It's pretty obvious to everyone that it's not working and needs tweaking. I just want to let you all know that we know too, and we're working on it. There will be a tweak coming today. It sucks that we're having to move the goal posts at this stage.. but we all knew we would have to at some point. Sorry to everyone that worked hard and feel like it's not being appreciated. This is all fixable, it's an iterative process. I want to iterate until we find a system that is feasible for us all going forward so the next 20 game jams will be easy and smooth sailing. Any ideas or suggestions please feel free to post them here.

" Why isn't SClash winning?" - your game isn't growing naturally thats it. A lot of people find this unfair.

This isn’t a competition of games, but a competition in popularity) It seems to me that the very essence of GameJem is getting somewhat lost in the current format. It isn’t necessarily the most interesting or highest-quality game that wins, but the one that has managed to attract the most people to vote — through advertising, its audience, friends, and so on. As a result, the development of the game itself becomes just one part of the competition, whilst promotion and the number of votes secured can carry far greater weight. It would be more interesting if the winners were determined, at least in part, by the jury’s assessments or by several separate criteria: gameplay, originality, visuals, adherence to the theme, and so on. Then it would truly be more like a competition of games, rather than a competition of audiences.

I want to understand what happened with SClash I'm writing this as the developer of SClash and as someone who genuinely wants s&box to grow. I'm not writing this because I think my game has to win, and I'm not trying to attack the other developers in this Jam. I genuinely want to understand the decisions that were made here, because I've put a lot of my own time, money and effort into both SClash and bringing new people to s&box. SClash: https://sbox.game/namicry/ one_more_round/ To begin with, I completely understand why Facepunch wants to prevent using bots, alt accounts, automated nominations and buying or manipulating votes. Nobody wants Game Jam' results to be affected by fake accounts. What's beyond me is why the answer is to heavily reduce the value of legitimate new users simply because they're new. s&box is already a fairly small ecosystem. A lot of people outside this community either don't know what it is or haven't had a reason to try it. As for me, a Game Jam is exactly the kind of event that should change that. It gives developers a reason to make something new, and it gives us a reason to go outside the existing community and bring new people in. That's what I did with SClash. Our team spent more than $2,000 of our own money promoting the project through TikTok, YouTube, Reels, Telegram, VK, communities, giveaways and streamers. We managed to bring more than 100 real people to s&box. These weren't bots or automated accounts. They were actual people who installed the platform, launched games and started looking around. And this is something I think is being missed in this discussion: those people didn't exist only for SClash. A lot of them tried other Game Jam entries too. They looked at other projects and nominated games they genuinely liked. If another developer here made a great game, then the people I brought to s&box could become their players as well. The traffic I bring doesn't stop existing the moment somebody closes SClash. I also want to be completely transparent about one thing because I don't want anyone twisting this into "he bought votes." In some cases I personally covered access to s&box for people who wanted to try it. I did not pay them to vote for SClash, and voting for SClash was never a condition. I paid to get real people onto the platform. What they played and what they nominated after that was up to them. That's why the new weighting feels backwards to me. If somebody sees an advertisement for a Game Jam game, discovers s&box for the first time, gets access to it, actually launches the platform and plays several games, why should their opinion suddenly be worth almost nothing compared to somebody who has simply had an account for two years? I understand that account age can be one signal when looking for abuse, but it shouldn't be the main definition of whether a person is legitimate. You have much better information available: actual playtime, Steam history, session length, how many games someone played, whether they even launched a game before nominating it, and whether their activity looks automated or suspicious. A brand new player who actually uses the platform is not the same thing as an alt account created to cast one vote. I'm also not saying SClash is some perfect game that deserves first place. It isn't. I'm still a relatively new developer, and I know there are projects in this Jam that are more polished and technically stronger than mine. If a better game wins, that's completely fine with me. What bothers me is that we planned our promotion around the system that existed during the competition, spent real money and real time bringing an audience to s&box, and then right near the end the value of that audience changed. There is a second part of this that I really want an explanation for, and that's the AI Thumbnail situation. I've never hidden the fact that AI tools were used while making SClash. It's literally written in the game's description: "Some aspects of the game's mechanics and design were created with the help of AI." I put that there deliberately. The Game Jam rules themselves say that if generative AI is used for art or audio, it should be disclosed on the entry. So I disclosed AI usage instead of pretending it wasn't there. I also understand that Facepunch has a separate policy against AI-generated thumbnails. If my thumbnail breaks that policy, that's fine - tell me what specifically is wrong and I'll replace it. If there's an asset that breaks a rule, tell me which asset. I'm not asking to be treated differently from anyone else. I'm asking to be told what the actual problem is so I can fix it. What I don't understand is what happened during the nominations. SClash started gaining visibility and nominations, then it received the AI Thumbnail label, and now it is no longer present in the Game Jam entries list. I don't know whether those things are directly connected, and that's exactly what I want Facepunch to clarify. Was SClash removed from the Jam because of the thumbnail? If it was, which specific rule caused the removal? If the problem was simply an AI-generated thumbnail, why couldn't I be told to replace it while keeping the entry in the competition? And how is the same standard being applied across all 432 entries? Again, I'm not accusing the other 431 entries of cheating or doing anything wrong. That's not my point. My point is that AI-assisted development obviously isn't some unusual concept in 2026, and the rules themselves already acknowledge the existence of generative AI. I was open about using it. I only had roughly two weeks to build SClash after finding out about the Jam. Yes, I used AI to speed up parts of the process. I'm not ashamed to say that. But an AI didn't sit there for two weeks running this project by itself. Real people wrote and fixed things, tested the game, made decisions, pushed updates, talked to players, handled promotion and collected feedback. I'm also actively looking for stronger developers, designers and artists who can help improve the game after the Jam. That's another reason I wanted the project to get visibility in the first place. That's probably the biggest reason this whole situation is frustrating to me. We spent our own resources bringing people into s&box. The marketing started working. New people actually came. Then their nominations became worth much less because they were new, while at roughly the same time SClash received an AI Thumbnail label and disappeared from the Jam entries. I'm not saying there is some conspiracy behind that. I'm saying I want to understand what happened and why. I've already contacted Facepunch by email and provided the supporting material there. That includes receipts and advertising expenses, campaign materials, promotional videos, outreach materials and other evidence showing how we promoted SClash and where this audience came from. The marketing was real, the expenses were real, and the people we brought in were real. I would really appreciate a reply to my existing email thread, because I'd much rather have a clear explanation and understand how to resolve this than keep guessing on the forum. So, my question isn't "Why isn't SClash winning?" My question is why a Game Jam entry that successfully brings real new users to s&box should have those users valued dramatically less because they're new. And separately, I want to understand why SClash disappeared from the Game Jam entries after receiving the AI Thumbnail label, what exactly caused that decision, and what I was supposed to do to fix it. I genuinely think bringing new people to s&box should be a good thing. If another developer has a better game, some of the players I bring today may become their players tomorrow. They might stay on the platform, buy cosmetics, find more games, bring friends or even decide to build something themselves. That's not hurting the ecosystem.  That's how I thought we were supposed to grow it.

I just want to clarify: by "real, live audience," do you mean those guys who were spamming about some popular Russian streamer? Снимок экрана 2026-09-28 202950.png 73.79 KB Снимок экрана 2026-09-28 202954.png 61.82 KB And is *this* the game that caused all the fuss? Снимок экрана 2026-09-28 202936.png 1.54 MB Because if so, I have no further questions.

  I brought new users to the platform through advertising with streamers, channels, communities, and other promotional sources. If some of those users did not stay on the platform afterward, then that is an issue with the platform and the games available on it, not with me. I promoted both s&box and my own game. What happens after people arrive is not something I can control. I also clearly stated in my post that my game is not exceptionally polished because of the limited development time, but we are continuing to work on it and improve it. I also said that there are better games in the Jam, and I have no issue with that at all. I have no complaints or accusations toward the other developers. Screenshot_4.png 924.95 KB If you want to properly respond to my post, please read it carefully first. If necessary, read it a couple of times so you fully understand what I actually wrote. Then comment on it.

Dear Mr Newman, Facepunch, and the S&Box Community, These are my suggestions on what could've made the game jam better, and why. Voting doesn't start right away I liked seeing what people were making during this jam, and previous jams you saw nothing until the submission time. Having voting enabled before submission ended is a double edged sword though, especially when combined with voting early. Early submissions get votes early on, and if they are already at the top, they're more than likely to stay at the top. When there's 400+ submissions, i'm only looking at the top 50. The way i see it; If you want to incentivize early submissions at the cost of unbiased voting, keep early early voting. My personal opinion is that the early voting isn't worth it. Moderation Some games were worked on beforehand, this goes against the game jam rules. What if a submission lies about the use of generative AI, or perhaps uses stolen/copyrighted content. At what point is this submission punished? After they've won the game jam, or before voting? I think that a submission that breaks the rules should be disqualified before voting. Sidenote: Having a broad theme makes it harder to prevent using a project that was already in the works for the gamejam. For instance, I'm not 100% convinced Gamma Team was a new project, but there is no way of verifying this. Nominations to Judging I don't think the community should decide who wins the game jam. I think it should be a panel of judges. There could be creative ways of choosing this judging panel, but at the end of the day I think there should be a set of judges, who are all given a rubric/guidelines, and they determine the winner. It's impossible for these judges to play all the games. Instead I think the judges should only judge the top 50 nominated games. This creates a blend of community contribution with a (un-biased) panel of judges. If 50 games it too many for the judges to play, divide the games amongst them (with overlap), average the scores, reduce the pool size, repeat until you get to top 10 that all judges can play. Rubric I think it should be communicated how games should be evaluated, whether it's for judges or the community. I think the games should've been evaluated something like this: (Scored from 1-5): Originality- Does this game do something novel or have I played it 100 times before? Theme- Does this game adhere to the jam's theme? Does it do it in a novel/interesting way? Fun- Did I have fun playing this game? Replay (Optional, only if cared about) - How long am I going to play this game, does it have a future, or was it a 10 minute tech demo? Voting Power I thought voting power was too varied, and long time S&Boxers had too much sway. This fosters an environment of nepotism over meritocracy. Parting note There were a lot of really amazing games made. I think some of them didn't get the spotlight they deserved. This makes me sad.

@Justin That's good context on Garry's post ( https://sbox.game/f/general/13568/2/#post42 ) and I agree with a lot of the changes he mentioned. @Kivin Is that really the goal? Or is the goal to create a game jam system that works for everyone? What you said seems a bit defeatist. I don't think that running a game jam without human intervention is possible. What are going to do, build a smart contract and run it on the blockchain? Idea for an alternative to  a  panel of  judges; People who have accounts that meet some criteria (account age, hours played, etc.) can become a judge. They are given a "Judging Queue" (perhaps 10 games.) After they play all the games (or have enough playtime for that game), they are asked to judge each one. Either stack based or 0-5 on criteria. Ratings are aggregated and averaged. Do this over a few days/stages, refreshing the queue each day (or stage). Knocking out low ranking games each day. Perhaps let judges have more than one queue per day (or per stage) It requires more interaction from players, but I think this would be more fair. It removes the need for developers to "advertise" their game and prevents a popularity contest. Ideally you get fairness through randomization and sample size. Possible problems/mitigations; 1. Multiplayer games that require a full lobby could suffer, so instead of requiring playtime once the game enters a judging queue you could look at historical time instead. Also judges can play with non-judges. 2. A game could not get enough judges actually playing it. So making sure that there is some minimum # of judgements for each game during each stage would be important. For instance Stage 1, all games must receive 10 judgements, so each game should have at least 20 judges initially assigned to it.

  I brought new users to the platform through advertising with streamers, channels, communities, and other promotional sources. If some of those users did not stay on the platform afterward, then that is an issue with the platform and the games available on it, not with me. I promoted both s&box and my own game. What happens after people arrive is not something I can control. I also clearly stated in my post that my game is not exceptionally polished because of the limited development time, but we are continuing to work on it and improve it. I also said that there are better games in the Jam, and I have no issue with that at all. I have no complaints or accusations toward the other developers. Screenshot_4.png 924.95 KB If you want to properly respond to my post, please read it carefully first. If necessary, read it a couple of times so you fully understand what I actually wrote. Then comment on it.

It is extremely obvious what you're doing dude lmao, who are you trying to fool? Anyways, a lot of the issues with this gamejam could have been fixed by having a actual theme instead of the most vague idea ever. October is coming up, why not have a horror game jam where people can't just slap a pumpkin on their idle clicker?