space Rescue

[strong glade]

yeah discord is shitting the bed

[minor hemlock]

didn't catch Amanda's last one

[crude ether]

yeah I will just pretend my game was disqualified haha

[civic dock]

@rocky raven You got an honorable mention by Victor on the live stream. He could barely play Linger because it scared him so bad. 😄

[minor hemlock]

why, Dazvolt?

[strong glade]

lmao that space rescue game looks like a nightmare to play, in a good way

[crude ether]

well because there was no video for it (yeah I know it could be while there were playing submission), no mention so yeah

[minor hemlock]

this is a chance to think critically about why it might not have succeeded, not fault the rules 🙂

[crude ether]

well honestly I just did everything I could, even including voiceover for a game, tried to do all of my skills to the top, ok now I'm basically whining, nevermind

[gaunt copper]

is archive of my steams.... but i forgot to upload osme parts i was busy in recent days ^^' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6jhHjArDB9PlAoJHSuZQfEnpKPco_5tw

[rocky raven]

cool, completely forgot about today lol, busy with work

[civic dock]

I figured hahah.

[strong glade]

@crude ether yeah I get it man it just is what it is, be proud of the work you did

[crude ether]

meh, it was like my first jam after 10 years of silent game making, after receiving approved instructor of UE4 and so on so on well like, meh

[rocky raven]

I knew my entry wouldn't win anything, but atleast I have the #1 game on itch.io for more than a week now lol

[civic dock]

@rocky raven Yeah, regardless of only getting honorable mention in the jam, it's clear you made the right decision to make this game. 😄

[rocky raven]

[civic dock]

You're still getting daily links to YouTube playthroughs, too. It's wild how popular short horror games are right now.

I love it.

[strong glade]

ha not just right now, been that way for years

[rocky raven]

it's getting a bit exhausting tbh 😂, there's just too much videos, comments and people hitting me up on email asking to collab

a weekend venture that blew up unexpectedly

[civic dock]

@strong glade There's definitely a noteworthy surge at the moment. I think partially due to the success of Markiplier's 3 Scary Games series.

[crude ether]

@rocky raven well take your chance then, it's a good way

[civic dock]

I'm speaking specifically about very short horror games, usually with retro graphics.

Not horror in general, which has indeed enjoyed a sustained level of popularity on itch and Steam.

[strong glade]

ah really, I haven't been keeping up with youtube stuff much lately. I just always remember seeing tons of let's plays of short/free indie horror games

[crude ether]

surprisingly horror is very popular genre in China

[minor hemlock]

FNAF really popped off and that does seem like something you could accomplish during a jam time frame

[crude ether]

so it's like the first market I would target if I would be making horror game, heh

[minor hemlock]

so no wonder they're all scavenging itch looking for the next big one 😛

[civic dock]

It's a really fun genre. Lots of great little short stories to play through.

My jam entry would've been in that genre. I didn't finish in time for the jam, but I'm continuing work on it and plan to release it on Steam.

[rocky raven]

I'll likely find some time and wrap up the horror game as well, it helped a lot with burnout from my main scifi mmo project

[civic dock]

I bet! It's nice to have a side project like that to try fresh ideas.

[strong glade]

damn sorry you didn’t finish in time

making a game in 5 days is just... way too much lmao

[obtuse imp]

its certainly possible

[civic dock]

I spent 2 days doing preproduction. 😂

[minor hemlock]

and 48 hour jams... should just be plain illegal

[civic dock]

Got really into writing the story and designing the environment.

[strong glade]

ahaha

[rocky raven]

i built a tps in a 48 hour jam

[civic dock]

It wasn't until day 3 that I really kicked into high gear and had a solid vision.

[strong glade]

well now you have a project you can build on

[rocky raven]

lots of coffee and adderalls

[obtuse imp]

nlg, for short jams i skip pre prod unless im not working alone, most ill have is a list

[minor hemlock]

I spend the first day forming an idea I feel good about so I don't have to backtrack later

[strong glade]

I tried to have one day for each major element and it worked out alright, still only barely managed to finish and even then forgot the victory screen 😅

[tranquil matrix]

@crude ether Your game was not disqualified. We randomize the order of the videos so there's a chance it was one of the late ones

Thanks for jamming and tuning in to the stream everyone ❤️

[civic dock]

Thanks for hosting the jam! It's always a blast to participate and see everyone's hard work.

[gaunt copper]

Ah the inside tv won the vr category... as i expected ^^

[civic dock]

These jams are highlights of every year for me.

[tranquil matrix]

hard work indeed

This stuff aint easy

[civic dock]

Seriously. It never ceases to amaze me what people can create in 5 days.

[rocky raven]

[minor hemlock]

it amazes me that teams can get anything done in 5 days as well 😂

gotta have someone step up in the producer role indeed

[strong glade]

oh absolutely coordinating in that small window of time is super impressive

[crude ether]

@tranquil matrix welp, thanks for the info

[gaunt copper]

@tranquil matrix i was not there to tell you that, but you dont need to unplug the VR you can start the game with -nohmd option..... i see im not the only one with that issue xd

But atleats no people know what happens if oyu not disable VR plugins xd

[tranquil matrix]

@gaunt copper Good call - Unplugging it was my "oh shit" move

[gaunt copper]

it actully got more annoying in this jam i dont know if it's due 4.25, but in old jams it only triggered oculus service and thats it, now on change of level it turn on HMD mode

[tranquil matrix]

I'm going to look into it, I haven't seen that happen unless "Start in VR" was checked previously (which isn't checked by default)

[gaunt copper]

I also had trouble with OBS, if game gone above 60FPS the video on stream was lagging

but on my monitor it looked ok

but this might be OBS issue

[tranquil matrix]

That's probably what happened, however, I tested it prior to the stream and the issue wasn't there - perhaps that's only while actually streaming

[civic dock]

The weird thing I noticed: whatever you were doing, the game stopped lagging when you weren't focused on it.

Every time you were like "Wait a sec, let me change some stuff" the framerate would smooth out. When you returned to the game, it would lag again.

[tranquil matrix]

I was streaming games on my personal channel with the same setup just the other day and didn't have that issue - was on a Discord call with screenshare on as well so same scenario :/

[civic dock]

Yeah that's tough to troubleshoot. 😦

"It worked before the stream" is the most frustrating feeling.

It was likely a new variable introduced during the live stream that you didn't account for in your tests. The hard part is figuring out what the heck it was.

I've been in similar situations during live in-person events. Everything works flawlessly during dry runs, then breaks during the live event.

I think you guys handled the issues during the stream pretty gracefully, though.

[frozen wharf]

welp one things for sure.. im never making an rts/godsim game for a gamejam again 😛

[strong glade]

you and your team definitely earned the win with managing to pull off those mechanics in 5 days

[frozen wharf]

honestly the balancing was complete luck. our programmer just did what he thought worked best on the last night

its a shame nobody who plays it realises we actually made a huge map.. you can melt glaciers to reveal stuff like uranium and make the dogs go further

but hey its a jam. cant tutorial that easy in a jam

[strong glade]

mhm for sure

[civic dock]

Just posted all the winners and honorable mentions in #unreal-news. Congrats again to all of you! 🥳

And thanks @minor hemlock for helping to track all the winners.

[minor hemlock]

I missed one honorable mention 🙈

amanda said something that I couldn't find quickly

[civic dock]

I think I missed that one, too. I'll go back through the VOD and see what it was.

Going back through the VOD, she mentioned a game called Stay Frosty that isn't on either of our lists. I think that's it.

Added to the news post. 👍

😌

[undone canopy]

Is there any new game jam

[gaunt copper]

If one then MegaJam

[civic dock]

Yeah most likely.

[frozen wharf]

If they do another winter jam we’ll take part in that

Nice to just sit and make a game for some of us

[civic dock]

That would probably make more sense as a new modifier award.

They could call it Made From Scratch or Homegrown.

100% organic artisanal locally-sourced game assets.

[small fern]

<100mb isnt really that hard

you just can't have huge assets

[civic dock]

@small fern That's not true as of 4.25.

[small fern]

more bloat?

[civic dock]

Even with all the tips in the documentation for reducing package size, in 4.25 it's very difficult to get below 100 MB, and if you do, you barely have any headroom to work with.

[small fern]

but you are not required to use latest UE for the jam

[civic dock]

Yeah. I need to investigate more where the bloat comes from, but it's significant. Nano doesn't get below 100 MB anymore as of 4.25, for example.

[small fern]

I've been between 50-60MB usually after stripping stuff

[civic dock]

I know, but it's unfortunate for those who want to use the latest features and compete for the Tiny Award.

[small fern]

I think I last did this with 4.23 or something

[civic dock]

One major blow is that 4.25 doesn't support 32-bit packaging.

So that reduces the lowest possible size quite a bit.

[small fern]

ah, well that would be one for sure

32-bit packaging has been pretty flaky always tho

[rigid fog]

Excellent work for those winners of the game jam, and everyone who submitted should be proud of themselves also.

[civic dock]

Quick comparison of the same build. 4.24 on the left, 4.25 on the right.

[rigid fog]

@civic dock Have you looked into what would be needed to gut out of the engine using a source build yet?

(to get it down to a reasonable size)

[civic dock]

No, I haven't worked with source builds yet.

And I think it would be unfortunate if the Tiny Award required source builds moving forward.

[small fern]

it takes a lot of effort to make source builds strip notable amount of MB's

just removing feats from build script doesn't give you big wins

[rigid fog]

@small fern you've tried?

[small fern]

I've done it in past, yes

[rigid fog]

I might get curious after this kickstarter

[civic dock]

I know some folks have made very tiny versions of the engine with source builds, but it takes good engineering knowledge, knowing how to safely turn off features you're not using, etc.

[rigid fog]

This last jam was an eye opener, I've been way too long out of the game

My game jam workflow is poop

[small fern]

well, you just turn everything off really

and then enable things that you needed to make the thing run 😄

[civic dock]

lol 😄

[small fern]

was this an issue?

it's been fun to see people streaming these trying them on VR, despite devs didn't actually make VR support 😄

[rigid fog]

I still don't understand why they don't disable them by default

[civic dock]

Yeah, I think it was mentioned on the stream.

[rigid fog]

I was told it was in the works...and then not

[civic dock]

@rigid fog It was very briefly configured to be off by default for Blueprint projects when the Project Wizard was in testing, but then it was changed for the stable version. Made me super sad. 😦

I think it was 4.24.

[rigid fog]

😭

[civic dock]

Correct me if I'm wrong. I remember using the new project wizard in the 4.24 preview builds and seeing the VR plugins disabled in the .uproject right away.

It really is annoying having to disable them. Then again, I need to make a new project template anyways. I change a bunch of stuff for every project.

[small fern]

which engine we had on megajam 2019?

I've done tiny base build for it

64bit build without any assets 31.9MB

2019?

it's gotta be 4.23 or newer, we don't havent that many engine releases per year

4.23 released 4th September 2019

so it's probably it

but anyway

I tried my old blacklisted setup on 4.25.1 and win64 build without any custom engine build

96mb

I haven't gone through new plugins for this though

or checked if there's something extra to strip from pak itself

one thing I wish UE5 will do better is to actually separate editor and runtime plugins

going through the plugin list is bit slow as you don't always know if it's something that is 100% editor side thing and will not affect your build size

I usually disable most of the plugins

but you really don't need to because half of them are editor side

it's kinda silly setup

I stripped some more plugins, I'm now at 89MB

hmmm, I had raytracing on that project, wonder if it adds up

[civic dock]

@small fern I'll have to poke you about your setup sometime. I still need to do more testing, but I was only able to get down to 115 MB with Nano.

Which was really disappointing.

[small fern]

it's basically just blacklist + most plugins out

[civic dock]

What do you blacklist?

The cinematic bloom kernel, I'm guessing.

That thing is 35 MB alone.

[small fern]

../../../Engine/Content/ArtTools/
../../../Engine/Content/EngineDebugMaterials/DebugEditorMaterial.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineDebugMaterials/DebugEditorMaterial.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineDebugMaterials/DebugMeshMaterial.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineDebugMaterials/DebugMeshMaterial.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineDebugMaterials/M_SimpleTranslucent.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineDebugMaterials/M_SimpleTranslucent.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/DefaultBloomKernel.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/DefaultBloomKernel.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/BlueNoise.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/BlueNoise.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/HairDefaultMaterial.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/HairDefaultMaterial.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/DefaultVirtualTextureMaterial.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/DefaultVirtualTextureMaterial.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/DefaultDeferredDecalMaterial.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/DefaultDeferredDecalMaterial.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/DefaultMaterial.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/DefaultMaterial.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/BaseFlattenMaterial.uexp
../../../Engine/Content/EngineMaterials/BaseFlattenMaterial.uasset
../../../Engine/Content/EngineSounds/
../../../Engine/Content/Functions/
../../../Engine/Content/Localization/
../../../Engine/Content/Maps/
../../../Engine/Content/MobileResources/
../../../Engine/Content/Slate/
../../../Engine/Content/Tutorial/```

this was done for 4.23 tho

there could be some extra savings on 4.25 but haven't checked yet

[civic dock]

Thanks for sharing! I'll have to play with it this weekend.

[small fern]

that still put 24.3 MB on pak

(using 4.25.1)

[civic dock]

Hm, looking at the plugins folder for 4.25, it looks like disabling every Experimental plugin would be pretty effective (and safe since they're all experimental).

Might look at that for the next version of Nano.

This doesn't necessarily translate to package size, but still: looks like low hanging fruit.

[small fern]

there's fairly simple way to strip some of the engine side things too if one is fine by recompiling the engine from scratch

you don't need to actually mod the engine sources at all

[civic dock]

I'm still aiming to keep Nano launcher-friendly.

[small fern]

just need put extra commands on your projects target.cs

can strip out speedtree, apex, cloth etc that way

oh, disabling raytracing did a lot

now my pak is only 8.5mb

[civic dock]

Interesting. But isn't raytracing off by default unless you say otherwise when creating a project?

[small fern]

total build 74mb

it is

but I planned to use it on megajam

[civic dock]

Ah.

[small fern]

anyway, 26mb could be enough for content already

with UPX exe compression, the whole empty project build will be 41 mb

I feel it's bit cheating but it was accepted in past so there's that

with upx, the 64bit exe goes from 53mb to 20mb

then you have 59mb for your content which is more than enough

that being said, upx compressed ue4 exe doesn't seem to run anymore 😄

it did work on 4.23

so, I guess the next step would be that source build so you can strip out engine modules you don't use

[twilit perch]

https://itch.io/jam/the-difficult-game-jam

[frozen wharf]

hope theres another unreal winterjam

[mystic spear]

https://youtu.be/cdc_g9oCIe0

[lime crane]

13.9k joined, thats crazy.

[marsh sail]

why Game Maker jam link on a Unreal discord ? 🤔

[gentle mesa]

Hey you are a developer right?

want to try our JUICY game jams?

Come and test your development skill!

💠 > Super Fun Game Jams
🖥️ > All engines are accepted
🛠️ > Learn more about the game pogrammation and game design!

Feel free to join!

📜 > https://itch.io/jam/fruity-gam-jams

[azure flicker]

@marsh sail because it's not a Game Maker engine jam, it's a Game Maker's Toolkit gamejam
you know the biggest gamejam on itch.io from the game journalist Mark Brown owner of the youtube game design channel also named Game Maker's Toolkit

[marsh sail]

Oh no idea just sounds weird and when I clicked the link it said about game maker app

[civic dock]

@marsh sail The free Game Maker Studio license in the description is just a promo code from the channel. As explained in the video, participants can use any engine.

[marsh sail]

yeah i saw, once i read through it earlier

forgot to delete my post

[civic dock]

OK. 👍

It's pretty wild how popular that jam is.

[marsh sail]

i don't have time for Jams atm

wish i did, but with the game so close to release, no time atm

[civic dock]

Same here. I won't have time, either. Close to publishing a new alpha build for my game, and have other projects to work on.

[marsh sail]

yeah sucks, i missed the last UE4 jam, and i like participating in them

[civic dock]

I was lucky enough to participate in the last one, but I didn't finish my submission.

[marsh sail]

that's a shame, last Jam i did was with Jambax last year (think the theme was Space Cats)

we finished, but forgot to actually write instructions on how to play 😄

also made it under 100MB

[strong glade]

I definitely wouldn’t do a 2 day game jam lol too xtreme for me, crazy how many participants though

[azure flicker]

that youtube channel is crazy popular among indie developers
and being free of any engine restriction makes it more accessible to a way wider audience than the UE4Jam has

[celest junco]

So guys I was wondering if some of u know if ue4 spring jam server will be running until the next jam?

Cuz it's still online (still accessible) so I don't know how long it's gonna last since usually they announce with a bit of antecedence when they will shut it down

I'm referring to the assembla one btw

[celest junco]

yeah but the jam is done and it's a been a while already

could be

but I think they could invest in repositories for us

They have budget and Unity has free repositories for us to use

So why Epic that has more money than Unity could not announce this investement...

Collab

the free version has three seats

If u want to go above 3 u'd have to pay

true, I'm thinking to do that

if u want this feature as well

u could help me too

more people, more noise

[cedar moon]

does anyone here have interest in teaming up for the GMTK jam? it's a bit late notice. I'm a somewhat experienced 3D artist who's done a handful of game jams before

you can find my portfolio at http://www.pieterpauwels.be

[dawn lily]

@tranquil matrix , i think you mentioned on the stream of the spring jam results that there will be a Houdini jam coming up, any details on that?

[proven tundra]

Hi, this is my submission for the GMTK game jam. Would be great if people could give it a play and give some feedback :)
https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2020/rate/696029

[glass fossil]

@proven tundra giving it a play now

[azure flicker]

@proven tundra looks interesting! I'll give it a look in a bit

also this is my own entry for the GMTK jam, an endless runner where you build the running track yourself, while running!
https://gmilh.itch.io/rickety-rockets

[analog pier]

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2020/rate/698938?fbclid=IwAR0co5BXypDNhgdg39CPiywwNFqEnQThZQXBQQJLfnc7XW1CUqIZKWYI9PE
here's our submission to the GMTK Jam 2020 :D
An FPS survival with retro kind of graphics and funny balls xD

[visual rover]

Hey guys here is small video sharing our experience on how we managed to win some cash and how you can do the same! 🙂 We used UE4 to make the game. Do check it out! Thanks 😄
https://youtu.be/PhNPK4szHPg

[sinful ocean]

Anyone plays apex legends over here

[storm blade]

So, any word on summer jam?

[tranquil matrix]

@storm blade There won't be a summer jam this year unfortunately, but, we're gearing up for the Epic Megajam

[loud basalt]

What happened to the swag from last mega jam btw

[civic dock]

If it didn't get to you before the pandemic, it's probably stuck at Epic's office unfortunately. 😦

[rigid fog]

@storm blade There won't be a summer jam this year unfortunately, but, we're gearing up for the Epic Megajam
@tranquil matrix ouch, that's sucks 😭 Is this going to be a new thing? Like monthly jams to quarterly to 1/3rdly (how would you say that anyway?)

Or is it just COVID-related?

[tranquil matrix]

@loud basalt Yup the T-shirts arrived the week of our WFH order.. they’re all neatly packed in our office :/

@rigid fog No plans like that, it’s just how we’re doing it this year with everything that’s going on

[loud basalt]

That's cool, hopefully America sorts itself out soon haha. Been covid free for a month or two here

I just got out of a one month stint in hospital and didn't keep up with the news.. had no idea it was that bad until just now

[solid abyss]

November (which I'm guessing is the Epic MegaJam) .. is pretty far away.. about 3 months at least

can't we have a Fall JAM this year instead of summer?

about September

if sponsors are an issue, then its possible to have a JAM without the prizes .. given the situation .. I think everyone would understand

you know how many gotta keep their brain muscles working .. and anxiety at bay

[gaunt copper]

MegaJam was the fall one and it's mosti mportent one :>

I not sure if be able to stream or perticipate as November is deadline on finish something that got invest in ^^' we will see how it goes

[dusty hollow]

ok I'm not sure where is the best place to ask. My club decided to organize a game jam and wish to find sponsors 😮 Who can I ask on epic game side 😮

[gaunt copper]

@dusty hollow you from japan?

[dusty hollow]

Nope. Now I'm here in Montreal Canada

[copper garden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS0bt_dRgQw please consider joining the game jam! 😄

[copper garden]

https://www.twitch.tv/davedoesgamess going live with day two of the astrum sense summer game jam 2020

[solid abyss]

@dusty hollow since you are in one of those cities which have a lot of studios .. I think its much better .. if you call in (look up their no in city directory or google) a few studios in Montreal.

[hoary trout]

anyone knows if there is going to be an Unreal Summer Jam ?

[void hull]

Anyone joining the houdini jam starting in 1 hour?

@hoary trout the next unreal jam will be probably mega jam in oct/nov

They mentioned that there will be one more jam this year

[hoary trout]

alright thanks

[loud basalt]

It's a wonder they can do any at all the way America is being ravaged by covid and riots. Though I don't live there so might be missing perspective

[marble flax]

@dusty hollow I remember when I was in college and leading our local IEEE, we had a robotics competition. I sent in a couple requests to some major companies and we ended getting some software that we could use as prizes. Companies are usually very happy to sponsor this kind of stuff. Very cheap advertising, reputation building, and usually a tax write off.

[loud basalt]

<@&213101288538374145> just pinging in case they don't have approval

[dusty hollow]

oh my bad, I never thought you can't advertise game jams 😓

[stray nest]

Anyone doing GBJam this weekend? I am hoping to get in on it.

[rigid fog]

@stray nest Who's hosting it?

[stray nest]

https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-8

[loud basalt]

@dusty hollow you can advertise game jams, just not your discord, #old-rules

[dusty hollow]

actually is our game jam discord

erm XD

[loud basalt]

Yes

[dusty hollow]

Is it ok if I post the itch.io page? 😮 And the page will contain the discord link

is that ok?

[hard egret]

I’m helping host my first week long itch.io game jam! I’ll be co-hosting again with SDC and we hope your experience will be out of this world 🌎 💫 https://itch.io/jam/voyager-jam

Would love it if y’all could come make something cool 🤓

[dusty hollow]

Hey Guys! I just want to advertise the gamejam organized by my team in Montreal 🙂 We got to invite professional in the industry from CyberConnect, Gearbox, Gameloft etc to livestream workshops for all of you 😄 The jam starts at 11th of September and the workshops has already started. We have recorded workshops for you to see as well! Join the game jam and form up with other team! 😄 We will welcome you there!
https://itch.io/jam/coco-jam
The discord link is in the jam pages 🙂 Remember to join it!

[loud basalt]

Did any other mega jam winners have their VAX license expire in < 3 months?

It said on the game jam page it was a 12 month license, and that was before they decided to upgrade every winner to a 12 month license

@tranquil matrix

I've emailed whole tomato but thought you should know in case something happened on your end, but its probably theirs

[tranquil matrix]

Ouch, yeah no nothing on my end - PM me with the email that your VAX account is tied to and I'll hit them up

[loud thicket]

Hey guys! I just wanted to send out this Game Jam link 😊 It starts on the 1st of October, any engine/coding choice is welcome! The rules are pretty slack, some cool prizes up for grabs! Anyone can participate and we can set you up with some teammates if you want! https://itch.io/jam/revolting-creations-halloweenjam

[gleaming linden]

I made a game in 7 HOURS!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1hKdUXV0Lw

[copper carbon]

A community-run adventure game jam is kicking off next week: https://itch.io/jam/senscapejam

[loud basalt]

@tranquil matrix Any luck? They haven't gotten back to me

[tame wren]

hey everyone! The $104 Adventure Game Challenge starts tomorrow. 2 weeks to make an adventure game for a $104 prize!

https://itch.io/jam/104-adventure-game-challenge

[maiden loom]

....$104?

[loud basalt]

Don't get it either

[tranquil matrix]

@loud basalt Hey sorry, not yet, but I have a call with them soon cough epic megajam plans

Should probably drop this here sooner rather than later: Save the dates 10/29-11/05 for the 2020 Epic MegaJam! Details will be made available sometime in October, but I wanted to let you know about the (99% for sure) dates

[loud basalt]

Ah I went through their normal support email just this morning and he replied right away saying he got my email but it slipped through the cracks and he'll get back to me shortly :)

And thanks for letting me know! Exciting

[zenith gust]

Very nice with a likely save the date, thanks!

[gaunt copper]

I be perticipating... not sure about streaming depending on situation might do it 2 weeks later

[tranquil matrix]

@zenith gust It's more than very likely, because it has to be those dates for my plans to come together 😄

[zenith gust]

Let's hope it all works out then 😄

[dreamy crest]

*might be unrelated to anything you write here guys

@glass fossil Wenn wie du sagst das RTS game ca. 1200 startet dann könnte dieses Video dir helfen den Fall und decline von Byzanz besser ins spiel einzubauen. Da dieses Video den Anfang eines der Größten Kettenreaktionen der Weltgeschichte zeigt (rly shitty one to be exact, but rly important) blabla und sonst könnte dir der Channel des Video Uploaders noch weitere nützliche Informationen liefern das RTS game zu verbessern bzw. historisch akkurater zu machen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QDdUXnFeZg

[glass fossil]

https://itch.io/jam/vimjam

[glass fossil]

https://i.gyazo.com/7d8c11edfcad78e661341f98ae8b2503.png

Game Jam: HackTheMidlands 5.0
HackTheMidlands is a UK-based hackathon I founded with a friend of mine back in 2015, due to COVID, we are going to be running remotely this year, and want to get GDN involved! We will be running a game jam track from October 22nd-25th.
To Join:
- :discord: Join our discord server at: https://discord.gg/hackthemidlands
- Sign up to the Itch.io page here: https://itch.io/jam/hackthemidlands-50-game-jam (hit Join Jam)

In case anyone from Britain wants to participate in this jam.

[hard egret]

Have you ever taken inspiration from a story-oriented game and wanted to make your own? We've got another week-long game jam coming up next month for you! Mark your calendars and register now 📚✨

Sign up here ✍️
https://bit.ly/stry-jam-01

[queen chasm]

hey guys, im kinda new to unreal engine... is there any UE gamejam exclusive. i would love to collab on a 3d game gamejam

[maiden loom]

there are currently four Epic-hosted game jams per year, next on is likely in November

[queen chasm]

@maiden loom oh cool¡ thabks for answering. Do you know by any chance were i might be able to find a team for that one?

[maiden loom]

people will start making teams once it has been announced - there's a looking-for-group channel on this server

[queen chasm]

Ohh thats cool, thank you very much for responding

[void hull]

do we have to sign up for ludum dare?

does anybody know? or just submit?

[upper dirge]

Hi 😄 Any news for the next official Epic Mega Jam ? 🙂

[orchid mirage]

Just finished a Game Jam Today! Lemme know what you think about the game! Host multiplayer matches with your friends and have fun with up to 8 players! 😉 https://alex-dul.itch.io/the-mariachi-loco

The game literally can run on a potato. A lowend 2012 laptop ran it at 40+fps.

[azure flicker]

Should probably drop this here sooner rather than later: Save the dates 10/29-11/05 for the 2020 Epic MegaJam! Details will be made available sometime in October, but I wanted to let you know about the (99% for sure) dates

@upper dirge you could've literally just scrolled up a bit

[upper dirge]

Ooh perfect thank, sorry i had not see it 😉

[jolly hearth]

Just joined the Mega Game Jam and am looking forward to it 😄 who else is doing it????

[void hull]

Hi, does Ludum Dare have a size limit in GB for the game? Anyone knows?

[humble bear]

Hi, I hope its okay to post this here.
I'm hosting a game jam later this month (its my first time hosting!) and I think it'd be perfect for some folks here 😃 It's all about creating a spooky 2d game. Theres a $20 steam gift card in it for the winner! Please feel free to check it out, sign up and share. Thanks! https://itch.io/jam/spooky-2d-jam-2020

[void hull]

Anybody willing to test a crazy gam jam entry?

[supple hare]

Maybe off topic, but sometimes I get the urge to make something without using any game engine code at all.. this weekend's LD47 entry: https://nlaredo.github.io/games/prelude.html

i'm sure i would have had a much easier time doing it all in ue4

ie more time on gameplay and less time making my own physics and collisions...

[glass fossil]

When will be the next epic games game jam? Any info is welcome

[gaunt copper]

@glass fossil it not annouce yet formally but date been given 10/29-11/05

[glass fossil]

Thanks Shadowriver

[wintry osprey]

👍

[glass fossil]

👍

[subtle plaza]

Are there any fun Halloween themed jams coming up? I'd like to join in as a 3D guy

[glass fossil]

Hmm

depends on the theme

which im not sure

if you are talking about some gamejams (not officially from epic)

[subtle plaza]

Yea any jams

[glass fossil]

https://itch.io/jams

there are a bunch of game jams there

yeah,

just found it

[subtle plaza]

oh nice!

[glass fossil]

just found an gamejam

titled "SCREAM JAM 2020"

i think it will be spooooky

https://tenor.com/view/spooky-gif-6238034

[void hull]

any news from victor if the mega jam dates are confirmed? it is getting close.

[civic dock]

No confirmation yet on the dates.

[autumn abyss]

I'm looking for an animator that works with blender + Unreal engine 4 for a sequel to our game. This is for the Scream jam 2020.
https://youtu.be/y9V7cKS4ML4?t=939

[dark juniper]

Hi guys

Our new game coming soon on steam the releasing date on Christmas

https://youtu.be/w4wYm72uQ0E

[zenith pasture]

Are there any game jams that give like a weak or so to work?

week*

[mossy gorge]

Are there any game jams that give like a weak or so to work?
@zenith pasture The official Unreal engine ones do

[mortal bolt]

@autumn abyss were you able to find anyone?

[hard egret]

A Story Not Taken Jam starts in a matter of hours! (2pm PST) https://itch.io/jam/story-not-taken-jam-01

[indigo field]

Should probably drop this here sooner rather than later: Save the dates 10/29-11/05 for the 2020 Epic MegaJam! Details will be made available sometime in October, but I wanted to let you know about the (99% for sure) dates
@tranquil matrix can u confirm these dates yet? 👀

[tranquil matrix]

@indigo field I can only confirm that it's been postponed till beginning of December - Itch.io page will go live ~month prior. Had to work through some new things this time around!

[solid abyss]

Thanks Victor for letting us know the approx delay. It helps in controlling anxiety & planning things.

[mossy gorge]

Agreed, thanks for the update. One small point of feedback: I know these things are hard to plan, but in the future it would be great to get the dates a little earlier. Especially with a jam that lasts a week and is on an irregular schedule. With only a month in advance and not checking for it daily I tend to find out about them when it's already to late to clear my schedule 😦

(which let me to lurk here in the hope of finding out about them early enough to be able to join)

[tranquil matrix]

@mossy gorge That's precisely why it got postponed - We might have been able to pull it off at its original date, but the lead up time would've been very short. There are legal reasons why I can't spin up the itch.io page several months in advance, and that's why the goal is to at the very least announce it a month prior to the start date. There is a lot of complexity when a corporation provides thousands of dollars in prizes for a contest.

But I can tell you that if the jam doesn't happen at the beginning of December, I will eat my hat, live.

[mossy gorge]

Understandable, thanks for the updates here at least 🙂

But I can tell you that if the jam doesn't happen at the beginning of December, I will eat my hat, live.
@tranquil matrix I hope you are more lucky then me when saying such things...

[tranquil matrix]

I'm confident, and I'm excited to announce it 🙂

Oh I can tell you this! We've added Audio as one of the judging criteria

[mossy gorge]

Cool, you just made one of our team very happy 🙂

[zenith gust]

A months warning and a message in here should do well enough to get people going 🙂

[civic dock]

We've added Audio as one of the judging criteria
@tranquil matrix That is amazing! So happy to hear that.

[maiden loom]

criteria less dependent on simply graphics is definitely more welcome - the more rounded the better, IMHO a game is about a lot of different things!

but I also feel the theme and it's incorporation should also be fairly pivotal

I do hope under 100Mb is back as always too, since I assume this could well be the last UE4 jam and I don't expect it to be possible with UE5

[wary notch]

Oh I can tell you this! We've added Audio as one of the judging criteria
@tranquil matrix Hell yeah! Now - to find a team... 😄

[civic dock]

I do hope under 100Mb is back as always too, since I assume this could well be the last UE4 jam and I don't expect it to be possible with UE5
@maiden loom It’s already not possible with conventional means as of 4.25. At least I wasn’t able to do it. My template only works 4.24 and below.

[maiden loom]

there's nothing stopping you using 4.24

but it's still entirely doable for anyone using a source build

[civic dock]

Of course not, but it’s a bummer for folks who use the launcher (vast majority) and want to try the latest features.

[maiden loom]

sure, but that's a compromise

if you're under 100Mb, you're probably not using most of the latest features anyway 😅

[civic dock]

Fair point. In most cases you’re probably right.

But me, for example: I’d still love to use the non-beta Niagara, the latest audio features, and the latest Blueprint updates. All feasible for very small projects.

[maiden loom]

I cut Niagara and all of UE's audio features out on my side, to be fair

[civic dock]

Oh man. Those are basically my favorite parts of the engine lately!

[maiden loom]

takes a lot of work to get those binaries down to less than 20Mbs 😂

[civic dock]

I can imagine. That’s tiny!

Like you, I don’t expect UE5 to support the tiny award (unless they bump the minimum size), but it would be a pleasant surprise to be proven wrong.

[maiden loom]

I welcome the challenge, so long as it's reasonably possible

[civic dock]

Maybe they could add something similar to Unity’s Tiny Mode.

Yeah it’s definitely a fun challenge to see how much game you can fit in such a small amount of headroom.

[maiden loom]

the answer is a lot, it turns out - our last entry turned out to be only 40-something megabytes because we were far too conservative with textures etc

textures compress down a lot better than you might think once packaged

we were using DXT compression sizes to estimate our budget, but in reality they came out something like 30-40% of the size we expected

[civic dock]

That’s impressive. Sounds like you’ll be able to try something more ambitious in the Epic MegaJam.

[zenith gust]

20 mb binaries is indeed both impressive and I imagine a lot of work!

Wish it was more straightforward to disable stuff like physX+apex to save space, feels iffy to just delete them after building with them disabled

[maiden loom]

you can strip out the unused dlls as part of compilation, that's what we did

[zenith gust]

With any artstyle I can produce, outside of something generated in substance, I feel like I have plenty of space as a solo dev, usually fine with like 20-30mb of content

[maiden loom]

IIRC three of the dlls are removeable and one of them is totally redundant in a shipped project

[zenith gust]

Maybe I missed something last I tried to remove them when doing a source build, but I could safely delete them as they were not actually linked with those options

[maiden loom]

deleting is just as good, tbh

result is the same!

[zenith gust]

😄

How much of the engine source have you modified to get down to 20-ish?

If you were to guesstimate

[maiden loom]

not a huge amount, tbh

it's mostly just stripping things that aren't used

so mostly just build related files etc

[zenith gust]

Yeah, I looked at it briefly but my knowledge of the engine source is lacking, I only know the specific things I've needed to reference or modify during the years

I think if the category is back this time I'll focus on creating my assets in smart way instead, there's so many tricks to pull that way that are fun to play with ^^

[maiden loom]

yeah, you can do a lot more than you think

in the 2016 jam we did the entire game more or less using vertex colour

[zenith gust]

Any way to skip textures altogether is huge ye

Last time I didn't complete the jam, but started out with using only 3 different trim sheets for all my textures, worked out pretty well and ensured I didn't spend too much time on unique textures

[maiden loom]

yeah, sounds reasonable

[zenith gust]

Using a stylized look that avoids textures altogether is kinda nice in a time perspective too, saves a lot of hours

But I like having textures 😄

Audio being a category sounds nice! Really helps complete a game

I'll need to find a team or get training though 😄

[gaunt copper]

I hope it will be before Dec 19 (end date).... with that i might able to stream we will see :>

maybe with breaks

[loud basalt]

Doesn't adding Audio as a judging criteria make it harder for solo devs to win? 🤔 Lots of the better games that come out didn't focus on audio, it doesn't seem to be the most effective use of time in a jam (when you want a good game, not to win the jam)

I feel like the original judging criteria was also imbalanced without any real focus on theme connection

You can also judge the theme connection by thinking of it in terms of "how feasible would it have been to pre-make this game?" (not as an accusation, but as a way of thinking), if its so generic then the theme must therefore be largely irrelevant. This sounds really strict, but I'm not saying to apply it 100%

I think reducing team size to 3 would make it more fun for all involved as the majority of teams are smaller (wasn't half the last mega jam solo devs anyway?) and adding an extra judging category just makes it a lot harder for smaller teams, i.e teams without an audio person, and there probably aren't enough to go around 🤷‍♂️ (I have no real basis for this, feels like a likely outcome, would like to be proven wrong)

Most devs don't do their own audio

As far as I can tell, the majority comes from visuals and can only be trumped by exceptional gameplay, and theme just has to have the vaguest of presence and it can win the jam, it would be great to balance existing criteria better instead of adding more criteria

Of course that's just my observation from previous participations, I know Epic will have their own goals and I assume that revolves around the #1 winner having the best result possible - I guess

Hate to be blunt but, as objectively as possible and I do love Epic and those involved in the jams, I can't help but note that the most minor criteria is the least relevant in producing a good game which feels important to say because that criteria is the entire essence of the jam

Between the parties involved the considerations seem to revolve between enjoying the jam (and the theme becomes most important), winning prizes which goes hand in hand with the third, which is promoting unreal (where the theme becomes the least important)

Forgive me for being overly critical, I really do appreciate the effort put in and I only intend to be constructive

[subtle onyx]

when is Epic MegaJam????

[maiden loom]

TBD

early december, most likely

Hate to be blunt but, as objectively as possible and I do love Epic and those involved in the jams, I can't help but note that the most minor criteria is the least relevant in producing a good game which feels important to say because that criteria is the entire essence of the jam
@loud basalt Audio is a totally valid and important part of what constitutes a 'good game', though - so awarding a game points based on the quality of it's audio is not that outlandish.

The 'solo' prize category also exists for the reason that any solo jammer is obviously at a disadvantage compared to a team of 5, and it's not just audio they're disadvantaged by

[loud basalt]

Is it audio selection and application or generation? So long as it's not the latter then 🤷‍♂️

But given the rules of declaring premade assets it would suggest anyone without someone generating audio gets 0 in that category

And most devs, solo in particular, branch into art or programming (whichever they don't do) at least to make something functional, and isn't usually the case for audio

[maiden loom]

not making your own audio would count against you the same way not writing your own code or making your own assets would, seems totally fair to me]

[wary notch]

[...]and there probably aren't enough to go around 🤷‍♂️ (I have no real basis for this, feels like a likely outcome, would like to be proven wrong)
@loud basalt

ooh , its all good man, it aint that bad.

during my last game jam the participants list was OVERFLOWING with audio people, more composers than sound designers. i was afraid i couldnt find a team. but i got in early enough and was able to find a good team.

the world is changing. the market is changing. a game jam is also a way to test your own market value in terms of finding a team, planning & leading a project, "getting shit done". if one is at all interested in winning and gets a hint that audio is also a criteria, that does not mean that gameplay and graphics can suck and good audio will save the day. you can get a lot done with basic audio. and audio is just as big a part of a game as is graphics. everyone should knows this. good audio can save shitty graphics, shitty audio will ruin the best game. GAMEPLAY ITSELF however is king over them all.
but if one is looking for an audio guy and cant find one, that's usually because they are not looking hard enough. there are plenty.

im personally impressed by the last megaJams games that won, but imho there was some room for improvement here and there in the audio side of things. so i'm seriously curious and interested to join a team that is as highly driven as me to produce something worthy of a 1st to 3rd place and ill put all of my heart into this project, hopefully the team and i will push eachother this way and produce something EPIC. 🙂

[tranquil matrix]

But given the rules of declaring premade assets it would suggest anyone without someone generating audio gets 0 in that category
@loud basalt That isn't true - Just like a scene with premade assets could get points for lighting, audio implementation is also worth points

[steep needle]

hm, seems Crowdforge is gone for good? It was pretty good tool, I wonder what happened

[tranquil matrix]

@steep needle Yeah we have no idea :/

[steep needle]

F

[clear moth]

game jams when

[solid abyss]

👀 read above ..then

[dreamy wigeon]

@loud basalt lately the markets gotten to where the gameplay between any two games is often nearly identical, what will set it apart will be creative aspects, so visuals, cinematics/fx, audio, and so on

Personally I think audio should be judged more often, audio makes or breaks a game, I've seen tons of games with flat out amazing gameplay and mechanics, but completely fell flat on their face because of audio, one example would be horrible footstep sounds, a game can be amazing but if every step sounds like nails on a chalkboard you likely wont play it much

I think most likely they're trying to encourage good audio because of new gen consoles, the ps5 has a ton of focus on audio improvement

If one of the biggest gaming community influencers (sony) is willing to invest tons in improving audio to modern limits, and making it a driving selling point for their console, I'm willing to give it some focus

[gray granite]

https://itch.io/jam/the-web-monetization-challenge-2020 starts in 3 hours, any engine which can target HTML5 is allowed

[kind grove]

Looks like there is not a template for the Web Monetization for Unreal Engine. @gray granite

[unkempt finch]

https://itch.io/jam/unreal-marketplace-november-free-assets-jam

[novel lichen]

Top Down Game Jam

https://itch.io/jam/top-down-game-jam

[clear moth]

interesting one but nooone seems to be gathering a group :p

[undone shell]

hey guys and gals. I am having a super hard time trying to follow devsquad's UE4 tutorials cuz 1, its an older version, two, he goes way to fkn fast, and three, he messes up himself alot so i really am not learning crap from him. could someone suggest a video tutorial series that takes its time and describes things in depth for UE4? links would be much appreciated. youtube preferably

[steep needle]

have you tried https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/onlinelearning-courses? BTW your question doesn't fit there, it's channel for game jams, try #ue4-general @undone shell

[undone shell]

@steep needle my question fits wherever it will actually get answered. And they make that crap super hard to find anything useful on. Most of it is just articles about classes that had happened. Im looking for a decent youtube tutorial series that isnt that annoying british dude and isnt dev squad

[steep needle]

okay, I'm outta of this

[kind grove]

Anyone looking for group for the top down jam?

[clear moth]

hey why not

[kind grove]

Dm with anything you like doing. Sound, art or story.

[tranquil matrix]

heavy breathing

[tranquil matrix]

https://itch.io/jam/2020-epic-megajam

Let's go!!!

[vapid thistle]

Was it wrong of me for kinda wanting to see Victor eat his hat...?

[civic dock]

Who's gonna participate in the Epic MegaJam?

[tranquil matrix]

If you send me a cake that looks like I hat, I'll eat it live.

[nimble tendon]

Hey guys

can someone tell why the Megajam is not opne in some countries

I'm from Brazil and it says in the itch.io page that "The Contest is not open to individuals" in my country

[somber hazel]

weird, we even had winners from brazil in the past

[nimble tendon]

😦 that's sad

out of curiosity, can you tell which restrictions are that?

[civic dock]

Topic updated for the MegaJam. 🙂

Can't wait for this one.

[tranquil matrix]

@nimble tendon Unfortunately not, I'm not allowed to give legal "advice"

[nimble tendon]

i searched arround and found this

[wary notch]

yeyy! finally an official date! 🙂 awesome!

Who's gonna participate in the Epic MegaJam?
@civic dock 💯 !

[wet rivet]

holy cow this jam looks awesome, i can't wait!

i think this'll be my 8th Unreal Jam

[wary notch]

it will be my 2nd, i just got into jamming a few weeks ago, its addictive AF.

[upbeat helm]

are you going to enter solo, ponkkis?

I'm planning to join

[lime crane]

Nice, thats awesome.

so Victor does not need to eat a hat on stream. lol

[crystal dune]

regarding the upcoming epic jam, does using marketplace assets make someone not qualify as a solo dev?

that laptop prize for the solo dev category looks sweet

[crystal dune]

ah, ok, probably falls under this Sourced (non-original) assets are allowed but will not be reviewed and scored.

[dreamy wigeon]

How many judges on the judging panel?

[tight idol]

I'm from Brazil and it says in the itch.io page that "The Contest is not open to individuals" in my country
@nimble tendon Same. This is so frustrating.

[subtle onyx]

Is there a lot of solo developers????

[civic dock]

Not sure how many there are, but I tend to run solo in game jams.

[upbeat helm]

Can you contribute to a team, and also have a solo submission?

[kind grove]

A month to work on execution is not bad though.

game jam from 2020-12-04 to 2021-01-28

Submissions open from December 4th 2020 at 11:00 AM to December 11th 2020 at 11:00 AM

[steep needle]

oh wow, just noticed it's a month long jam. Last Megajam had one week duration IIRC

[dreamy wigeon]

I think you guys are reading it wrong

[tight idol]

It's still one week

[dreamy wigeon]

Contest period is 1 week

[kind grove]

I did not read it right the first time.

[kind grove]

So blueprints do not count as assets?

[steep needle]

ah, thanks for clarifying @dreamy wigeon I guess it's just a itch.io thing 🙂

[terse current]

Well I guess I'm out of this year's Megajam, my region is locked out.
I was looking forward to try out for the Hololens 2
Can we still get T-Shirts for the last Summer Jam, I miss those little swag crates?

[olive comet]

start making generic assets that go with any theme :p

[slate sail]

"GENRE BASH - For the game with the most original bash of 2 or more genres"

Is that for game genres. as in RTS, FPS, TPS ?

Or is that in "Post-apo, sci-fi, drama" ?

[maiden loom]

the former, I believe

genre =/= setting

[clear moth]

@kind grove welp, i send a friend request ot be able to send DMs 🙂

[royal pecan]

Quick announcement that the GDQ One Mechanic Game Jam is live, with the theme being "recycle"

You're given a number of free assets, you can use them or your own that you've made some time ago, and you have to make a game that uses only 1 mechanic

[maiden loom]

the heck does "only 1 mechanic" even mean?

[royal pecan]

https://itch.io/jam/omgjam8

[maiden loom]

yeah, that makes literally no sense

[royal pecan]

You have 66 hours from the time of this message to submit a game

Well, it's about minimalism

I actually have an idea for my mechanic

[tranquil matrix]

@upbeat helm Can you contribute to a team, and also have a solo submission? - No
@kind grove - So blueprints do not count as assets? - Blueprints counts as assets, anything premade is premade, doesn't matter what it is.
@slate sail Is that for game genres. as in RTS, FPS, TPS ? - Yes

[kind grove]

Thank you for the clarification.

[steep needle]

that was good question from Mattxor, I thought it was about game world genre

[kind grove]

It is going to be difficult for me to solo this. I am color blind. I wonder how my art will turn out.😋

[wet rivet]

@kind grove maybe this will help a bit? I think Unreal does have some help for colorblindness although that may be more for in-game stuff https://twitter.com/TimHobsonUE4/status/999293152921096192?s=20

Tim Hobson (@TimHobsonUE4)

For those developers who may be affected by color blindness, did you know #UE4 has options for you?

Take a look at the Editor Preferences under Appearance where you can adjust the Editor, Graphs, and Output Log.

Twitter · May 23, 2018, 2:17 PM

[kind grove]

It would be cool to make a color blind game with the colored dots that have numbers that color blind can not see. Then put the password for the door way on those. That way if your color blind you wont we able to open the door. Muwhahaha

[hybrid lintel]

As a color blind person I'm not sure if the word "cool" is what I would use

:P

But it could be interesting as an experimental project perhaps

[olive comet]

https://enchroma.com

[celest junco]

Guys can you please click on this video and hit the like button? It's about a game jam that I had participated on last week 😎 Thanks in advance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-PwpIdgLzs

[kind grove]

I need to try those glasses.

[kind grove]

This is my first jam so I am trying to get in the spirit. Would it be ok to start sketching ideas and writing down story ideas, sounds i might need or any other ideas I might have? Do you guys wait until the jam starts to do all that?

[hybrid lintel]

nothing says you can't do prep if you have some basic concepts in mind, but it might turn itself upside down once the theme is announced :D

[zenith gust]

@kind grove I'd advice practicing setting up projects, creating basic things like interactions, UI, pathing etc. The whole spirit of the thing is to have the ideas be based around the theme, and I think that usually yields the best result. But practicing the generic technical parts is wise

And stuff like packaging if you arent experienced like that

[kind grove]

ok that is what I will focus on then thank you!

Great! environment variable was not found for my Kinect sdk lmao

[zenith gust]

Haha, well thats a good reason to prepare and see what things might cost you time

[fading widget]

Make sure you know how to package etc

[misty steeple]

I see your a full life fan

[fading widget]

Always

[karmic fiber]

So why is the epic mega jam banned for italians?

[clear moth]

that's US sanctions against middle-east country i guess.

also why would quebec be banned but not the rest of canada?

[maiden loom]

So why is the epic mega jam banned for italians?
It'll be some law Italy has implemented preventing Italians from taking part

[carmine kindle]

Probably stuff related to covid and shipping prizes there being impossible.

[dreamy wigeon]

Yea, most the restrictions on who can participate seem to be related to the rewards

[glass fossil]

That is so sad. I won the summer jam as Italian some years ago...

[clear moth]

i mean, aren't prices of the jam like licence and shit anyway? i thought they were all dematerialized basically

[royal pecan]

Depending on the category, there's physical prizes too

An i7-10700K and a gaming laptop iirc

[clear moth]

Ah right, but i wouldn't have assumed those kind of items would be affected by corona impact on post offices

[upbeat helm]

They say how, but when would teams get access to Assembla? right before the jam starts?

or are we just waiting for that signup link to be unblocked/go live

[azure flicker]

@karmic fiber Italian law has some pretty annoying rules about contests:

• all required documentation to the Ministry of Economic Development via the "prema on line" system at least 15 days before the start date of the prize draw;
• choose the winners in the presence of the Official Responsible for the Protection of Public Faith
  I can imagine Epic did not want to take the bother

[dreamy wigeon]

On assets, it says you can list assets your using in the jam before the 7 days starts, unless I read that wrong. Do those assets get judged and scored as long as the jam team made them? Or is it only assets created during the jam period that get scored

[upbeat helm]

anyone have any idea when they open up assembla for everyone?

[lethal lagoon]

Does any one know what genre bash category means? Use kitbash assets?

[dreamy wigeon]

Genrebash from my understanding is how creatively you can take two or more game genres and mix them together

[lethal lagoon]

With neo city

[dreamy wigeon]

What about neo city?

[lethal lagoon]

You need to use it too or not

Kitbash3d's neo city

[dreamy wigeon]

I would assume not, that would be a theme not a genre

[lethal lagoon]

Right

[dreamy wigeon]

In the end I mean you could probably just too be safe if you wanted

[lethal lagoon]

Yyah

[dreamy wigeon]

I assume lots of people will be going pretty all out with all these sponsors and subscriptions from procedural content this year, although I'm sure not everyone will and there will likely be a top place team that doesn't use many pre made assets

[lethal lagoon]

Yeah

Are you allowed to use kitbash kits as they're pre-made?

[lethal lagoon]

So I won't get points for the buildings, but I might just impress kitbash!

[dreamy wigeon]

Lol pretty much

Use em for secondary stuff but try to make everything major yourself

[lethal lagoon]

Yesj

[dreamy wigeon]

I'm excited to see the submissions this year

They're going to probably blow the previous years out of the water. I think that's also why it's a 7 day jam

[lethal lagoon]

It's going to be great

[lethal lagoon]

Why doesn't the game jam start somewhere soon like 11th November instead of 4 december

[maiden loom]

to give people time to prepare if necessary

[tranquil matrix]

@upbeat helm Assembla will open up no later than two weeks prior

[upbeat helm]

cheers man

[kind grove]

I am so close to being prepared. I can not wait!

[loud basalt]

They're going to probably blow the previous years out of the water. I think that's also why it's a 7 day jam
@dreamy wigeon each jam has pretty consistently grown in participants and quality, always exciting to see the growth

[tranquil matrix]

@glass fossil MegaJam usually have about twice the participation from the other ones 🙂

[wary notch]

@glass fossil MegaJam usually have about twice the participation from the other ones 🙂
@tranquil matrix how many people do you even have to play all the games?

do you also let some games slide, if their presentation on itch.io is lacking?

just asking to make sure our game gets played, hehe. 🙂

[near ice]

You can watch some of the previous Jam videos where they explain a bit about the testing process.

[wary notch]

@near ice thanks for the input! i havent seen any of those actually, just the last winners stream of 2019. could you maybe point me into the right direction in terms of search engine keywords or maybe a link?

[slim tree]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_vD_WQTs3s this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnMzmY9iBw

[gaunt copper]

@dreamy wigeon MegaJam always was 7 days, megajam started as 1 year anniversary of first UE4 Jams that run every month back then

a one bigger jam every year :p

[dreamy wigeon]

Good to know

[gaunt copper]

I don't if i gonna stream entries this time (atleast after dealine)

i even question myself if i going ot participate, i got myself in to some VR stuff and got some projects on my sholders

move jam to December made things even harder for me now that i think about it ;p

[marsh oxide]

I wonder why there is no separate community votes/rates for the unreal jam games, smth similar to LD where if you made a game you can vote others and leave feedback, I think it could improve the connections through out the community

[maiden loom]

there are, on the itch.io pages

[marsh oxide]

last time I participated the rating system was disabled from what I remember, and there was no way to check the ratings or sort games by it

[nova oak]

last time I participated the rating system was disabled from what I remember, and there was no way to check the ratings or sort games by it
@marsh oxide ratings is just make fake voting, i think so

[azure flicker]

@marsh oxide personally I hugely dislike community votes and I am glad Epic does not allow them.

For starters when community votes are allowed it kinds becomes a popularity contest. People with lots of free time can go around exchanging votes for votes, while people more buys with jobs etc. have far less time to do so, which means it's not a fair competition.

Additionally when it comes to abstract themes, and UE4 Jams had a lot of those, there are generally a lot of participants cannot grasp any non literal interpretation of the theme. What I saw happening a few times in other jams, would be I make a game based on my abstract interpretation of the theme, then I'd keep getting comments like "yeah but where is X? the theme mentions X then why there is not a literal X in your game! no theme 2/10!", even if I go out of my way to write in game page how my game relates to my page. Oh and speaking of game page, people from the community never bother reading that, so I had to start including controls onboarding in my game jam games so people would not write comments that the did not know how to play, or that the game had limited mechanics, while the game page listed all controls for both keyboard and gamepad and all the mechanics they did not figure out on their own.
TL; DR: community voters often leave comments demonstrating they did not bother reading through your game page or try understanding your interpretation of the theme, so I'm glad judging is up to professionals behind closed doors instead.

[marsh oxide]

@azure flicker I am not saying that the community votes should impact anyhow the competition, I'm glad too that there are professionals behind closed doors that evaluate the projects. I just feel like those games are not played by the community and they don't get enough feedback. And I think feedback is important ... if other devs say "where is the theme in the game?" maybe your game does not present the theme clearly and it needs additional screens or cutscenes; if others don't get the controls from start maybe that control scheme should improve, and ofc you should know how to select the feedback, maybe not all feedback is constructive or maybe your team did not focus on controls but more on looks&feels. Exchanging feedback should bound the community a lot more imo. And making a game 'popular', I think, is also a good marketing practice :)
tl;dR: community rates shouldn't be part of the competition, the only gain from votes should be feedback and community engagement

[azure flicker]

@marsh oxide if you want feedback you ask for feedback. whenever I make a game jam project I want feedback on I always post it on the gamejam discord or on facebook groups about game dev, and as a result people check out my game and give feedback

when I participate in gamejams where you can rate each other games but there is no community votes based win category, what happens is almost no one bothers to vote, unless ones goes out of their way to ask people to play and vote for their game. You can still do the same even if it's just for feedback, and it yields the same result except in this case you are just asking people directly for their feedback with you actually want, and you are not forcing them to give you a score which is meaningless.

Again, this is just my personal opinion based on having done almost 30 gamejams on itch so far, when a jam has community ratings but no related category, there is very low engagement rates from the participants, and if you want feedback there are more effective and direct ways.

[novel lichen]

Top Down Game Jam https://itch.io/jam/top-down-game-jam Has Started

🙂

[solid abyss]

@tranquil matrix .. is there a guarantee that 4.26 stable would be released before the jam? I just saw preview 7. I'm wondering whether to stick with 4.25 or would teams get enough time with 4.26 (and all the new features added) .. compiling is my main concern.

Also, the first prize link .. leads to a page where customization is offered for that PC .. so its not clear what exact configuration one would get if they won the first prize

also .. I think its better to state 'Quebec (Canada)' here:

though I'm curious on one hand, why its excluded (given US-Canada relations) .. and also why Brazil/Italy are excluded

I really like how the rules are explained in multiple languages this time (I somehow didn't notice it there before (if its not new)) 🙂

[maiden loom]

though I'm curious on one hand, why its excluded (given US-Canada relations) .. and also why Brazil/Italy are excluded
@solid abyss local laws will prevent competitions for various reasons

[somber hazel]

I think the gamejam got delayed a week, because they want to release 4.26 before 👀 @solid abyss
But victor is not allowed to say that 😄

[azure flicker]

@somber hazel do you mean a month? when I read a week I rushed to the itch.io page fearing they pushed it again LOL

[maiden loom]

nah, it was originally slated to be the week before

but when announced it was a week later than expected

[dreamy wigeon]

So, 4.26 with the jam will be a thing? We get fancy new Niagara and chaos things to play with?

[civic dock]

Can't say for sure, but it seems likely.

[dreamy wigeon]

Why can't they just give jam participants a beta of unreal 5 to use and say "go crazy" 😔

End the year with a bang

[civic dock]

lol

Well UE5 preview is early next year. Hopefully we'll get a UE5 jam of some sort during the preview period. 🙂

[dreamy wigeon]

I mean I get that they want time to get chaos and Niagara more developed so they're great once put into unreal 5 and have much fewer bugs, and that they want to continue with all the performance optimizations through grouping assets so there's more performance room for lots of crazy performance hungry stuff, and with all the great leaps and bounds in cpu and gpu this year machines will start getting much more powerful, buuuut I kinda wanna jump into a beta of ue5 and blow up my cpu trying to break it doing as much crazy effects and AI as I can. Waiting for when someone makes a mage ai that summons giga cannons that shoot Niagara beam particles that turn into swarming vampiric bats on impact then home in on and swarm popcorn player characters and RIP em apart with chaos while a static mesh control rig chaos airship crashes into the ground and lifts a few tectonic plates

Lol you know it's gonna happen eventually

[civic dock]

That's why I'm so excited for the UE5 preview period. It's going to be so much fun seeing everyone poking around and pushing the limits, discovering what they can do with it.

Especially the first game jam that supports UE5. You know that's going to inspire some wild projects.

[dreamy wigeon]

XD

[solid abyss]

@maiden loom .. well one of my friends from 2 jams back (audio specialist) .. was from Italy.. I feel a bit sad about it
@somber hazel yeah, hoping to use the new features of 4.26. Hopefully 4.26 stable is released at least 1 week before jam starts.. to ample time for practice/tinkering

[wary notch]

@solid abyss just ... do it on 4.26. :p hehehehe, high risk, high reward!
what could go wrong? 🥳
btw BITCOIN just blew 16k. 😮 high risk, high reward.
#justJoking, do your thing.

[pure nacelle]

so ... can you make it in-time for GameJam with just Blueprint

[hybrid lintel]

What do you mean "in time"?

[nova oak]

i'm from VietNam, the MegaJam 2020 contest is open to my country ?

[civic dock]

Click the link in the channel topic and check the official rules.

There's a paragraph near the top of the page about which countries cannot participate.

[nova oak]

There's a paragraph near the top of the page about which countries cannot participate.
@civic dock I have read it, but want to confirm the contest is open to my small, poor, far away, underdeveloped country. :). thanks Epic evry much

[civic dock]

If it's not in the list of countries prohibited from participating, I assume you're good to go.

[pure nacelle]

@nova oak interesting, any games you made that I can play ?

[nova oak]

@nova oak interesting, any games you made that I can play ?
@pure nacelle i made with my partner from japan, he made animtions, i do all logic jobs : https://youtu.be/vHUv-hFHUT4. when all art jobs finished, i will upload it for free play

[pure nacelle]

All Blueprints or you programmed them all ? THis look good actually. Why free play since you can sell it once finished ? @nova oak

[pure nacelle]

@nova oak please check inbox, let’s leave this chat group clean 😄

[tranquil matrix]

@solid abyss No guarantee that 4.26 will be released prior to the jam - the game jams are important but a stable 4.26 release is more important

That basically means I can't tell you when full release will be 🤷‍♀️

NUC Specifications (will get them up on the Itch.io page as well):
16GB DDR4 Memory Pre-Installed x2
512GB M.2 SATA SSD Pre-Installed
Windows 10 Home
GeForce RTX 2060
1-yr Support Service

[somber hazel]

No guarantee [...}
https://giphy.com/gifs/ill-be-back-j6uK36y32LxQs

[solid abyss]

Thanks victor for clarifications, good to hear from you.

[fickle blaze]

I was looking at the tiny category and figured I'd try my hand at creating a minimal empty project but I'm hitting a wall. I managed to get the project down to 85.8 MB but that does not leave a lot of room for content. By far the largest file is the shipping executable at 55.5MB. Any tips?

[somber hazel]

Last time we tried, we couldn't even get under 100 mb, no idea what changed, but this looks pretty good 😮

[fickle blaze]

a big part was not including the redistributables in the package

[maiden loom]

when you want to get really small, you build from source and strip modules out

you can also cut dependencies on useless DLLs, like the PhysX debug DLL a packaged game doesn't even use

that doesn't look like a packaged game though, it looks like you've got other stuff mixed in there too?

[fickle blaze]

humm building from source is a good idea. I've disabled a bunch so far. Basically just doing research right now to see how small I can get it.

This is packaged. I just didn't use a pak file as that was larger than not using a pak file.

[maiden loom]

I've always used a pak file, it should (should) come out smaller

[fickle blaze]

I tried one then the other on this project and it was about 10mb larger

[zenith gust]

Hmm, that sounds a bit off, wonder what the cause is

85 MB on a 64bit project without source build is not bad though, compared to what results others have had with 64bit ones on the recent unreal versions

[fickle blaze]

oh this wasnt source I plan on getting it smaller

[short loom]

How does epic ensure that teams don’t start working on the game before the jam starts? Like what’s to stop people from starting now and submitting at the deadline?

[rigid fog]

Every package has embedded timestamp

They have a scalper, everyone who starts anytime earlier, they delete /s

But seriously, I mean, other than not knowing the theme? Nothing.

[near ice]

God, that sucks.

[rigid fog]

Sometimes you can tell, easily

Especially Day One submission projects that are clearly way too polished

[near ice]

They should require recordings in some form that they spot check.

[rigid fog]

But uh, IIRC, there have been plenty of controversial winners in the past

timestamp on PCs can be faked

[near ice]

Yeah, but it would prove that they did it in the right amount of time, at the very least.

[rigid fog]

anyway, it's not something to be worried about, but if you ever see anything suspect, report it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[near ice]

For sure. Thanks for the answers. I'm a Solo and have ZERO chance at the 1st, and very-very-very little chance at the Army of One. Just doing it for the portfolio and the learning opportunity.

[rigid fog]

Plenty of solos have won a top finalist spot, so don't count yourself out

[fickle blaze]

Agreed. as a solo developer myself I'm just doing some research into things that can be done for smaller project sizes right now. I'm actually learning a lot about the engines target files that will help with this. Not starting the project yet but seeing what can be done ahead of time to take some of the guess work out of it. I'd rather Jam time be more development than research.

[near ice]

^^^ Exactly. I'm just building some different types of games to polish my from-scratch mechanic work so I can hit the ground running.

I probably won't even touch my computer on the start day. That time is for a pen, a notebook and some good whiskey. Just sketching and jotting.

[dreamy wigeon]

I thought the purpose of having Houdini as a trial before the jam, but it not being available during the jam between the 4th to the 11th as well as all the prebuilt assets, was to hash something out and start planning or at least getting a foundation to start from ready beforehand was the point?

How can a group include Houdini stuff during the jam while not building the Houdini stuff beforehand, if Houdini trial ends before the jam begins

They do also specify that things built before the jam can only be graded on implementation, not the asset itself

[solid abyss]

Since the prize for 'Army of One' is much better than the 'Team First Prize' for an 'individual' .. I think there would be many people going solo this time

I wish Nvidia or AMD would sponsor the Jam and offer a 3090 or 6900XT as a prize 😄

hint hint

I guess getting a mentorship ticket would be a good prize as well.. in future .. since many Senior Artist offer 'paid' mentorship through various platforms.. I think any game dev would love that as a secondary prize besides any hardware.

[azure flicker]

@solid abyss I suggest you re-read the specs. Before the NUC specs were announced I thought it was gonna be barebone, but with those specs it’s the same if not better:

• for the CPU 1st prize is an i9 while AoO is an i7. 1st prize is better hands down
• for RAM 1st prize is 2x16GB, AoO is 32GB, both DDR4. So it’s a tie
• for GPU 1st prize has a 2060 while AoO a 2070 Max Q. the 2070 Max Q is not a full 2070, and in benchmarks you can easily look up you’ll see it’s actually 1-2% points worse than the 2060.

The Army of One prize still has a few perks over the NUC: it’s UE4 branded, it’s portable, and since it’s a laptop it’s worth almost 50% more despite the similar if not inferior specs.
However if you’re deciding whether to go in a team or solo only based on what best prize you can aim for, you really should not make a decision so hastily also because realistically speaking if you remember the Spring Jam a LOT of people will probably go solo again.

[solid abyss]

well in terms of CPU, the difference is not that large, and same goes for 2070 MaxQ vs 2060. It all comes down to the form factor imho (where laptop > NUC) and how not to mention a Samsung SSD > Intel SSD (hands down) ..while having a screen (I reckon its a full sRGB screen), and yeah as you said the UE4 branding is a nice touch to it as well.

Market value wise : Laptop's value is about 100-300$ more than the NUC

Well in any case .. thanks again to team Epic for arranging such nice prizes time and again 🙂 . Its also worth thanking the competition for not making them easy to win. The good competition makes the prizes worth the every penny. Thank you UE4 community! Lets have a fun week 😉

[ocean sphinx]

I got 3 questions.
Has the theme been announced, what is the due date and can one person win in more than one category?

[fickle blaze]

No, It starts in 17 days and lasts a week, Yes
More info here:
https://itch.io/jam/2020-epic-megajam

[tranquil matrix]

@dreamy wigeon The dates are old - they will be updated. The license will last throughout the jam.

@ocean sphinx The theme gets announced during the kickoff livestream on December 4th

[azure flicker]

@solid abyss just realised I wrote "it's worth almost 50%" instead of "it's worth almost 50% more".
I had looked up how much both were worth, and I meant to say was that the laptop0s worth is 1.5 times the NUC's.
But yeah my point was both prizes should be in similar tiers performance wise in my opinion. Difference wuld boil down to actual market values and pros v cons in a laptop over a mini desktop (e.g.: easier to transport around, but harder to upgrade, etc.)

[near ice]

My wife is a digital artist. If she makes some art for my game, and I disclose it in my submission as made by someone else, could I still be considered a solo?

The fact that it will custom made is the only difference.

Made for my game specifically as opposed to found on the marketplace.

[azure flicker]

@near ice I think it is more, if you state it's made by someone outside the team... the judges will look at it as if the art was not there.

A scene with environment art from the marketplace could get points for lighting and composition, but the pre-made assets wouldn't. - from the jam page
So I'm pretty sure you can if you want, but it would count less than if you did your own placeholdery art.

[oblique cobalt]

Is it me, or you can't make a p4 repository with Assembla? There is literally no button to add a p4 repo, only git and SVN

[rigid fog]

My wife is a digital artist. If she makes some art for my game, and I disclose it in my submission as made by someone else, could I still be considered a solo?
@near ice This to me wouldn't sound like a solo project. You are asking someone else to create something specifically for that project. That'd be like me asking my whole work team to create assets for me that whole week, and then submit as a solo project, just because only my name was there.

But @tranquil matrix can confirm or deny that

[tranquil matrix]

It goes against the spirit of game jams and doesn't make any sense since you wouldn't get scores for them. Don't make plans based on the prizes, make plans based on how you can accomplish something great instead. Shouldn't your wife get credit for what she worked on? Be a member of the team?

[near ice]

It’ll be very little work for her, but I see your point. Thanks!

[maiden loom]

Made for my game specifically as opposed to found on the marketplace.
@near ice - I mean, if it's made specifically for the game, during the jam, then you have a two man team?

ah, Victor already cleared it up, Discord didn't scroll down 😅

[ocean sphinx]

Awesome, thanks y'all

[wicked crater]

I agree with Victor, wouldn’t you want someone so close to you and your best friend being given the credit they deserve? I’d look at it more like “wow my wife wants to do this with me? Awesome! I want to show her name off as much as I want to show mine off 🤗”. Hype the other up instead of keeping them in the shadows to show it off as solo

[solid abyss]

The victory is sweet only if you win fair and square .. the sense of achievement you get out of it is priceless !

[subtle onyx]

3 weeks to go before MegaJam starts