Challenges with S&box Game Engine : gvar/health_inspector/news/challenges-with-sbox-game-engine-4056007b

Also, it was disheartening to see entries that people had worked on for over a year. My friend and I worked on this project for over 150 hours during the Jam, but there is no way to compete with a game that was in development for over a year. We knew this was a possibility going into the jam, but it hurt a little seeing it come true.

I agree with this for sure. I think being able to use old projects is just completely against the spirit of a game jam IMO, it feels gross, and I haven't seen a single person outside of the Sbox discord happy about this. I don't care if facepunch will factor that in when judging or not, it's more or less the principle; It feels like shit to start fresh on a project just to see someone submit something from months or years prior, they get a massive head start.

I really wish the rules were a bit more tight, other game jams I've done with less on the line have a more strict ruleset and sure, some people cheat, but typically those people don't make it too far anyways.

The issue that comes up with this is how would facepunch enforce more rules (such as limiting team size/not using older projects)? For one, I think just having the rules in place is probably enough to stop the majority of people from breaking them.  The others could potentially be caught by the community, and reported to facepunch.

Or just don't worry about enforcing them until the final selection, then do due diligence on the ones that are looking like they'll win some prizes.


Currently with their rules, the "meta" would be to start on a project right now in prep for the next jam, since there's no reason not to give yourself a headstart and there's no hints at wanting themes or anything of the sort. I think that's just not fun, but I guess the jams aren't for us, its for facepunch to see what the engine can do and give people a reason to actually make things with it.

Thanks for the write up - some really good points here.
I think the way to prevent people working on their entry before the contest starts is is to declare a theme. This wasn't something I really wanted to do, but I think it's the only way to get around it.

Letting developers make money from their games is a priority. It's the thing we fucked up in Garry's Mod IMO.

One thing I found pretty disheartening as an artist is how many people relied entirely on AI to create assets. Luckily, these games were massively downvoted by the community. However, I think that a more "strict" rule about the use of AI, like in GMTK's Game Jam could help.*


Don't get me wrong, I know some people have limited options when it comes to creating assets for their games, because unlike Garry's Mod you cannot use other games models, sounds and textures and get away with it. 

It sure makes things harder, and the only solution is to either hire an artist or buy asset packs. But I don't think it should be a reason to let a soulless AI do all the job.

Not only this, but it degrades the quality of the content available on the platform, and gives me flashbacks of when the developer preview was released to the public and people made shitpost games to complain that this isn't Gmod 2.

Some people may argue that AI can have its place in the art department in the future, I'm still very skeptical about it but that's up for debate.



*To be fair, there is a rule about owning the rights to your assets, and I think I saw somewhere that you don't possess any rights on AI generated content, but I guess that depends on way too many factors and probably isn't true for all of them.

This feels reeeeeally close to our experience with s&box so far. I strongly agree on the Game Jam part. Even if big teams and older projects were allowed, I was really hoping that people would play fair and square.