Howdy folks!
What a Gain Jam eh? Hopefully you’re all enjoying the feast of entries tirelessly provided by our participants for this year! You maniacs have pushed the limits from previous jams and have, like a gainer managing to squeeze in that extra cupcake, tipped the scales to make this our biggest jam to date with an eye-watering 46 entries! A massive round of applause to you all!
So while there are plenty of games to play, newbies and old vets alike may be wondering: what’s next? What happens with the judging and the prizes? I am pleased to announce that the judging will commence this weekend. Over the next coming weeks we should have the finallists announced and, in turn, the overall winners!
Now some of the more seasoned users here familiar with previous judging attempts will no doubt have further questions as to the judging particulars beyond that found in the Wiki. And so, to get ahead of any questions, speculation and potential misinformation based on previous jams, I thought it would be prudent as Lead Judge for this year’s contest to expand on some of the changes for this year as well as some of the reasons behind them.
Starting with the elephant in the room…
1. Scoring/Ranking.
Scores have been the biggest and most contentious issue for a lot of us and it’s not hard to see why. Previous scoring formats have been complicated, confusing and, I won’t mince words here, upsetting to some. It’s not enough to have had your efforts place you 39th out of 40th but here’s the breakdown of precisely how badly you fared, as deemed by your peers…
Game jams should be and have always meant to be a celebration of people’s creative efforts. If anyone hasn’t felt that way in the past then I can only apologise, on behalf of Weight Gaming, to any and all those affected. We’re trying to make things better.
And so we’re working out the reductive scoring elements for this year! No wooden spoons and hopefully less rancour! The key realisation was that for both participants and judges the only thing that mattered with respect to the contest itself was whether an entry made it through to the finals or not, and so we’re focusing on that this year.
Only the finalists for this year will be publicly announced.
You either made it onto the list, or you sadly didn’t. Commiserations! But what if I don’t make it onto the list? Do I not get anything out of this…?
2. A Focus on Feedback.
Instead of a focus on scores, we’re instead going to focus on feedback! We recognise not everyone is entering the jam in order to necessarily win. For some, the jam represents an opportunity to put yourself out there and try something new! Whether it be your first ever game or a radical new concept you’ve been putting off prototyping until now - the Jam welcomes all to try their hand at creating something.
In the past, such endeavours tended to suffer in the scores, with individual feedback only reserved for the finalists since feedback for all was something that we just didn’t have the capacity to deliver on prior.
With Individual feedback being something that remains highly requested by devs, this year we’re looking to provide exactly that. Each judge will be tasked to recognise the highlights of each entry they play, and to celebrate the small wins and successes found within each entry. Even if an entry didn’t quite make it through to the finals, recognition and credit should be given where due.
All entrants will have feedback provided by the judges, delivered by the Lead Judge within their submission page.
3. Judging Anonymity & the “Lead Judge” role.
In hindsight, this was straight up a mistake. Being overly transparent with who had scored what had led to volunteer judges being inadvertently thrown to the wolves when things went sour. To avoid that fate for our volunteer judges, who have kindly provided some of the time and effort in order to bring about this contest, we have decided to maintain a strict policy on maintain the anonymity of our judges. This rule is highighted in the Wiki but it bears repeating here:
Attempts to identify judges for the purposes of hounding and harassment will not be tolerated.
For participants this can mean disqualification from the contest; for users this can mean administrative action.
Instead, all questions and enquiries are to be directed to one of three channels:
- The Questions, Help, & Info board here in the forum.
- The Discord channel
- Contacting the Lead Judge (@AlexKay) either here or on Discord.
The Lead Judge effectively represents the judges as a whole so if you do have further questions about the process, please ask away!
And on that final note, in an effort to guide discourse through to the correct channels, if there are any follow points to raise with respect to this announcement, please can you direct them over to the Gain Jam: Rules and Scoring thread in the Questions, Help, & Info board.
So for now, enjoy the games! Post your feedback! Remember to like the entries you want to see potentially taking the Community Choice Prize! And stay turned for the next announcement… The Finalists!
Ciao for now!