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We were 5 people who willingly took time out of our schedule to provide an opportunity to people looking to gain game design experience. At no point did we expect our first jam (which we didn't even advertise) to garner more than 2400 participants. We could have very easily cancelled the jam, but instead we dedicated 100s of hours EACH to providing feedback on games, answering tickets, paring teams together, and providing mentor support. 

The accusation that there was something nefarious was going on is absolutely absurd, especially given the fact that I can very clearly see judge feedback on your submission page, which means you received feedback before the jam period even ended. If you need help locating this feedback, we will be more than willing to help you. 

The poster of this feed also received feedback before the end of the voting period. If you do not like your feedback, or would like us to expand upon it, you've had over a month to let us know and we would have been more than happy to provide you additional feedback, as we have done for countless others. 

Hey team!

I'm so sorry for the late feedback! 

What a great game! You have some great polish here and should be very proud of what you've accomplished in such a short amount of time!

Some things to consider:

- The WebGL version is a BIT laggy. It didn't really have much of an effect on the game itself, but it made the music very static-y and broken.

- I loved the character interactions! You had some super solid narrative going on, and the conversations didn't distract from the gameplay at all (you'd be surprised how often this happens). 

- You have a nice build up in difficulty for each level. I would honestly suggest adding some different kinds of obstacles just to make the game that much better! Get creative with movement and physics.

Overall, very well done! You guys did a great job!

Hey team!

I'm so sorry for the late feedback! 

Some things to consider:

- Love the art! I would suggest adding a background and possibly some lighting to make the world feel more immersive, but for a short game jam, you guys did great! 

- You guys did a great job of creating mechanics for tethered characters. The only thing I would suggest would be making the "throw" key bind something other than the spacebar. 

- I love the idea of waking the grandpa up, but I don't know if it really added a lot to the game. Perhaps it would be cool if you could use the environment to wake him up as opposed to just clapping? There were a few times too where I would accidentally leave the backpack, and would constantly have to wake him up, so maybe implementing a cooldown system would be good too! 

- I think you guys have a pretty solid game here, but it would greatly benefit from some polish. There were a few times where the character would get stuck and the only way to continue would be restarting the level. It's great that you included that as an option, but I think most of the occasions where the player gets stuck were the result of level design issues (getting stuck didn't seem intentional). 

Overall, great job on your project! You did a fantastic job for a such a short period of time, and the tethering mechanic is really impressive!

Hey team!

I'm so sorry for the late feedback! 

Some things to consider:

- When working on a video game, I would never suggest requiring people to write down information outside of the game. A lot of people might miss this or just get frustrated and decide not to play. What happens if someone loses their notes?! I would suggest creating some sort of UI menu where clues go once you discover them. That way players can easily access their information from inside of the game. 

- I love the music and the voiceovers. I think they add a great ambience to the game. However, you have a lot of screens that are just jam-packed with information. The average video game player will only read about 8 words before losing interest, so I would highly suggest breaking up your narrative dumps into smaller pieces. Make it so people can scroll back and forth it you are concerned about players missing content, but definitely try and cut down on those massive black screens filled with text. 

- Going off of the last point, consider timing and viewer engagement as well. I let the audio scroll while I wrote the notes above, and the introductory voiceover was still going by the time I went back to the game. Cutting these narrative dumps would be very beneficial, but also consider how you are going to keep the player's attention. Maybe consider adding some cutscenes or some images of Dave and the town!

- I would never suggest using a pixel font in a game for accessibility reasons, but if you're going to do so, just make sure that everything is clearly legible!

- The game itself is pretty unpolished with little art or design. Consider adding some art and level design so that you can turn your game into a portfolio piece. 

Overall, great job on your completing the jam!

Hey Kikilo!

Art

- I love the tilemaps you made! They are very simple, but they align super well and there was obviously a lot of thought that went in to using the color palette. 

- I would have suggested going with a slightly larger sprite size so that things look a little more blended together, but seeing as it's a game jam, what you have is more than acceptable.

Mechanics

- I love the idea of the snow building, but I'm not entirely sure what the objective or gameplay looks like? Creating a well defined activity cycle would be very useful in this case. You mention an event creator and helping out the townsfolk with snow-related tasks. What does this look like? Are you searching for objects, completing minigames, answering questions, etc. What does the player interaction actually look like?

Environment

- Obviously this is relating to the game itself, but I would suggest thinking about how you can fill out the environment. Sound effects and animations would greatly add to the game, but you could even focus on environmental storytelling. You have some mountains, maybe there's a ski village near the town! The town roads don't connect to the sides of the map. How do people get in and out of the town? These small additions can help the game feel so much more polished without actually having to create a ton of content.  

Overall, great job on your project! You did a fantastic job for a one-person team, and you worked around the errors you came across. 

Hey seafood! Apologies for the lack of feedback. It looks like your game was flagged by itch.io as containing a virus, so our judges were unable to play it. 

Your game already has feedback! Can you please check under the jam submission page for a section called "Feedback". It won't be a regular comment.

Your game already has feedback! Can you please check under the jam submission page for a section called "Feedback". It won't be a regular comment.

Your game was suspected of having AI generated art and a link to a google drive which is against the rules of the jam and was therefore disqualified.

Your game already has feedback! Can you please check under the jam submission page for a section called "Feedback". It won't be a regular comment.

Your game already has feedback! Can you please check under the jam submission page for a section called "Feedback". It won't be a regular comment.

Thanks for submitting to the jam!

Sorry for the late reply, it's been a hectic week for us all! Overall, good job with your jam submission. Here are some things to think about:

- Overall I think the game could benefit from some simplified UI. The game instructions were hard to read with the transparent background, so I would definitely suggest just making that it's own screen. The connections page was difficult to follow, especially since some of the connection lines cut over or through words making them hard to read. Think about how you can simplify your UI screens and make everything more uniform. I would suggest making the name of the card apart of the actual image sprite so that you can account for space. 

- You have the beginning of a very solid research management game here. I would maybe consider adding more information to each of the building cards so people understand what they are and what's needed to build them. Not everyone is going to have prior knowledge of medieval villages, so having a brief description on each card would benefit your game greatly. I would also suggest just making the game two separate screens. Have your card page on a UI menu that you can pull up whenever you want, a la inventory style. 

- There is nothing currently stopping players from just spamming materials. I would suggest implementing some sort of block to prevent players from doing this. For example, only x amount of wood can be cut before the village gets tired and needs time to recuperate. It's a simple thing, but it will add to the strategy portion of your game greatly. 

Good job with your submission and good luck on your future endeavors. 

Please provide the link to your game so we can make sure you get feedback! There may have been an issue with your submission or it may have been unintentionally removed from our list. 

Sorry for the late reply, it's been a hectic week for us all! Regarding the pixel art of your game, overall I think you guys did a great job. My only suggestion would be to simplify your design a bit. The game has a very pixelated Minecraft feel currently, and I think it would benefit from a reduction in the amount of shades being used in each section. I've added some images to explain what I mean as I know that may not be the best way to describe what's going on. With pixel art, less is always more, so don't be afraid to just color block your design and then go through and add shading, texture, light, etc. where it's needed the most!

Can you send us the URL to your game? A few games were missed so it's possible yours is on the list. 

Hey team!

Unfortunately there is not .exe to open, so we are unable to provide feedback on your game. Please reupload with the correct build version so others can access your game!

Good job completing the jam!

Unfortunately I can't give too much feedback as there is no executable present in your downloadable files. 

Please make sure to reupload your files with the finished game so others can play it too!

Good job completing the jam!

Some things to consider:

- The UI could use a bit of work. Your dialogue blurbs were off center and often fell over top of the lined paper, so they were difficult to read. Not a huge issue, but fixing this would add to the polish to the game.  

- Your dance battle mechanics seem to be bugged. Hitting either WASD nor the arrow keys actually resulted in any increase in points. 

- Think about the user experience of the game. What do you want people to feel while playing the game? What is the objective? Right off the bat you're dance battles are too difficult. Difficulty is fine, but make sure that it is not counteracting the enjoyability of your game either. Start with some less difficult levels and build your way up if that it what you want to do, but always ease your players into the battle to start. 

Overall, good work team!

Good job completing the jam!

Some things to consider:

- Love the narrative and the worldbuilding you've created here! Your dialogue blurbs, art, and sound all work together really well to tell a story. 

- The biggest issue I think you have here is finding the perfect balance between difficulty and player satisfaction. I can foresee a lot of players becoming very frustrated by not being able to find the path, which is partly on the player, but as a game designer it is always something you have to think about. Look into how you could provide tips or assistance to players without ruining the aesthetic and narrative of the game. I can think of a few ways, but I from what you guys have created here, I have no doubt that you can too!

- There are a few minor grammar/punctuation mistakes in your dialogue blurbs. Nothing too big, but a short editing session never hurt anyone!

- Think about ways you can add variety to your levels that doesn't solely focus on level design. I saw in one of the comments that you thought about adding someone chasing you. This could definitely be an interesting mechanic, but make sure you're thinking about how such mechanics will impact gameplay. 

Overall, your gameplay was well executed and your narrative was entertaining! 

Good work team! I would definitely be interested to see how you progress with this game. 

Good job completing the jam and your first game!

Unfortunately your game has been quarantined by itch.io, so we will not be able to playtest it at this time. Please contact itch.io support so they can assist you with this issue! It is probably due to the fact that you have uploaded a .rar file instead of a compressed zip, so if you'd like, feel free to reupload your project with a zip file to see if that fixes the issue. 

Hey team! 

Unfortunately we were unable to open your game. Can you confirm what software you used to create your game and what system it was designed for?

Hey team! Unfortunately the game is unplayable in its' current version so we are unable to provide feedback. 

Resources will be uploaded to the jam page once the feedback period has ended! 

Due to the number of submissions, we have extended the feedback period to Wednesday, January 24th. Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to giving everyone feedback! 

This game was submitted by multiple people. Please confirm if this was made by a team, and if so, please credit them on the itch.io page before we provide feedback. 

Go ahead and update!

We will be sending links through submission feedback.

This week we will be providing feedback on everyone's games! On the 21st we will release some resources for those looking to get into the games industry, but for now, feel free to check out other people's games!

Given the amount of submissions, we probably will not have time to make a youtube video, but if we do we will make sure to post it on the jam page. The feedback period goes from Today to the 21st, so we will make sure all feedback is up before then. Thanks for participating!

Hey Tawasmoke, it doesn't look like your game was submitted to the jam properly. Please resubmit using this link and let us know if you have any issues: https://itch.io/jam/384549/add-game/2469939/9270338?token=q879Z6258i9q0lg6qb2pl5...

The link should be permanent, but we'll update it just to be sure! https://discord.gg/zu8fz6rV

You're right, it should probably be more comprehensive that just "AI Artwork" so we will also be including voice overs and writing in this. If somehow you and every other person submitting a game could come up with a way to prove that their AI artwork, voice overs, and writing was not trained using/based off of other people's work, then we will happily change the rules.

However, we are not here to argue the ethics of AI materials. We've made a decision we are comfortable with, and we will be sticking with it. 

The theme is "Building Connections". It is shown on the jam page under the section that says "THEME"