Newbie4 wrote:
Are you going to have judges or a popular vote for the winners?
The contest will be judged by the participants as per itch.io :
"itch.io’s basic jam system is closely modeled after Ludum Dare, a popular 48/72 hour game jam. Jams have a starting and ending date. Games can be submitted to the jam any time between these two dates.
After the submission deadline passes the voting period commences up until the voting end date. During this period people who have entered into the jam are eligible to vote on the games.
After the voting end date passes, the results are calculated and everyone can see the how the games have been ranked."
This seems like a fairly standard way or running GamJams, but if the community would like to see something else, I think it could be accomodated.
Newbie4 wrote:
You could use their "Genre" as categories or make up your. There are so many that you could use: educational games, action games, puzzle games, 2 player games. You could do categories by age range (of player or programmer?). You could just give awards by best graphics, most exciting, ... I guess it depends on what your goals are and which would entice students to try it.
You could make it a theme contest: best alien game, then best shoot-it-up game, etc. You could do it by month - October would be a Halloween ( ghosts, goblins, etc), November would be turkeys, December would be Xmas, jean would be snow,...
For the first jam, I was thinking of just having the broad "genre" of any game created in LiveCode. My reasoning behind this, is that it would allow anybody who had perhaps been practicing/learning LC by making some games would be able to show-off what they've done without being limited by genre and theme. I would love if this event was popular enough to warrant a monthly competition, but my goal, I think, is to make this first one as accessible to anyone who may want to participate. After that we can see if there is enough involvement to make this a semi-regular thing.
Newbie4 wrote:
On one hand, I do not know if that website is a good place for it because livecode doesn't quite fit in. It can go on any one of the platforms or all of them (which one do you submit it for or go to the trouble of building it on all?) It can't compete graphic-wise with other languages that have 3D, physics engines, better graphic/movement engines, etc.
My main reasoning behind using itch.io is that they have a GameJam creation system in place, which makes it very easy to set up an event without worrying too much about designing the website or the hosting of submitted games. As far as what platforms to choose, I am thinking that the options should be open. (i.e. submit for your desired platform, or all platforms) Understandably if one should choose to submit for iOS only, for example, some people would not be able to test their game. One way around this would be to attach a copy of your stack with your submission. Submitting your stack(s) with your submission should be optional as some participants may not want to expose their code. I think that a good amount of participants will probably(possibly?) using the community edition, which would mean that they would probably be including source already. As far as competing with other languages, I don't see this as an issue, as the Jam will have it's own page and is a LiveCode only competition. I have seen quite a few games on Itch.io that could have been created in LiveCode.
Newbie4 wrote:On the other hand, that site is a good one for ideas, inspiration, exposure and a place to market your game without going thru the various (and difficult) developer's routes (applying, paying every year, submitting, getting approved, etc - Apple App Store and Google Play).
This is one of the main reasons I chose itch.io as I see it as a very easy way for indie LC developers to get their games to the public without all of the hurdles you mentioned.
Newbie4 wrote:
Maybe you could talk RunRev into sponsoring it and have it on their website. They could give a money prize or a token reward (special forum emblem, t-shirt, or just a mention in their "Game Hall of Fame"). That would be good marketing and publicity for them. Maybe have it an ongoing event, every month. They could use it to answer the questions - "What can you do with LiveCode?" and "What are some examples of LiveCode programs?" and showcase it's applicability as a language for students to use to learn programming.
Anyway, It's a great idea and you are off to a good start. Thanks for coming up with the idea and putting it up here.
While I think this is a great idea, I am hesitant to ask for ask RunRev for anything as I belive they are pretty busy now with all of the new goodies coming to LC this coming year. Perhaps someone who is in closer contact with our friends from Edinburgh could see how they feel about this...
In your e-mail you mentioned :
Newbie4 wrote: I would have recommended that it start a few weeks later because some schools do not start until the first of second week of September and that is fairly early into the term.
The dates are not set in stone yet, as the page has not gone live yet, if moving the dates back a little bit would mean more participation, I would be absolutely open to changing the dates.
Thanks for your input and support! I look forward to moving this event forward!
--Sefro
They have recently implemented a feature that allows anyone to host their own game jam, setting the rules and dates, etc. I was thinking about setting up a "LiveCode Game Jam" where the only rule is the game must be created with livecode. We can decide on which criteria to judge the submissions and all other details. I am curious if any of you would participate in such an event, and if so, what would you like to see from an LiveCode based game jam? 