Hey Garry, thanks for addressing this. Can I ask what the plan is for this game jam? I noticed everyone has more nominations than actual players right now... Not sure what that means.
Moving forward, I think the nomination system had good intentions but the execution wasn't great.
First off, nominations should have their own time bracket separate from the building time bracket. Not every dev is a devlogger or comfortable putting broken projects out there to get review bombed. Most of us have real jobs and asking people to add marketing, video editing and advertising to their plate for a game jam is ridiculous. Just making the game is a heavy burden on most people's schedules in the first place.
Secondly, the nominations system only has merit if there's a substantial player base.
Given the lack of players, I feel like there are 2 options: either, delay the jam for another week and do a free weekend (this will need to be advertised as well, and there will need to be botting protections of some kind), or scrap the nominations process altogether and introduce a panel of trusted judges to play each game and give each a fair review.
I also think that categorical voting makes sense too (Most replayable, best graphics, best story, etc). I understand you may not want to throw more money at that. In lieu of cash prizes, the games that win each category could get front page exposure on the Discover Games page for a month or two.
Other ancillary suggestions:
- The game jam page in the game needs to be filterable by tags and categories. I tried to play every multiplayer game last night with a friend and it was a struggle to figure out which games were part of the jam and also multiplayer. This is just one example of the potential frustration in finding an entry. Even when I knew exactly what I was looking for, I had to go search the name in "browse games" because the page is too busy and unworkable to locate anything in particular.
- The individual game description pages should have an icon indicating they're part of the jam and their nomination count should be visible there too.
Moving forward, I think the nomination system had good intentions but the execution wasn't great.
First off, nominations should have their own time bracket separate from the building time bracket. Not every dev is a devlogger or comfortable putting broken projects out there to get review bombed. Most of us have real jobs and asking people to add marketing, video editing and advertising to their plate for a game jam is ridiculous. Just making the game is a heavy burden on most people's schedules in the first place.
Secondly, the nominations system only has merit if there's a substantial player base.
Given the lack of players, I feel like there are 2 options: either, delay the jam for another week and do a free weekend (this will need to be advertised as well, and there will need to be botting protections of some kind), or scrap the nominations process altogether and introduce a panel of trusted judges to play each game and give each a fair review.
I also think that categorical voting makes sense too (Most replayable, best graphics, best story, etc). I understand you may not want to throw more money at that. In lieu of cash prizes, the games that win each category could get front page exposure on the Discover Games page for a month or two.
Other ancillary suggestions:
- The game jam page in the game needs to be filterable by tags and categories. I tried to play every multiplayer game last night with a friend and it was a struggle to figure out which games were part of the jam and also multiplayer. This is just one example of the potential frustration in finding an entry. Even when I knew exactly what I was looking for, I had to go search the name in "browse games" because the page is too busy and unworkable to locate anything in particular.
- The individual game description pages should have an icon indicating they're part of the jam and their nomination count should be visible there too.
