Gain Jam 2022 is LIVE!

Forum News
1

It’s finally time, ladies and gentlemen: the fifth annual Weight Gaming Gain Jam is upon us! Without further ado, the theme for this year’s Gain Jam we give to you is…

Greed_banner
Greed_banner2955×850 9.6 MB

Yes, it’s the close cousin and bedfellow of Gluttony: the sin of Greed! We want you to tap into those selfish desires to take all that you can, then grab even more! From rampant consumption and runaway appetites, to ruthless profiteering and corruption - however you approach this year’s Theme will be left down to your devious devices. As long as you’re thinking “greedy”, you’re on the right lines!

So loosen those belts, fat cats, and be prepared to take more than your fair share! Spare no one’s feelings as you leave nothing spare!

This year’s Theme should not preclude any particular game genres or skillsets from eligibly entering the contest, so for added challenge we have the following side objectives to the contest: Enter the Wildcards!

wildcard_banner
wildcard_banner1529×682 192 KB

Attempt and complete these challenges to boost your entry with supplementary points - along with the added bragging rights! These aren’t essential for winning, but if you can conceptualise a game that can use the wildcards then so much the better! A brief rundown of each:

  • New Game+: The finally revealed wildcard! Have a mechanic that allows progress to be carried over between playthroughs - whether it be a prestiging mechanic, unlocking new story/dialogue paths, new endings or something else entirely!

  • Progress Through Failure: Implement a mechanic(s) where you progress by failing - and we don’t just mean having juicy Bad End CGs!

  • Minions: Have subordinate NPCs that assist the player or the player can control.

Since this is the first Jam utilising the wildcards, we are excited to see what card + theme combinations will get conjured up!

Important! Remember that in order for any wildcard to count for scoring, to make sure you state the wildcard(s) used in-game! This can be done in text or by including the card images in your game. Check out our rules page on the wiki for more info!

Card image assets can be found here for those who wish to use them: Wildcard images.zip (427.9 KB)

Some final few reminders:

Firstly, that the #gain-jam:gain-jam-8-2022 section is now open!
To qualify for the contest, all submission entries must post a new topic thread there to qualify. Early posting is fine, however please only post when you have something ready to put up. This forum section is for submissions and discussion about the entries within their respective submission threads only.
Discussions or questions relating to the Jam itself should be posted either in #gain-jam:questions-help or raised in the Discord server.

Secondly, if you plan on posting your work on Twitter, tag it with #GainJam so you can show off that talent and greedily farm those likes and retweets! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

And with that we wish everyone the best of luck this year! With two weeks on the clock, let’s see what you can come up with!

26 Likes
2

Take it away, Shania! Shania Twain - Ka-Ching! (Official Music Video) (Red Version) - YouTube

4

I’ll be interested to see if anyone manages to incorporate all three of the wildcards, I can almost imagine what a game like that would be like.

4 Likes
5

I’m a little iffy on the wildcards chosen personally, but the main theme is great. I can definitely work with Greed in a Twine based game.

4 Likes
6

Wow what a theme! And the wildcards synergize quite well with it, I can already imagine quite a few possibilies! Good luck everybody I think this jam is going to be amazing

3 Likes
7

I’ll be seriously disappointed if this doesn’t result in “Fed Cells,” or maybe “Ful: the Gyro Slayer.”

1 Like
8

Very excited for the new Gain Jam! Though I did notice that NG+ and Progress Through Failure can actually be interpreted as being the same thing. If you did a Rogue Lite you would technically be doing both a new game plus and failing by progressing.

Adding examples of games or mechanics to differentiate those two might be helpful.

1 Like
9

There is a lot of overlap between both of them but they are not exactly the same. Its subtle but the main difference is in their wording. NG+, as the name suggests, is about being able to carry something over between playthroughs of a game. While progressing through failure is about having some sort of mechanic that progresses or advances a player when they reach a failure state.

While on the surface they look like they could be the same thing, there is subtle differences that make that assumption a trap. That being said it does not mean some one cant craft a single mechanic that does satisfy both cards due to their overlap though.

2 Likes
10

I figured that’s what you were going for which is why I really suggest adding some examples to more clearly define the differences between them. Would suck for creators to make mechanics they think work only to not actually be on the same page as the judges.

1 Like
11

Two points on that I’d like to make on that, echoing that of last year:

  1. There is no strictly defined “best” interpretation of each wildcard, and comes down to the strength of conviction in the creator’s work. if someone makes a strong enough argument that they satisfy a card and can convey that through the game then that can be a persuasive interpretation.

  2. If people have doubts, issues or enquiries of any sort we encourage people to discuss them with us and the community. The Discord server is a great for this purpose with the ease of dropping in. This is as much a community event as it is a contest so we would like to see all community members support one another so that people both have a good time and do the best that they can. If people don’t open up and ask things, they’re missing out.

2 Likes
12

I feel a good example of both is a good idea.

For NG+: I imagine it to being a kin to Driver: San Francisco. When you have completed the story for the first time, throughout the first playthrough you have unlocked and bought cars, abilities, garages. And in NG+ instead of taking them all away, you still have access to them, even though you are technically starting the game again. So you have access to powerful cars, you have all of the end game abilities, and the garages are still yours when you have started a NG+.

For Progress Through Failure: I imagine it to be like Noone’s Fatty Text Adventure, where if you lose all your health or get too fat, you wake up in a safe haven or safe place i.e. Their home, the hospital, and can still progress with that same character. Or, maybe even like, i believe it’s called, tavern of the spear… I think. Where if the enemy overwhelms you, you get a CG of the fail state, but you can still keep going with all of your skills and perks, you just have to lick your wounds and not start all over again. I imagine it’s not like Skyrim or Fallout where if you fail, you go to a previous checkpoint or save, it’s more that you can continue after the failure, not reverting back to a save to try again, it’s like it’s part of the story or adventure in itself, and not a complete, you have died, go back to your previous save and start again. It’s more, you have failed and lived to tell the tale, now get strong from it.

At least those are my interpretations from those special wildcard challenges, but people can interpret them differently and still be right, just as long as it can be justified, i guess.
I hope this helps you and anyone else who may be confused by them too, like I said, these are my interpretations of the wildcards, you may have different ones and still be correct.

2 Likes
13

Eh, I think the Progress Through Failure needs to be from a mechanical perspective as well, I’d consider what you described in Noone’s RPG to be more just a ‘second chance’.

If I had to come up with an example pertaining to weight games, say the player character becomes fed up with their weight and the consequences it brings, and resolves to try and get their life back on track, exercise plan and all. But it’s just so darn hard getting into shape, exercise just leaves you out of breath and diets just leave you so hungry and unfulfilled. One day their will finally breaks and they slip into their old habits even harder than before.

Though this could be hard to engineer into directly leading to outright failstates, the theme of a player’s pursuits backfiring on them falls into them I think.

Feel free to call me out if I’m misunderstanding the situation though

1 Like
14

Both interpretations are valid! :white_check_mark:

1 Like
15

I’m glad to hear, and figured the interpretations aren’t rigid, though I am confused as to how one would be persuasive about the interpretation. Will creators with more loose interpretations be asked to justify it? Or is the game itself the argument?

Also for the record I have spoken with some creators who have asked for clarification in the Discord to be met with responses along the lines of “maybe” and not real definite responses which is part of the reason I am here in the first place.

From where I’m sitting it seems like the decision has been to intentionally not elaborate out of what I assume to be a fear of influence or cheating, but I feel like at least being a bit more specific would be helpful.

But I also wish to underline that these statements are not an attack on the Gain Jam or any staff. I am very pleased with everything about the Gain Jam and also note that the total scoring of the wild cards will likely only impact the top five or so games.

1 Like
16

To clarify, I had meant presenting the strength of argument via the game itself.

Just a reminder to all that if there are questions or issues to raise about the Jam, including any concerning the Wildcards, to post in the appropriate channels: either in Questions, Help, & Info - Weight Gaming here or over on Discord.

We want to ensure that everyone is able to enjoy the Gain Jam to the fullest so if there are any questions please don’t be shy in asking us!

1 Like
17

I want to expand a bit on Alex’s answer and see if I can answer why we respond with “maybe” to most requests for clarification since I usually handle most of the inquiries as well as to why we have been so resistant to providing hard examples.

Now before I begin I think it is important for me to define that most devs that contact me directly are less looking for clarification and are instead looking for an answer to if X idea will work. While I do get a few that do ask for legitimate clarification, in the case outlined above, about 9 times out of 10 it is asking if an idea will work. With that established I can move onto the explanation.

The reason for us having to respond “maybe” to most devs asking that question is there is a difference between the concept and the implementation of the said concept. You see, a concept can comply with the theme/card on paper, but may have been implemented in such a way that it no longer lines up with the theme/card. This can happen to any concept, but is especially true for ideas that ride the line which tend to make up the majority of the questions we answer directly.

In short, since it is so highly dependent on how the idea is executed we can only reliably respond to questions like that with “no” or “maybe” with maybe meaning we see at least one possible way the idea could be implemented that would comply with the theme/card.

This is true to some extent. We are restricted in the type and detail of feedback we can give directly to devs in order to keep things fair. Due to this, we can only really explain things at a very high level, which is another reason we want to limit our influence.

It is really easy to unintentionally send a dev down a bad path since we are really limited on what we can say to them. This is not the only reason as to why we want to limit our influence but I will get a bit more into that in the next answer.

We understand this, but dont quite want to list specific examples as we don’t want to risk poisoning the well, per se.

The point of the cards is to encourage devs to push themselves as well as encourage lateral thinking. We feel if we where to provide some examples it would at best narrow what devs think they can do with the cards and at worst encourage devs to either copy or try to adapt the example in some manner.

Also, the wild cards are considered challenges end of the day and providing examples we feel would cheapen that fact.

The thing to keep in mind is there is no hard answer we are judging these cards by. We judge primarily on what is written on the card so as long as we feel the solution in question complies with the letter of the card the dev will still get points for it.

So in short the solution does not need to be correct, per se, but just “technically” correct.

4 Likes
18

Totally understandable, thanks for taking the time to explain!

2 Likes
20

And it’s over! Man, so many submissions close to the final hours. Good job to everybody who made it in time, I can’t wait to see what people have made.

Edit: Maybe it’s safe to close this topic now because of: Gain Jam 2022 has FINISHED!

1 Like