Awful Summer Game Jam 2017 | It's the Facebook of Game Jams

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Awful Summer Game Jam 2017 | It's the Facebook of Game Jams

nolen: Apr 4, 2004; butts.

TodPunk posted:

There's a stream of the judges discussing top picks. At the end of that, judging write-ups on the site are released to their devs. All games at least get a full examination from their judge even if they're not a top pick to make it to deliberation about category winners, and sometimes we discuss some games with other judges to get further feedback well before this stream.

Neat! Is this schedule posted somewhere and am I just missing it on the site?

# ? Aug 8, 2017 23:14

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 04:36

Calipark: Feb 1, 2008; That's cool.

nolen posted:

Neat! Is this schedule posted somewhere and am I just missing it on the site?

There's no streaming schedule, we play it by ear going by the judge's schedules. Keep an eye on Twitter.

Currently we want to stream the judging stuff on Sunday.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 00:12

TodPunk: Feb 9, 2013; What do you mean, "TRON isn't a documentary?"

It's subject to change a bit as we sync up. We all have to be on a chat together at the same time with enough time to discuss everything, and then it gets cut up for the stream in some cohesive fashion (so when my dogs bark like maniacs because a kid let them out of their quiet room, that gets cut, etc).

I know we're doing that stream in the next days and this weekend we're planning on doing the stream, but it's subject to change for the moment. It will be announced on twitter and in-thread when we've got a final time, if that's helpful. Sorry it's not concrete.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 00:16

Afal: Sep 4, 2012; "Tubular! Catch you on the flip side!"

Got some more quick looks/comments on some games I've played:

D�M II: Heck on Earf - Really nice sprite work on this. Like all over the place. Also some great uses of screenshake and so on. This is an incredibly polished game. Having to reload manually gave the game a good amount of challenge. Really nice.

Headphone Hero - Cool little megaman clone. Platforming was a little frustrating at times, and the game would pretty quickly overwhelming with enemies all over the place. Pretty difficult to get through but the different enemies were cute.

SUPER MEGA 256-IN-1 - This not only started in full screen it also cut off a bunch of bits on each side because it wasn't scaled correctly for my screen and I couldn't change it. This meant that I couldn't play some games properly. From what I did play with though, was pretty goofy for the most part. I liked how each game was connected to each other, but how each bit correlated with each other felt a bit random. Enjoyed what was there though.

Super Gargle Blaster - I kind of misunderstood what was going on and though I was the big spaceship at first. I then realised that I was supposed to do an escort mission. I'm not sure if I'm right in saying this but I'm fairly sure I wasn't taking damage from things which is good because there's nothing more frustrating in an escort mission than having to manage your own health as well as someone elses. Game got a lot harder as I went along and it kind of felt like a big jump between difficulty from one level to the next. I did like getting to play around with the upgrades and trying the best configuration for each mission. Cool game.

Naked Bootleg - I too am also one of the "don't like sports" people but... wow this game hooked me. The game feels more like a "sports themed" puzzle game than an actual sports game which is cool. Has that problem I have with most puzzle games where if I get stuck on a level and I don't know the solution I give up. I played a good amount of levels though and there was some good progression and adding of extra mechanics as you go along.

Welcome Treasureman - Nice little NES rom. The player definitely needs some invincibility frames though because dying happened A Lot. Would be really cool if someone got it working on actual hardware.

Legs - I liked the style of this game. Like, I know the blockyness of the environment is probably closer to the side of "placeholder" rather than "final art" but felt very cohesive. I kind of feel as though the one level provided isn't really beginner friendly enough considering that there's some kind of manoeuvring things you have to learn by experimentation almost. I also love the quake/UT/Worms-esque death messages; a nice detail.

Overreach - The other smash bros game in this jam. This looked pretty good but that may have something to do with the models used which I'm guessing were modified rather than made from scratch? The controls on this were kind of painful for my hands on a keyboard (I had a controller on hand but it didn't seem to respond). The how to play screen said it was arrow keys but it was actually wasd? In fact I'm not sure if the keyboard controls were right because I felt like some of the keys weren't doing anything. The bot is also pretty brutal and I'm not sure if that's because I'm Bad At Video Games or whether it was actually rock solid. Some difficulty sliders would be helpful .

# ? Aug 9, 2017 01:23

Mo_Steel: Mar 7, 2008; Let's Clock Into The Sunset Together; Fun Shoe

I may have been consumed by the Wall of Shame this year, but there were a ton of great games out this go 'round. Kudos to anyone who completed a game, no matter how it turned out; landing the right mix of fun and challenge and art and theme can be difficult, but hopefully you enjoyed the experience.

Now then, I offered up a Bounty...

Mo_Steel posted:

Lastly, I will offer a Bounty: if you make the game I like the most I'll send you a key for a copy of a Humble Freedom Bundle (if you have a multi-person team, you all figure out how to split it I'm not your dad or anything):

That's a lot of stuff! Your game doesn't have to be the best, maybe it just makes me laugh or something, so anyone could theoretically win this prize! Pretend I am a fickle Greek god and submit a game in the hopes that I will smile upon you!

My pick is Bootlegs by Team Poot n Toot

This game is mechanically simple: you go right and avoid obstacles and see how far you get. For me though, it hit a real sweet spot between challenging and enjoyable. The jumping is forgiving enough that the obstacles never feel impassable, and you don't lose right away with a single mis-step like other harder but similar games (QWOP, Happy Wheels, etc.), but difficult enough that I wanted to replay it a number of times and see how far I could get. Add some objectives, daily challenges, leaderboards, different models and enemies / obstacles and I could easily see this as a fun mobile or indie game for sale. Stylistically, this game gave me a huge LocoRoco vibe. I caught myself almost immediately smiling at the character and the enemies.

I've sent nolen a PM with the key link for the bundle. Definitely stick with it if this interested you: build on this game, or if you have another idea you want to try I'd love to see you go for it.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 01:24

Dieting Hippo: Jan 5, 2006; THIS IS NOT A PROPER DIET FOR A HIPPO

https://twitter.com/dietinghippo/status/895075745659326465

# ? Aug 9, 2017 01:35

NuclearEagleFox!!!: Oct 7, 2011

Giggs posted:

Sherlock Holmes and the Three Mysteries
The fact that you went and made a patreon to support the premise of your game is some next-level poo poo. I can appreciate that.

Since text plays the heaviest role in your game I�m going to focus on it. Musgrave�s dialogue works pretty well, but Sherlock's could use some sort of indication of inflection on his part. Ellipses, or phonetic spellings or something to that effect might help convey how smarmy his character�s bullshit can be. Without something like this to make his statements more evocative, they tend to fall flat.

The flavour text around the game is mostly adequate but it feels a bit inconsistent. The bookshelf talking about how the books are empty is a good bit, but the first door is weird in a way that it hadn�t earned.

The main puzzle isn�t as clear as it needs to be. The oak tree can be talked to from 4 different locations, so when it talks about the elm, that�s 4 positions that could potentially be the correct one without being able to be certain. I started from one of the wrong positions and realized when I was stuck against the shed, so I arbitrarily moved upward, continued and accidentally hit the solution space. There�s also a typo that says the elm is to the left, when the oak is almost at the left border, but it�s obvious enough to be a typo.

For some reason the S key doesn�t work on the locations menu, and spacebar didn�t work inside the shed.

I couldn�t tell if there was anything previously given about the chests in the shed, but luckily I started going through all of them near the entrance so it didn�t take too long. If I hadn�t though, I don�t think I�d be able to convince myself to keep playing. You�ve got to be really careful when you design puzzles and riddles and such because there is such a wide breadth of possible thought processes out there and your own mind is so specific and singular. I had this experience recently when I made a big puzzle/riddle event thing for my D&D party even though I knew it might be bad. It ended with me having to spell it out for them almost literally.

I�m not saying to avoid puzzles or riddles in the future, but keeping in mind that there�s a pretty low probability something you write yourself can be solved by someone else and that you should always try to account for alternative solutions is invaluable.

The story is simple but intriguing enough for a Sherlock style mystery, though the ending could have been revealed with more pomp or flair.

I hope you�re not too annoyed by all my criticisms! First jams are the worst jams!

Thanks for taking a look and diving deep here, I assume you're the one that emailed? If so, you're the only one so far!

This is actually my fifth jam (SAGDC5 through 7 and an IRL jam InternetJanitor hosted). Anyway:

About the writing: I implemented the dialogue system early one, but didn't do any of the writing until the last few days when I was pressed for time and burnt out. I'll go back and look and see if I can make any improvements.
About the puzzle: I intended the steps to be counted from the base of the oak tree itself. I think I can edit the dialogue to make it more clear.
About the directional typo(s): Directions are something I struggle with lot, even IRL. I'll have the right idea in my head, but I'll just write or say something completely different. When I go through the dialogue, I'll do a second pass to make sure all the directions are correct.
About the missing controls: Hmm, not sure what happened there. Should be an easy fix though.
About the chests: The chest you're looking for is actually at the end of the step sequence given in the ritual (two steps south, one step east), the sequence is just spread across those two locations. But I'm not sure how I can fix that problem if it's too confusing or not signposted enough.
About the ending: I'm actually not sure which ending you mean, that of the mystery or the game. I could probably add a little more either way.
About the patreon and email: This is the part of the game (if you can say they're part of "the game") that I'm most proud of. It's one of those things I think could only really be done in a jam. Initially, they were just fluff, but then I decided to integrate them more fully, and I hope that's to the benefit of the game.

I really appreciate the time it took you to put this together, thanks!

NuclearEagleFox!!! fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Aug 9, 2017

# ? Aug 9, 2017 02:09

nolen: Apr 4, 2004; butts.

Mo_Steel posted:

I may have been consumed by the Wall of Shame this year, but there were a ton of great games out this go 'round. Kudos to anyone who completed a game, no matter how it turned out; landing the right mix of fun and challenge and art and theme can be difficult, but hopefully you enjoyed the experience.

Now then, I offered up a Bounty...

My pick is Bootlegs by Team Poot n Toot

This game is mechanically simple: you go right and avoid obstacles and see how far you get. For me though, it hit a real sweet spot between challenging and enjoyable. The jumping is forgiving enough that the obstacles never feel impassable, and you don't lose right away with a single mis-step like other harder but similar games (QWOP, Happy Wheels, etc.), but difficult enough that I wanted to replay it a number of times and see how far I could get. Add some objectives, daily challenges, leaderboards, different models and enemies / obstacles and I could easily see this as a fun mobile or indie game for sale. Stylistically, this game gave me a huge LocoRoco vibe. I caught myself almost immediately smiling at the character and the enemies.

I've sent nolen a PM with the key link for the bundle. Definitely stick with it if this interested you: build on this game, or if you have another idea you want to try I'd love to see you go for it.

Wow! I was totally not expecting this. I'll redeem the bundle when I'm home tonight! Thank you so much and I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed BOOTLEGS!

We will be expanding upon the game in the near future and hopefully releasing something on one of the many platforms out there

# ? Aug 9, 2017 02:16

Dieting Hippo: Jan 5, 2006; THIS IS NOT A PROPER DIET FOR A HIPPO

The first episode of Jamflix and Chill is up with EntranceJew, Giggs, TomR, and Xibanya! :toot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBQ-yutopn0

It'll be live again tomorrow at 6 PM PST, check it out on https://twitch.tv/dietinghippo about then.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 03:47

Giggs: Jan 4, 2013; mama huhu

NuclearEagleFox!!! posted:

This is actually my fifth jam (SAGDC5 through 7 and an IRL jam InternetJanitor hosted). Anyway:

Welp, that was stupid of me to assume, sorry about that. Unfortunately I was also not the one to email. I'm turning out to be a real dingus!

The chests being in a separate room cut them off in my mind from being a part of the same clue structure thing. With that in mind the prior part also makes more sense in retrospect.

I did mean the reveal of the mystery in reference to the ending, it was given all at once instead of being doled out piecemeal which could be used to build tension or allow clues to percolate in the player's mind. I'm glad to have helped at all.

Dieting Hippo posted:

The first episode of Jamflix and Chill is up with EntranceJew, Giggs, TomR, and Xibanya!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBQ-yutopn0

It'll be live again tomorrow at 6 PM PST, check it out on https://twitch.tv/dietinghippo about then.

This was fun and interesting to hear from EntranceJew and TomR, and Xibanya and Hippo are good hosts and are good at questions.

Giggs fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Aug 9, 2017

# ? Aug 9, 2017 03:48

Xibanya: Sep 17, 2012; Clever Betty

Dieting Hippo posted:

The first episode of Jamflix and Chill is up with EntranceJew, Giggs, TomR, and Xibanya!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBQ-yutopn0

It'll be live again tomorrow at 6 PM PST, check it out on https://twitch.tv/dietinghippo about then.

I'm so glad you kept in my fuckup where I dashed away from the computer to grab a beer :allears:

# ? Aug 9, 2017 03:51

NuclearEagleFox!!!: Oct 7, 2011

Giggs posted:

Unfortunately I was also not the one to email. I'm turning out to be a real dingus!

You're not. But it appears I/we have an actual :iiam:

on my/our hands.

edit: If you're interested, the email is set up to auto-reply and basically just tells you that Daniel (the translator) got cancer and died mid-translation. It also says to go to the mystery select screen and press 'end', which reveals the "true" end of the game.

NuclearEagleFox!!! fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Aug 9, 2017

# ? Aug 9, 2017 04:29

Giggs: Jan 4, 2013; mama huhu

NuclearEagleFox!!! posted:

You're not. But it appears I/we have an actual on my/our hands.

edit: If you're interested, the email is set up to auto-reply and basically just tells you that Daniel (the translator) got cancer and died mid-translation. It also says to go to the mystery select screen and press 'end', which reveals the "true" end of the game.

Huh. I had looked into the games resources and assumed there was just things cut out. That's unfortunate that it wasn't so obvious to send an email. I just assumed some level of fluff, like you mentioned. What a cool idea!

# ? Aug 9, 2017 04:39

NuclearEagleFox!!!: Oct 7, 2011

Giggs posted:

That's unfortunate that it wasn't so obvious to send an email.

Yeah, it's on my to-do list if I ever decide to update again.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 04:44

Hammer Bro.: Jul 7, 2007; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Two more quickies and now I've got to put the gummy worms away.

Sherlock Holmes and the Three Mysteries

https://vimeo.com/228917093

DUM II: Heck on Earf

https://vimeo.com/228917204

Even though they're sour.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 05:34

Myron: Jul 13, 2009

Giggs posted:

I've some more game thinks:

Bat-Man and the Sacred Stones
What a neat, enjoyable little package. This game is full of funny moments, it has varied enemies, good music selection and art. The web slinging mechanic is really tight and feels great. There are secret areas, or at least areas one wouldn�t think to go looking for hidden around the place. It�s so cool! Mashing up Batman, Spiderman and Superman is a great idea and fits the theme so well. The bosses are also well done, tight like early megaman bosses with patterns to learn. poo poo. So good. The only negative component to this game is the respawning on death during a boss fight. While I was fighting croc I was holding space and up, and died. When I respawned I pulled myself right into the spikes on the left side of the screen. This is a good game. Good job!

Nate405 posted:

Bat-Man:
I liked the traversal mechanics a lot. It was an engaging puzzle to figure out how to combine the web grappling hook with wall climbing to move around.
The web shooter gun and enemies felt a little tacked on and could be fleshed out more in some way.

Thanks for your feedback. Respawning is rough. I wanted to make some last minute changes, but then there were more pressing things to take care of first. I'm just glad it doesn't cause outright bugs, as far as I know. Nate405, I'm not sure what you mean by tacked on, but yeah, the enemies are very simplistic. The knife throwing punks ended up being far less dangerous than I intended and there's not as much variety as I wanted. With more time, I would have made a few enemies that can survive a few shots. As it is, I had to nerf the webshot thingy by limiting its range and only allowing one projectile on screen at a time.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 07:42

Ultigonio: Oct 26, 2012; Well now.

Giggs posted:

I had a bit of a buggy audio thing, where taking the long elevator (the one Jon wanted to try experimenting with that box during GS) cued a second song to play over top the song that was already playing.

Oh my! Thanks for the tip, I'll have to look into that. And thank you for the kind words!

Dieting Hippo posted:

The first episode of Jamflix and Chill is up with EntranceJew, Giggs, TomR, and Xibanya!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBQ-yutopn0

Oh, wow! I'm actually fairly impressed with how well you guys managed to keep the ball rolling with this stream (so to speak). Good stuff!

Ultigonio fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Aug 9, 2017

# ? Aug 9, 2017 10:46

Doom Goon: Sep 18, 2008

I'm four pages behind and who knows how many games! Here's some more impressions:

a cyberpunk goose posted:

Legs by Legged and Dangerous

Trailer is a must see. It's like a mix between Divekick, Smash Bros, and... I don't know... flinging yourself in the air. It's a shame it being multiplayer means it'll be overlooked because I had a lot of fun! Bonus points because I think this is the first multiplayer jam game I played which worked through LAN without a problem! I only got to play it with one other person, but I imagine it would be even more of a blast with three or four other people.

Keeping that in mind, there were some balance tweaks I'd suggest. I seemed to have a lot of luck towering way up/charging over an enemy because it was easier to fall and hit then to try to hit somebody above you and risk plummeting to water (if they ran I'd just wait and aim for the back). I was wondering if maybe a "pit" shield might help with that in someway (or some sort of pit immunity if you're from ground and mostly undamaged). Towards the end we seemed to gravitate towards ground combat partly because it was easier to punish the legs getting caught in the architecture probably (maybe some splash damage?). I was thinking about changes to the reticle (my coop partner complained it was "too small") but maybe even some limited aim assist/UI tells might be okay. Also, with just one other person is seemed really tiring to chase and try to punish errors (the jump becoming more and more limited helped, but not so much that I didn't need to put in a lot of risk and effort, or do perfect ledge guarding).

I asked my co-op partner what changes they wanted most and I got the answer, "It should use two mice." So there you go! Really fun, with a little work I'd imagine this is another game that would fit on the cheapo Steam party game side of things!

blastron posted:

PUNCH FIGHT 7: BOOT TO THE HEAD by TEAM PUNCH FIGHT

Neat little meta-puzzle game! Pretty funny, though I do kind of wish there were some real physics puzzles in it (or some crazier ramping). Loved the rover, though it did get stuck on walls all the time (and I got a respawn infinite boost glitch at the end so I had to play it twice) and some air control would've been nice even it was just turning. I enjoyed the music (maybe a bit repetitive during certain points?) and the art style was clean and very appealing. Oh, and it ran like a glove, which is the expression I typed so I'm using it. I liked it, maybe my favorite Team Punch Fight game (for clarification, I didn't get to play Missing Teeth and I think 6 wasn't submitted?)!

Harold Krell posted:

The Smash Boys vs. The Nerdy Boys by Team Krell!!!!

Funny little beat 'em up! The Battletoads hits were great but my favorite touch was the TMNT boss flashes. Also really liked the parallax effect on the sea. A good short and sweet one I'd recommend to goons!

NextTime000 posted:

Smash-em Randal by TeamTime000

I like the idea of this one, not just the corruption switching mechanic but the parkour part, too. Yeah there's a lot of problems (collision, camera, etc.) but it's a single-programmer mess just like I'd always hoped I'd make someday. Also, I've played plenty of low quality first games where the devs come back and become some of my favorite recurring ones. I hope you'll come back and hopefully you find it easier to find a team (sidenote: a little disappointed in goons in that part, although I think some gave suggestions which is cool) and congrats on dodging that Wall!

Hitlersaurus Christ posted:

SUPER MEGA 256-IN-1 by SEXY LOCAL TEAM IN YOUR AREA

Another classic in the Super Turbo Voynich Manuscript series. One day I'll stop getting SEXY LOCAL TEAM IN YOUR AREA and Beeconomic Advisors mixed up (for obeeious reasons). The humor is either gonna make you love it or hate it. While it was a bit stretched thin gameplay-wise (and sounds like it was rushed?) I had a lot of fun popping back and forth trying to figure out how to unlock things in other games. A lot of nice direction; who can hate Hogman or Game Ball? (a touch I particularly liked was letting the selecter stay on Happy Bear). Another goon-centric recommendation!

Shoehead posted:

D�M II: Heck on Earf by It's Shoehead's Team

Pretty nice Wild Guns clone. Shoehead once again does a game with really, really nice spritework! I had some difficulty with controls (for whatever reason it wouldn't detect my left stick on the PS4, and with no mouse lock full screen kept the cursor for the mouse) and it felt a bit slow and jerky (the Super Shotgun penalty of slow reloading with no roll seemed a bit much maybe? Perhaps it's gimmick could've been bullet slotting) but small potatoes for a complete-feeling game.

Wazzit posted:

Tamale Drive by Fun Sewer Level

This Cook, Serve, Delicious-like sim/management game has a really nice illustrative look. Feels pretty darn complete! Cute little world and the flow felt good. I do think I would've preferred it more if it was a bit quicker and required some more juggling. That said the fake cop car did get me which was a nice touch. Really does not feel anything close to a first game jam game at all! Nice job!

Tann posted:

Super Gargle Blaster by tann'gents

Neat little space shooter/tower defense with equippable slots that change your weapon behavior. Tense and pretty enjoyable. I got to the last level although I'm unsure if it was really unbeatable or not (I got through the line but couldn't stop bombs and generators). It's great messing around with the different slots and trying out some of the weapons. I wasn't too into the propulsion weapons as they seemed really hard to line up correctly or tell where they were aiming, and it did seem rather hard keeping up while shooting and dealing with blowback. An action-packed game compacted into a quick session, it's not too shabby!

Giggs posted:

Fast Forward Record Rewind by Giggs

Cute little stealth game. For programmer art and whatnot it was pretty charming! I wasn't too into the stealth mechanic (the time and retries thing kind of discourages searching for patterns/setting a plan and rewards brute forcing for speed) and I think the guards would've benefited from some pathing, but I'm always picky about stealth games. And they're hard to develop! I'm glad you tried one, though, always bonus points for stealth games. And overall I was pretty pleased with how the story and setting felt!

# ? Aug 9, 2017 11:19

Nate405: Oct 21, 2002

Myron posted:

Nate405, I'm not sure what you mean by tacked on, but yeah, the enemies are very simplistic. The knife throwing punks ended up being far less dangerous than I intended and there's not as much variety as I wanted. With more time, I would have made a few enemies that can survive a few shots. As it is, I had to nerf the webshot thingy by limiting its range and only allowing one projectile on screen at a time.

So, I just played again and I'm going to retract what I said before. I was responding to the first level where the only enemies were run back-and-forth guy and knife guy. Shooting enemies with web didn't seem to add much there because they didn't slow me down at all or really change how I had to approach any jumps. However, in later levels the ninjas and scientists were more of a consideration in how I went through the level. The boss fights were great too.

My first play session ended on the second level where you jump down into the sewer. I believe I climbed the tower, hit the invisible wall, ran back through the level to the left, then figured that must be all you had time to do. The previous hole I had encountered instantly killed you if you fell in it, so some indicator that this one was safe would help.

Overall, this was one of my favorites that I've played so far. I'll probably play through again later.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 13:24

Myron: Jul 13, 2009

Ah, I see, that makes sense. And yeah, the sewer entrance wasn't intuitive at all. I was pleasantly surprised that Hammer Bro and Jon figured that out as quickly as they did. (BTW, I'm sorry I'm only talking about my own game. I've played a few more, but they've all been reviewed a few times already and I have nothing new to add.)

# ? Aug 9, 2017 14:07

Giggs: Jan 4, 2013; mama huhu

Doom Goon posted:

Cute little stealth game. For programmer art and whatnot it was pretty charming! I wasn't too into the stealth mechanic (the time and retries thing kind of discourages searching for patterns/setting a plan and rewards brute forcing for speed) and I think the guards would've benefited from some pathing, but I'm always picky about stealth games. And they're hard to develop! I'm glad you tried one, though, always bonus points for stealth games. And overall I was pretty pleased with how the story and setting felt!

Thanks for playing and giving feedback! The stealth genre is made to be picked at, for sure, because it needs to feel right and if it doesn't it's frustrating or feels cheap. You can restart the level from the score screen to reset all the rankings and start that stage completely clean. I figured it'd be a way to allow for experimentation but it also kinda nullifies the significance of the ranking since you can retry endlessly without consequence.

Maybe it's an easter egg?

Yes. It's an easter egg.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 15:27

Wazzit: Jul 16, 2004; Who wants to play video games?

https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/8xx9aa/fair-use-strikes-back-in-this-nintendo-bashing-anti-copyright-brawler

Congrats on the feature, everyone in VEG BOY REPUBLIC.

# ? Aug 9, 2017 18:44

Typical: Mar 19, 2007

The Tamale game and the Rover game are gettign reviewed right now on Jamflix and Chill. get in here goons

https://www.twitch.tv/dietinghippo

# ? Aug 10, 2017 02:07

Dieting Hippo: Jan 5, 2006; THIS IS NOT A PROPER DIET FOR A HIPPO

The second episode of Jamflix and Chill is up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77IjUUasYis

# ? Aug 10, 2017 15:20

Xibanya: Sep 17, 2012; Clever Betty

Ultigonio's remarks on the sound design of Punch Fight's game were the highlight of the block. Everybody go watch it.

Tonight I get to talk about SimShine, and Mihai Zetta will join too (he did all the voices.) watch the thing at 8CST!

# ? Aug 10, 2017 22:47

Dieting Hippo: Jan 5, 2006; THIS IS NOT A PROPER DIET FOR A HIPPO

Jamflix and Chill going live in 15 minutes! https://www.twitch.tv/dietinghippo

Tonight is Xibanya/Mihai with SimShine and Harold Krell with The Smash Boys vs The Nerdy Boys. Check it!

# ? Aug 11, 2017 01:45

a cyberpunk goose: May 21, 2007

Jamflix and chill has sated my dark hunger, feel free to not change the gong format everybody, false alarm, this is great!!

# ? Aug 11, 2017 06:20

Doom Goon: Sep 18, 2008

Wow, I missed a ton of meta posts! Next time I'll have to think of a better solution then, er, not reading posts (until I catch up to them). Also, I was gonna try that papercraft thing and post a photo but my printer's DOA, sorry!

Also, here's the last group of impressions if you posted a "here's my game" post in the thread, followed by some posts that are more about the jam. If I missed you then post and I'll prioritize it.

Next I'm going to try to go through the submitted games that weren't posted here, but I'm less likely to promise anything.

Musical_Daredevil posted:

Crazy Smuggler by Another Thing Named Colbert

Crazy Taxi-like game about bootlegging. No misuse of the theme there! Immediately I was impressed with how well traffic generation worked and the amount of coverable area. And I liked the doofy car and atmosphere.

But I do think there were some significant mechanical and gameplay issues. For instance, cops were way too deadly and would often PIT me into an object where I couldn't move. The arrows and minimap was nice, but kind of useless without a distance indicator (no planning there!). The time limit seemed very strict (even more so factoring in how repairing worked) but also somehow 5 minutes seemed to produce a lot of uninteresting distance driving. There also seemed to be cleanup problems, as in later rounds any place with traffic was deadlocked and lampposts didn't despawn making many those areas essentially deathtraps. Oh, and similarly restarting didn't seem to work correctly at all (quitting out was the way to go). Finally, some object collision problems made bumps and curbs unreliable, sometimes flinging you and sometimes even when not it would take an extreme amount of health for barely anything.

But besides the negatives, it was one of those games where it just starts and you're like, "Oh, I get it!" with a smile on your face. Also, this is one of those teams that come back again and again (sure, sometimes with different people, but that's a part of team building) and seem to get mechanically and technically better every single time, so I think it's just a matter of time before they produce something downright great.

Knight007au posted:

Bootlegger by Knight007au

Oof, lots of significant problems with this one. I'll give it that it's weird, though! But everything from how inconsistent the character and enemies act to some big problems with acceleration and how jumping works (sometimes bad skidding that carries over into the next jump, other times a dead stop and an immediate jump right after) make it rather painful. I think I probably got to the end (where you need almost every single green bottle) but the game literally crashed my browser once I found a way to not just jump out of the goal. Actually I kind of dig the idea of a weird little chase game (like PAC-MAN meets a 3D platformer but more deterministic than the average one) and I definitely was a boot so theme appropriate. And weird! I love these weird games so keep submitting.

NuclearEagleFox!!! posted:

Sherlock Holmes and the Three Mysteries by Team Work

Narrative game made in RPG Maker. It seemed pretty hard to focus on and had some programmer's logic parts. Oh, I think the map clue probably should've been in a menu somewhere, and revisiting actually was kind of detrimental because I was unsure if the areas ever changed (and they didn't). There was a pretty neat metagame component but even mentioning that is spoilery. I never got the patreon loading screen, though Google found it but both of those were nice touches! It's a shame it had development problems (good postmortem!) because the couple interesting things are pretty good.

dupersaurus posted:

The the capsizing happen near colliders?

Actually, in the open sea. It doesn't seem to play with extreme motion changes well!

Praseodymi posted:

Not just the judges though. Flick through the reviews in the last few pages of the thread, it does seem like everyone plays the same few games to the detriment of the others. I'm pretty sure there are some games that will get no feedback outside of the gong show.

I don't know if you were including me, but this year I mixed it up and am going through them in order of who submitted first via the forums, and then will likely go through the submitted ones (winners prioritized) unless I run out of time or burn out. Other jams I'd take the last submitted games since I'd last checked and throw them into random.org, but I kind of always hated that and wanted to reward not just submitting on time/early and doing so excitedly but also for posting in the forum. Because as much as I understand the sort of separation of Awful Jams from SA I'm still a goon that likes these little forum events and enjoys lots of forum posts over the other stuff (Twitter and Discord and video game journalism and okay, yes, popularity and whatnot).

There's also the time thing. Most people don't want to go through probably anything more than a game or two! I'm lucky in that way not just the least because I love reading about the development side, and events, and just messing around in games in general. If only I was a better reviewer! So even those that are receptive to it will usually wait to get the really highly recommended ones if they're not already just coming over because of Twitter friends or a game website. They just don't have the time for it really. That's not really even unique to this jam! I'd be thrilled if there was a way to kind of extended the splash range and discussion and whatnot, but I've never really been able to think of a way for it. Same with that it'd be great to attract more of the goon game developers (both ones that constantly post in the development threads and outright professionals. Not a single one on Twitter I follow mentioned it!).

Dieting Hippo posted:

This is awesome! Same with all the contest stuff!

ALFbrot posted:

slapdick diaper ninnies

Please don't doxx me.

# ? Aug 11, 2017 09:21

Nate405: Oct 21, 2002

If anybody is interested, I've updated the public build of my entry, Naked Bootleg. I tried to smooth out some of the problems that were highlighted on the gong show. I've also added a passing mechanic, which can be seen in three new puzzles added to the end of the level select screen. Finally, several people mentioned that the game seemed suited to mobile, so I've included a first pass at an Android build. It works pretty well, although I will probably need to increase the size of everything a bit to make it more comfortable with touch controls.

# ? Aug 11, 2017 16:54

nolen: Apr 4, 2004; butts.

Nate405 posted:

If anybody is interested, I've updated the public build of my entry, Naked Bootleg. I tried to smooth out some of the problems that were highlighted on the gong show. I've also added a passing mechanic, which can be seen in three new puzzles added to the end of the level select screen. Finally, several people mentioned that the game seemed suited to mobile, so I've included a first pass at an Android build. It works pretty well, although I will probably need to increase the size of everything a bit to make it more comfortable with touch controls.

Yesssss. This was one of my favorite entries from this year. I hope you see some success with the mobile build.

# ? Aug 11, 2017 17:22

Myron: Jul 13, 2009

Maybe it's just the flu, but I'm too dumb for this one...

The new passing mechanic is awesome!

# ? Aug 11, 2017 18:29

Giggs: Jan 4, 2013; mama huhu

My post-mortem is up! I detail a bunch of poo poo (mainly the process) but also how I made the intro logo animations some people seemed to like. Also the music and stuff. It's 4400 words long. I don't expect anyone to read it, but if you want to know almost anything about the game, take a look!

Nate405 posted:

If anybody is interested, I've updated the public build of my entry, Naked Bootleg. I tried to smooth out some of the problems that were highlighted on the gong show. I've also added a passing mechanic, which can be seen in three new puzzles added to the end of the level select screen. Finally, several people mentioned that the game seemed suited to mobile, so I've included a first pass at an Android build. It works pretty well, although I will probably need to increase the size of everything a bit to make it more comfortable with touch controls.

Yeah! I'm gonna check this out right now.

# ? Aug 11, 2017 19:10

Ultigonio: Oct 26, 2012; Well now.

Xibanya posted:

Ultigonio's remarks on the sound design of Punch Fight's game were the highlight of the block. Everybody go watch it.

Glad you enjoyed it! I could talk for ages about the sound design on just this game and the experience I had working with it - being as close as I was to the project itself this time around was a blast.

# ? Aug 11, 2017 22:40

Giggs: Jan 4, 2013; mama huhu

Nate405 posted:

If anybody is interested, I've updated the public build of my entry, Naked Bootleg. I tried to smooth out some of the problems that were highlighted on the gong show. I've also added a passing mechanic, which can be seen in three new puzzles added to the end of the level select screen. Finally, several people mentioned that the game seemed suited to mobile, so I've included a first pass at an Android build. It works pretty well, although I will probably need to increase the size of everything a bit to make it more comfortable with touch controls.

The passing mechanic is really cool. The way it draws the line of the receiver while you're drawing the QB's path is a great idea.
I don't know how I feel about how the pass has to dodge the defenders between the QB and receiver though, perhaps a short "lob" could be applied to the ball so that blocked passes only occur if the defenders are close to either the receiver or QB.

In this instance the lighter gray implies height where the defender can't touch the ball.

Stages could just be designed around/with it too though, so no big deal.

Very cool!

# ? Aug 11, 2017 23:15

Musical_Daredevil: Dec 23, 2008; Need some backup NOW!

Doom Goon posted:

Musical_Daredevil posted:
Crazy Smuggler by Another Thing Named Colbert

Crazy Taxi-like game about bootlegging. No misuse of the theme there! Immediately I was impressed with how well traffic generation worked and the amount of coverable area. And I liked the doofy car and atmosphere.

Thank's for playing through our game and leaving feedback. Praseodymi already mentioned earlier how UE4's vehicle system has some pretty significant issues with the physics, so I won't go into too much detail on those. I do agree with you, though, on the timer being too short and the lack of an interesting environment outside of the town. I was hoping to have some time to add more objects to the environment (which cops could crash into) and implement mechanics like having the cops lose you if you go into a crop field, but didn't quite get to those due to working on the audio for more time than I expected. Something like that would've added more of a strategic element with how you move through the areas outside the town, made crazy getaways more likely, and added more interest to the drive. I also ran out of time before I was able to properly place all the light and power poles and fine-tune the physics system so only the player would knock them over. I actually discovered after submission that there's several power lines which spawn about 50 feet in the air!

For the distance indicator, something like that didn't occur to me at all until Everdraed mentioned it during the Gong Show stream and it immediately seemed face-palmingly obvious. We went through all the effort to add the Crazy Taxi arrows and totally forgot one of the other important parts! I'm not sure we would've had the time to add something like that, though, considering how much we were already doing.

# ? Aug 12, 2017 02:15

Dieting Hippo: Jan 5, 2006; THIS IS NOT A PROPER DIET FOR A HIPPO

Last night's Jamflix and Chill: SimShine and The Smash Boys vs The Nerdy Boys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5skpZrwb95g

Nate405 posted:

Missile Champions:
Nailed the aesthetics. Controls and ball physics felt really good, worked much better than I would have expected when restricted to 8 directions.
Camera felt a little too zoomed in. It often seemed like I was hitting the ball as soon as it appeared on screen, especially when boosting.

I've felt the same thing regarding the ball leaving the screen nearly as quick as it enters and was hoping the ball indicator would fix it. I'm thinking about lowering the ball velocity a bit to see how it feels. Thanks for the input!

edit: Tonight's VOD is up now, tune in to the last episode of Jamflix and Chill: Soul Castle and Mehrioz 20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jQp88mZI_g

Thanks to everyone who came on stream with their games and thanks to everyone else for watching, this was really fun to make! Extra credit thanks to Xibanya for helping me get a proper setup for streaming and co-piloting the first three shows.

Dieting Hippo fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Aug 12, 2017

# ? Aug 12, 2017 06:47

Doom Goon: Sep 18, 2008

Awesome, maybe now I can see how I was supposed to automate in SimShine! I'm guessing nobody else was micromanaging Storage like I was. Also last night's (two night's ago? The Punch Fight 7 one) was really good, too. Loved when whoever was playing got stuck in that little storage area. I'm glad to hear it got some love outside of Awful Jams!

Nate405 posted:

Naked Bootleg by nhorne

Neat little unassuming football play simulator! Pretty fun, actually, just needs some QoL stuff like redos, and maybe a few more levels! Really nice job with the hints although maybe make them pop (at least the first time). I don't get the theme connection but it really was a fun ten minutes or so (and one that was really easy to slip into). Also, just saw that you added some of the mechanics and levels post-Gong to it which is awesome!

Giggs posted:

My post-mortem is up! I detail a bunch of poo poo (mainly the process) but also how I made the intro logo animations some people seemed to like. Also the music and stuff. It's 4400 words long. I don't expect anyone to read it, but if you want to know almost anything about the game, take a look!

Another super in-depth post-mortem from Giggs! Great concept art there, so clean! I also didn't realize at the time you did the music and that so much went behind it. I, um, didn't actually know what a SoundFont was!

Musical_Daredevil posted:

Thank's for playing through our game and leaving feedback.

Thanks for making the game! I've become better at realizing how little time a month is for most games but sometimes it just doesn't come to me.

# ? Aug 12, 2017 08:39

Giggs: Jan 4, 2013; mama huhu

Doom Goon posted:

Another super in-depth post-mortem from Giggs! Great concept art there, so clean! I also didn't realize at the time you did the music and that so much went behind it. I, um, didn't actually know what a SoundFont was!

Ah! Thanks for reminding me! Now all the tracks are on soundcloud and in a playlist if anyone wants to listen to that stuff.

# ? Aug 12, 2017 17:42

a cyberpunk goose: May 21, 2007

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5skpZrwb95g&t=3667s

Game of the year

# ? Aug 12, 2017 19:48

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 19, 2024 04:36

Afal: Sep 4, 2012; "Tubular! Catch you on the flip side!"

ok, the last batch of games to review now

Bootleg Bernie and his Album Making Journey - Nice short game. Punches not registering was a little annoying. The credits seemed to show that there was a lot of music used, but it only felt like some were in the game. Maybe it's different on different playthroughs I couldn't really tell.

Fast Forward Record Rewind - Cool stealth game. Liked the mechanics with this one, and I liked that you could easily go through the story without too much punishment for "not doing the job". I couldn't seem to score anything which was odd to me. Cute aesthetics.

Tamale Drive - Really cool art in this. I like the whole warioware-esque minigames when playing the games but concentrating on that while also keeping an eye out for cops was a pain in the rear end. Didn't really get far in it because of that.

Bootleg Miners - Ah, a duckhunt clone. Ah, it does the whole lightgun thing when you shoot cool! Ah the little laugh from the prospector(?). I don't really have much to say about this game to be honest.

SimShine - This game fills the "making little self working systems" part of my brain and I spent a bit of time on this game as a result of that. Not sure what the speakeasy does. Found a nice exploit where you can get infinite money when you open the sales box. I got like $10,000 just making whiskey and moonshine in the place you start up with. It did also mean that heat built up a lot quicker than normal though. Would love to see the bugs in this get squashed and have it expanded upon.

Missile Champions - Nice Rocket League demake. AI is a bit difficult to beat but still fun nonetheless. Really makes me realise that Rocket League is just pong with cars though.

Sherlock Holmes and the Three Mysteries - An RPG Ma... oh.. a HaxeFlixel game? ok. This one was pretty short. I'm to assume that there's only One (and a half) mysteries? A rather interesting in-game reason for a lack of content which is probably more likely due to time constraints in the jam. Would have loved to see more puzzles myself, but I enjoyed what was there.

Booze Blues - The description says that the levels are randomised but I swear I got the same level every time. This game reminded me a lot of Bit Trip Runner which reminded me of how much I hated Bit Trip Runner because every move had to be precise and at the correct time and it was the same here. I didn't get that far into this game because of the frustrating and unforgiving levels.

Awful Runners - I got stuck in one place and couldn't go back. I ran out of money pretty quickly and failed to move the ship anywhere. I did manage to tip over another ship though but they somehow managed to still attack me?

Thriftynauts - The childlike drawings in this are pretty cute. Got pretty hilarious seeing my laser go bigger and bigger and filling the entire screen almost while also only dealing 0.1 damage. The "katamari" aspect of it gets undermined when it becomes harder to move because you're just swamped with scrap metal you can't get rid of

Bat-Man and the Sacred Stones - OK, one thing: The controls on this are really loving good. Like it's really satisfying to get the webslinging right or to stick to the edge of a wall and climb upwards or hang upside down. The mixing of superheroes got a laugh out of me.

BBA SLAM - HORSE

ShexEx - ShexEx Classic Edition - Lots of silly joke games here. Nice nod to pzzl here as well. I was expecting more with the final game and ending though.

Crazy Smuggler - I started this expecting it to fail on me because it's an unreal game. Didn't get any issues with the main menu, so far so good. Try and play the game and get an error the first time. Ok, try again. The next time I try and load the game the whole thing starts going 1 frame every 30 seconds. Then my laptop catches on fire.

The Booze Barn - Interesting papers please-like mechanics with "making sure you're making enough so your family can eat" bit after each round. The first minigame is the most frustrating of them all. In fullscreen the mouse managed to click out of the screen and switch to another application I had running. In windowed mode, it didn't do much difference. Without watching the videos of the stream I can imagine Jon being pernickety about cursor locking. Other than that, I enjoyed the variety in the minigames and how they changed over time to stop it getting samey.

---

Anyway, I think I'm done. I'll be announcing the winners of the bounties soon. Got to write a post mortem as well somehow.

uh... hm... it looks like only one person has submitted for the "guess the judges picks"... I guess Tann is the winner of Glittermitten Grove. All of the predictions might be totally wrong but who cares?

# ? Aug 13, 2017 00:16

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Awful Summer Game Jam 2017 | It's the Facebook of Game Jams

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