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General => SFML game jam => Topic started by: Jebbs on June 02, 2014, 07:05:04 am

Title: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Jebbs on June 02, 2014, 07:05:04 am
With about 10 hours to go, game submissions are now open!

Hope everyone is still sane! I can't wait to see the games. :D
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: select_this on June 02, 2014, 10:11:12 am
Alas, I shall not be submitting my entry. As I suspected, my family got in the way >:(

I really do like my idea though so I'll probably be running with it and seeing where it goes anyway.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Veritas on June 02, 2014, 05:28:38 pm
Nice! By the way the ChromoShift download links are broken.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 03, 2014, 09:25:28 pm
Has there only been one participant?

A Windows binary for ChromoShift would really be nice :)
I wanted to build it from source, but there seem to be a lot of dependencies (through Featherkit) necessary to set up first...
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: arbitergoten on June 04, 2014, 09:22:02 am
I'm still not done
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Geheim on June 04, 2014, 01:14:05 pm
I thought you only have 72 hours, and that ended yesterday?
Is this one game really the only one? And no working download link :/
Unfortunately I hadn't much time to make something presentable and the theme was not my cup of tea either.
This jam seems quite chaotic so far :)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Lo-X on June 04, 2014, 01:37:40 pm
Like others I couldn't finish mine. I think we should resume discussions about doing the jam over a week
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 04, 2014, 08:54:12 pm
Last time it went quite well... but the games receive little to no attention, which may also be a demotivating factor.

This is a pity, I've tried many of the games of the 2nd jam and really liked the diversity. Maybe the games should be made more accessible, with a single download link containing all the binaries, and ideally both Windows and Linux builds.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Grimshaw on June 04, 2014, 09:08:34 pm
Next time we totally should advertise more : ) (and a better theme)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: thomas9459 on June 04, 2014, 09:51:33 pm
I also feel that the jam came at a bad time: I was unable to participate because of end-of-the-school-year events. And as others stated, the theme did seem pretty weak. Compare it to a theme like "cold": the latter could be implemented many different ways because it is an anesthetic theme, whereas "puzzle" is a mechanic and naturally limits the kinds of games one can make with the theme.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: select_this on June 04, 2014, 11:25:35 pm
Enough people voted for 'puzzle' for it to be chosen as the theme (although it only won out on a coin toss); perhaps there should be a stricter vetting process on theme suggestions?

EDIT: Jebbs, I know you were trying to be as fair as possible, but maybe next time if there's a toss up you could make an executive decision on which theme would produce the best output in the event of a tie. I don't think too many people are going to mind (and if they do, tough! :P)

For the record, my suggestions were 'peaceful' (violence is bad, kids) and 'water' (because I was struggling to think of a second theme and had a glass of water nearby...)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Grimshaw on June 05, 2014, 12:32:45 am
I think because puzzle is a game genre, its not really fit to also be a theme. Otherwise you could say the theme is RPG, or sport game, and those aren't themes either and I think we all agree..
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: binary1248 on June 05, 2014, 12:51:57 am
Considering there were almost as many theme submissions as people submitting them, finding a consensus with only a single round of voting doesn't work. Maybe next time there should be multiple rounds of voting so that trends can be followed and we don't end up with 4 people who actively voted for the selected theme whereas 90% of the other voters are left thinking: "If I had voted for that second place theme...". They already do so in politics since you wouldn't want 95% of the population rioting because the candidate that reached 5% of the votes wins ;). Either multiple rounds, or if that would consume too much time, let the voters select multiple themes and prioritize them according to their preferences. That way the case of a theme that the majority of the voters completely hated being selected will be avoided.

There is enough information about voting on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system), so I won't bother explaining why I find the current system is sub-optimal ;).
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: select_this on June 05, 2014, 12:58:39 am
you wouldn't want 95% of the population rioting because the candidate that reached 5% of the votes wins ;).

That wouldn't happen in Britain. We'd just moan about it repeatedly until the next vote.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: wintertime on June 05, 2014, 12:09:30 pm
I think people get deterred from your contest, because of some small but important things:
- There are many announcements, but most, not even the pinned thread contain no link to the contest website. People wont search everywhere for the URL.
- If people took the effort to search the whole forum for a link they cant read anything without having to register. While waiting for more theme suggestions there could be a list of already gotten suggestions to show activity. While the voting is going on you could show the list for all visitors and only require login for actually voting.
- There should be dates on the website for each step and possibly a countdown timer.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: FRex on June 05, 2014, 03:39:09 pm
(...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo)
Not everything applies but the 5% rule does. :P
(I love how I wanted to avoid quoting post 'above' me and ended up on separate thread page...)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Jebbs on June 05, 2014, 08:28:27 pm
Hey all!

Thank you for the feed back. I want to do everything I can to make it a better experience for everyone involved, and hopefully that can be accomplished before the next jam. Fortunately with summer (and summer break from school) coming up, this should be possible. zsbzsb and I have already talked about a few things that should be implemented, and with all your suggestions I have some new ideas as well.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 09:26:51 am
Hey!

We didn't expect that we would be the only submitters haha.

In any case, the reason why we submitted with broken links like that is that the submission form had no star (*) on the binary fields so we though no binary was needed. Then 3 minutes before the deadline when we tried to submit, it said "error, at least one binary required!". Since there was only 3 minutes left, there is no way it would be possible to compile, pack and upload a binary haha.

Also, in my opinion, having a binary requirement is bad since people are on different systems anyway. I myself am on linux and getting a windows binary would be a big hassle. A linux binary on its own would require the player to have not only linux installed but also all dependencies' .so files available. Unless I go through the effort of setting all my dependencies up for static linking, which is something I'd not want to go through just to submit a binary with a gamejam entry, when the source is readily available anyway.

So for me, that requirement creates more complications than what it solves. But sure, if anyone _wants_ to submit binaries, then that's just a good thing. :)

For the ones who want to test the game, me and Kim are just about finished with porting the game to the web using emscripten, and when that is done, we'll post a link here for people to try out. Note though that this version doesn't use SFML since SFML is not emscriptenable, but it's the same content anyway.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: eXpl0it3r on June 06, 2014, 09:53:16 am
It makes totally sense to have a binary requirement, I mean you're supposed to create a "product" for the end-user, something you give a friend (who doesn't necessarily have to know C++ and all the building magic surrounding it) to play and have fun with it. Creating something that works out of the box on the right system is imho part of the process of creating a game.

Also you kind of said it yourself already, if it's a hassle for you to create a package that is just playable, just imagine how hard it will be for someone that doesn't have all the building knowledge you have. Especially if you pull in extra dependencies (like FeatherKit).

As for the dependencies, you can always ship the ones that can't be found with normal packet managers. You can even tell the compiler where the binary should be looking for shared libraries or add a simple script that will add something to the library path environment variable.

Saying "since people are on different systems anyway" sounds more like a lazy excuse than an actual argument.

Last but not least, I don't really know any game jams that wouldn't require you to provide at least one playable version of your game.

That being said, I'll be looking forward to the web version, so we at least get to see what it is that you guys create. ;)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 10:00:45 am
It makes totally sense to have a binary requirement, I mean you're supposed to create a "product" for the end-user, something you give a friend (who doesn't necessarily have to know C++ and all the building magic surrounding it) to play and have fun with it. Creating something that works out of the box on the right system is imho part of the process of creating a game.

I never saw in the rules of the gamejam that "you're supposed to create a "product" for the end-user, something you give a friend (who doesn't necessarily have to know C++ and all the building magic surrounding it) to play and have fun with it." and that was not what I was in for the game jam for. If that is your idea of the game jam, then that's up to you but it's not mine.

People looking in this forum are coders using SFML anyway, and if they aren't able to build the game, then that's a shame I suppose, but in my opinion that's alright. It's a game jam which for me is about having some fund with your fellow coders, coding a game.

You can call it lazyness if you want, but I'd call it time priority. The same reason why you often don't see very pretty code design and neat code during a game jam. Is that lazyness too? :P

A requirement that would make sense though imo is to only use external dependencies that are easily available for the major platforms. Because then all games should be quite trivial to build. I mean they can even be provided after the deadline for convenience.

If the game jam time was more than 72 hours, then it could make more sense to have to provide a binary too. But 72 hours is barely enough to create a game if you want to polish it and design levels etc even if you're experienced, and to _also_ have to deal with creating reasonable binaries seems like a bit too much imo. Which is also why I like some others in this thread would suggest a weeks time or something. Then we're more likely to get more than one submission too. :)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: eXpl0it3r on June 06, 2014, 10:08:24 am
I never saw in the rules of the gamejam that "you're supposed to create a "product" for the end-user, something you give a friend (who doesn't necessarily have to know C++ and all the building magic surrounding it) to play and have fun with it." and that was not what I was in for the game jam for. If that is your idea of the game jam, then that's up to you but it's not mine.
It's not a rule as such, but then again how would you know, since you obviously didn't read the rules either...

Quote
A link to a playable version of the game for either Windows, Linux, or OS X is required when submitting. This must include the executable and all the assets/dependencies needed to run the game.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 10:15:13 am
It's not a rule as such, but then again how would you know, since you obviously didn't read the rules either...

Quote
A link to a playable version of the game for either Windows, Linux, or OS X is required when submitting. This must include the executable and all the assets/dependencies needed to run the game.

I read the rules last time, and I asked jebbs if they changed and he said no. But I didn't remember the details on submitting so I checked the form's mandatory fields, and according to the form's appearance, binaries was not one of them. :)

I wouldn't look for uploading guides in the rules.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 06, 2014, 10:15:15 am
People looking in this forum are coders using SFML anyway, and if they aren't able to build the game, then that's a shame I suppose, but in my opinion that's alright. It's a game jam which for me is about having some fund with your fellow coders, coding a game.
But consider the following. You know how to build the game on at least one platform, since you did so already in order to test it. The effort for you to provide a binary is close to zero.

Another user must first find all the dependencies with their right versions (in your case FeatherKit, VorbisFile, OGG, JSON if I got it right), download and install them, and then configure everything to build your game. That is a lot of effort, and it's wasted if every user has to do it. Furthermore, this is a burden that keeps all the people that quickly want to have a look at the jam games away, since they don't feel like spending 15 minutes of configuration for every single game. In my opinion, not providing binaries contradicts the idea of easily accessible games. An important part of the jam is exchanging games and looking how others implemented the given theme.

I also see that it can be too much to request builds on multiple platforms by the developer, but as you say we could require that the game use only portable and available dependencies. Somebody of the community or the Game Jam Team could then take care of building it for missing platforms.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: select_this on June 06, 2014, 10:25:01 am
Somebody of the community or the Game Jam Team could then take care of building it for missing platforms.

I would be more than happy to do that if no one else wants to. :)

I can't build for Macs though.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 10:27:17 am
But consider the following. You know how to build the game on at least one platform, since you did so already in order to test it. The effort for you to provide a binary is close to zero.

...

Yep, sure, providing my binary would be close to zero effort, but keep in mind I had 3 minutes to go at the time haha, and I didn't want the upload form to be locked so that I couldn't upload at all. Even packing and uploading a binary that already exists within 3 minutes is a bit risky. :)

I also figured that since my binary would use shared libraries, as you say, the user would have to grab the dependencies anyway and if they do, an additional grabbing the game source, cmake, make and play is not much more effort.

But it is true that it keeps people away, but even if I would have provided a nice linux binary that would work for _all_ linux peolpe, it would _still_ keep all windows/mac users away which is kind of a big user group. This is a problem that is not easily solvable, and the more dependencies that are in play, the worse it gets. After all, who wants to install 5+ dependencies just to try out a gamejam game?

This seems to be a broader issue for game jams in general that incorporate users with different platforms.

I also see that it can be too much to request builds on multiple platforms by the developer, but as you say we could require that the game use only portable and available dependencies. Somebody of the community or the Game Jam Team could then take care of building it for missing platforms.

Yeah, indeed and that can indeed be a solution. :)

Another possible solution which would be cool but would take more maintenance effort would be if someone sets up a buildbot instance or something and every participant gets ftp-access to a folder to put the game's source with a cmakelists file and the buildbot automatically builds it for the major platforms. Then if you want dependencies, there is some time _before_ the game jam to request which ones you want, and have them installed on the bot. This solution would not really be worth it though if there are as few participants as we had.

Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 10:29:00 am
It's not a rule as such, but then again how would you know, since you obviously didn't read the rules either...

Also, I'd just want to point out that this type of discussion is not very nice and quite rude. If you continue that attitude I'll just not reply to you since I don't think it is very constructive.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: eXpl0it3r on June 06, 2014, 10:32:34 am
I read the rules last time, and I asked jebbs if they changed and he said no. But I didn't remember the details on submitting so I checked the form's mandatory fields, and according to the form's appearance, binaries was not one of them. :)

I wouldn't look for uploading guides in the rules.
Nothing changed on the rules since last time (see here (https://github.com/zsbzsb/sfmlgamejam/commits/master/rules/index.php)). It's a valid point that the submit form could use some more visual aid, the rest are just excuses.

Yep, sure, providing my binary would be close to zero effort, but keep in mind I had 3 minutes to go at the time haha, and I didn't want the upload form to be locked so that I couldn't upload at all. Even packing and uploading a binary that already exists within 3 minutes is a bit risky. :)
It's been a few days by now, enough time to pack it and upload it. The submission pages are also editable. ;)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 10:43:00 am
It's been a few days by now, enough time to pack it and upload it. The submission pages are also editable. ;)

Why are you expecting me to have it uploaded ASAP anyway? I do have a life doing other stuff than just maintaining the gamejam entry. It sounds like you are angry with me, or that you think I am really lame for not having uploaded the binaries yet. Why don't you complain on all the others who didn't even upload? :P

It's not my job, nor my duty or anything to upload those binaries for you or others to try them out so please cut some slack. Maybe if you had paid me to do it, it would be a different story.

For your record, the coding time me and kim have spent after the game jam have been to port it to the web so that all of you can test it regardless of platform since that seemed more reasonable than providing binaries with dependencies, sorry if it isn't good enough for you.

It doens't feel very rewarding to participate when you end up being accused for being lazy, or making excuses for not uploading binaries etc. I have given you my reasons, so please stop with that attitude.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: eXpl0it3r on June 06, 2014, 10:54:48 am
Why are you expecting me to have it uploaded ASAP anyway? I do have a life doing other stuff than just maintaining the gamejam entry.
It's part of the rules of the game jam. If everyone just put themselves above all the rules all the time, there'd just be chaos.

It sounds like you are angry with me, or that you think I am really lame for not having uploaded the binaries yet.
I kind of am, but more for your elitist behavior of not following the rules and playing it of as if you were the cool guy that is allowed to do so and of comments like "if they aren't able to build the game, then that's a shame I suppose".

You made a mistake, but instead of fixing it asap you rather argue why it wasn't actually your fault and that the system needs change, etc.

It's not my job, nor my duty or anything to upload those binaries for you or others to try them out so please cut some slack. Maybe if you had paid me to do it, it would be a different story.
It is your duty since you decided to participate in the jam.

Why don't you complain on all the others who didn't even upload? :P
Because they didn't decide to submit it and as such don't have to follow the rules.

It doens't feel very rewarding to participate when you end up being accused for being lazy, or making excuses for not uploading binaries etc. I have given you my reasons, so please stop with that attitude.
I know, but it's always not very rewarding when one doesn't follow the rules.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 11:04:05 am
stuff

Uuhmm, are you serious?

"You made a mistake, but instead of fixing it asap you rather argue why it wasn't actually your fault and that the system needs change, etc."

You know what, I won't share the link of the web-ported game in here. I never said it wasn't my fault, I merely gave the true reasons why i didn't. And I never said "the system has to change" I gave suggestions on how it in my opinion could be improved in a calm and constructive way, like many others in this thread... unlike you.

I find your post highly offending, and you're acting like quite a bitch imo. Sorry others, for having to read it in a public forum.

I won't take part in the next game jam, that's for sure. There are other game jams out there where there aren't people that get angry at you personally for missing out some details. I mean, if it is such a big deal, just disqualify the game. It is pretty lame to get personal and rude for a gamejam submission.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 06, 2014, 11:14:36 am
Please calm down, both of you.

I agree that it's not ideal that therocode has not submitted the binaries, but at least he participated and submitted, unlike everyone else. That should not be forgotten. Even if I too think that not everybody should be expected to build the game himself. So let that be it please, and stop this useless discussion.

therocode, it would be nice if you revised your opinion of both providing the web version and participating in the next jam. I would really like to see your game as well as future contributions, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. This 3rd game jam has been very unfortunate regarding literally everything, but let's use the opportunity to do everything better next time. We must find a way to make the jam more attractive and accessible for both developers and users.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 06, 2014, 11:25:11 am
In order to do better next time, what do you think of the suggestion I proposed before? Some concrete points:
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: eXpl0it3r on June 06, 2014, 11:30:30 am
  • Source code must be uploaded at the fixed deadline, but binary versions can be built some time afterwards. This allows the developer to concentrate on the game rather than packaging, and makes sure there is enough motivation to provide a working and easily installable binary.
IMHO creating a deployable package is also part of the process of creating a game, as such one binary has to be provided within the deadline.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 11:57:59 am
Please calm down, both of you.

I agree that it's not ideal that therocode has not submitted the binaries, but at least he participated and submitted, unlike everyone else. That should not be forgotten. Even if I too think that not everybody should be expected to build the game himself. So let that be it please, and stop this useless discussion.

therocode, it would be nice if you revised your opinion of both providing the web version and participating in the next jam. I would really like to see your game as well as future contributions, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. This 3rd game jam has been very unfortunate regarding literally everything, but let's use the opportunity to do everything better next time. We must find a way to make the jam more attractive and accessible for both developers and users.

Thank you, I  couldn't have said it better myself.

In my opinion, for things like this it is good to keep discussions sane and reasonable. I admit that I got quite upset and emotional by exploiter's posts but I just don't like when people accuse me for unfair things, and call me "elitistic" and say that I "demand things to change" when I am just trying to come with calm constructive criticism and just explain why things turned out the way they did.

I agree that it is a shame to not provide the web links for everyone just becuase what one person said got to me. I can probably reconsider that, sorry about that. :) As for participating in the future, we'll see. I really don't like how this discussion turned out and if risk being up for that in the future, I'd rather stay away.

Of course, if others also agree that it warrants being angry at us for not providing the binary, of that I came across as being elitistic for not providing them, and that I was making lame excuses for being lazy, then I apologise because that was definitely not my intention. But I really don't think what I said was like that.

Also I think it is not right to get angry at participants in either case. Even if it is against the rules. One can calmly explain to them why, and then if the issue persists, just disqualify the game, no big deal.

An apology from you, eXpl0it3r would be nice too.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Tank on June 06, 2014, 12:41:19 pm
I think the "at least one binary package for one platform" rule is not ideal, as well. If someone uploads a Linux and/or Mac OSX binary package, then a very high percentage of users are still not able to test it without building it.

The suggestion to automatically build all entries for all platforms sounds good though. That requires to limit the dependencies however, as Nexus suggested.
Title: AW: Game Submissions now open
Post by: eXpl0it3r on June 06, 2014, 01:53:11 pm
I could now write a page or so about how your writing and actions went into what I wrote and what mistakes I made alongside, but since it has already been decided that I'm the bitching and angry dude that gets everything wrong, it's useless to do so.

Sorry if my interpretation of your actions and writing offended your view of things.

To not further change the course of this topic, it would be best to use PMs, if anything else needs to be said.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 04:25:55 pm
I am not sure about if anything was decided or not, I merely wrote what I thought about things and how things came across to me.

But thanks for the apology and I apologise as well for any offending things I might have said (like calling you a bitch).

I also hope that this discussion can now take a more constructive turn, and that no one need to feel offended, unfairly judged or anything like that. I am not one to hold a grudge. :)

As for on-topic stuff, what do people think of the old idea to have the next jam be longer? Like, about a week or so?

IMO that is likely to yield more participants since there were quite a few this time that had planned to join but didn't end up having time. It would also give more time to deal with binaries and stuff like that. If not for anything else, it could be an interesting experiment.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: MorleyDev on June 06, 2014, 04:32:27 pm
If this was primarily a Java or C# jam, then expecting people to be able to build themselves may be less problematic. There are well-defined tools and processes that can do all the dependency management for you and any build tasks for those languages. Maven, Visual Studio + NuGet are common and easy to use.

But SFML is primarily a C++ library, used by C++ developers. Most games for the jam will most likely be written in C++, and C++ is a difficult language to build things for simply because building is more complicated. CMake, Configure/Make, Scons, Visual Studio, Custom scripts, Makefiles. There are a lot of different ways to build things and a lot of tools for a lot of compilers. Building can be a painful process. Providing a binary package seems like a courtesy if nothing else.

Now, as for platforms...well, that's interesting. Forcing people to build for all platforms seems wrong. But at the end of the day, if you don't provide a binary for a platform then the users of your platform won't be able to play your game which means less exposure and less votes and less publicity. Seems to defeat the point of submitting anything in the first place.

But the target platform maybe should still be the decision of the developer, just with that knowledge that less platforms = less players = less eyes = less opinions to act as a counterweight.

Week long things aren't jams. I've said it before and I still believe it. Jams are short, once you start reaching the 1 week - 2 week range it becomes too long to call a jam and instead just "another project".

I didn't partake of this jam because I had an exam on the Monday that got higher priority. Making it one week long would have made me partaking less likely.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 04:46:28 pm
Good points about how C++ is hard to build for. That's why this is indeed a problem in the first place.

And I agree that providing a binary is courteous.

Imo forcing that the developer provides a binary for all 3 platforms is imo not reasonable. Very few developers have access to all three of them, and even less know how to build for them.

Forcing at least one binary has the problem that those devs that are on Linux/Mac will still have games unplayable by the majority of people.

Forcing no binaries at all, has the issue of as you said, dependency handling and all that.

None of those solutions are optimal, so maybe it is indeed a better approach to put constraints on dependencies. Making it more into a vanilla SFML game jam. Then many of the issues would be alleviated. But of course, it still doesn't answer concretely what binaries (if any!) should be enforced.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: kimspindel on June 06, 2014, 04:51:51 pm
Hello!

I'm Kim, I worked on Chromoshift with therocode for the game jam and I'm quite pleased with the result of our game :)

Here: http://kim.pallkars.net/sfml-gamejam-2014/chromoshift.7z (http://kim.pallkars.net/sfml-gamejam-2014/chromoshift.7z) is a link to a working Linux binary (you need to have both SFML 2.1 and Feather Kit installed). It should've been properly included with our download link but we ran out of time, but late is better than never I guess!
Unfortunately I've never developed on Windows so I can't provide a Windows binary; if anyone feels like compiling one for us then feel free to do so.

Otherwise you can play our web port here! http://kim.pallkars.net/sfml-gamejam-2014/ (http://kim.pallkars.net/sfml-gamejam-2014/) (no music though) music has been fix'd!

The rules are:

I would like to add a tutorial to make these rules much clearer, and also perhaps some interface that helps the player work out how much RGB they will gain/lose from picking up a pickup (I found that I was mostly guessing, so it was a bit boring/difficult). Adding other elements like traps, enemies etc. could potentially be fun, too :)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 06, 2014, 04:52:45 pm
Maybe we could limit the dependencies to SFML and the popular extension libraries (SFGUI, FeatherKit, Let There Be Light, Thor, ...)? That would also allow a build-bot.

Other people who have their own specific engine can still use it, but they would directly include it in source code rather than link to it.

Kim, thanks for providing the game! :)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 04:55:37 pm
(also, we haven't made many levels yet D: )
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Jesper Juhl on June 06, 2014, 04:57:27 pm
Some suggestions/discussion points:

Since these are supposed to be SFML jams, why not limit the allowed dependencies to SFML + the C++ standard library + STL (and equivalent for bindings). Maybe one or two other libs that are commonly used and available on all platforms/bindings - but no more.
This would make it far easier to provide binaries (or for people to build themselves) and would emphasize that this is about what you can do with SFML and not arbitrary other libraries.
It would also make it fairly simple to provide pre-made cmake, scons etc recipies for people to use as starting points if they are not familiar with how to create such for building across platforms.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: kimspindel on June 06, 2014, 05:03:10 pm
Some suggestions/discussion points:

Since these are supposed to be SFML jams, why not limit the allowed dependencies to SFML + the C++ standard library + STL (and equivalent for bindings). Maybe one or two other libs that are commonly used and available on all platforms/bindings - but no more.
This would make it far easier to provide binaries (or for people to build themselves) and would emphasize that this is about what you can do with SFML and not arbitrary other libraries.
It would also make it fairly simple to provide pre-made cmake, scons etc recipies for people to use as starting points if they are not familiar with how to create such for building across platforms.

Even though this would make it take longer to write games, I would be fine with this if just for the sake of simplicity :) It would be cool with a few projects that are just pure SFML!
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 05:08:13 pm
I'd also be fine with that, but in that case I'd not even have a "maybe" for other libraries since that would be very ambiguous in terms of which ones that should be allowed or not. IMO anyway.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Jesper Juhl on June 06, 2014, 05:12:20 pm
I meant "maybe" as in "maybe choose one or two libs; like Thor for example" to put on the allowed list as well. Not "maybe" as in allow people to arbitrarily choose one or two libs.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 05:36:59 pm
Yep, I know. :) But the same thing still stands. You might get people saying "That's unfair, that people can use Thor! I don't want to use Thor, but I want to use X instead and it is as simple and easy to include etc. And Thor is not SFML! So why can't I use X?" which imo is a fair thing to think.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Jesper Juhl on June 06, 2014, 05:42:01 pm
Personally I'd be fine fine with just SFML + standard lib & STL.
I think it would be fun to be constrained like that. It would put the focus square on SFML and it would make for easily cross-platform submissions.
I think a jam with that as part of the rule set could be a good/fun thing.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: therocode on June 06, 2014, 06:04:31 pm
Yep same. But I would also be fine with having a set amount of dependencies that people agree about before the jam. I don't mind either way.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 06, 2014, 06:07:24 pm
The rule of forbidding higher-level libraries imposes two major problems.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Jesper Juhl on June 06, 2014, 06:53:27 pm
Of course my suggestions (which were just that; suggestions) were not to encourage re-invention of the wheel.
My points were simply that by limiting the allowed dependencies we'd get a stronger focus on SFML (which I assume is a point of these jams) and we'd also make it easier for people to beuild for multiple platforms. Additionally a point is that, sometimes, being constrained in terms of what you are allowed to use can in itself provide some interesting results.

And please don't forget that these were just suggestions and things to debate (which we are now doing), nothing more :-)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: select_this on June 06, 2014, 08:02:09 pm
SFML Game Jam is serious business
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: kimspindel on June 06, 2014, 09:20:53 pm
The rule of forbidding higher-level libraries imposes two major problems.
  • People will end up either rewriting their favorite engine or copy-pasting parts of it. You can't effectively set a limit to the higher-level abstraction being used. If you forbid external dependencies, people will rewrite or paste them in source code.
  • The jam will get a focus towards the reinvention of the always-used techniques and tools, which will leave less time for the interesting parts, namely unique gameplay, graphics, sound, maybe even a story. Should the jam really be about reinventing the wheel again and again?

Good points. Now I'm not sure what to think x)
I guess SFML + a few specially selected, cross-platform libraries would be the best compromise, as Jesper mentioned before here:

Some suggestions/discussion points:

Since these are supposed to be SFML jams, why not limit the allowed dependencies to SFML + the C++ standard library + STL (and equivalent for bindings). Maybe one or two other libs that are commonly used and available on all platforms/bindings - but no more.
This would make it far easier to provide binaries (or for people to build themselves) and would emphasize that this is about what you can do with SFML and not arbitrary other libraries.
It would also make it fairly simple to provide pre-made cmake, scons etc recipies for people to use as starting points if they are not familiar with how to create such for building across platforms.

Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Grimshaw on June 06, 2014, 10:34:52 pm
SFML Game Jam is serious business

I took that as a mocking commentary with no harm, and I really think I have to agree with you 100%. Maybe the jam should happen more freely? Let everyone do as they please (as long as SFML is a part of it) .

Just maybe, we are spending too much energy focusing on these strict rules instead of promoting a fun environment and advertising the jam to bring more participants.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: select_this on June 06, 2014, 11:38:49 pm
I took that as a mocking commentary with no harm

Yep, wasn't trying to make a dig at anyone, I'm just amazed at how the whole thing ended up so serious.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: zsbzsb on June 07, 2014, 03:19:34 am
I really don't want to get into this discussion again as we already have a thread full of why or why not we should allow external frameworks / libraries (sorry I am too lazy to dig for the link at the moment). I am just the lowly guy that did the website.  ::)


Just maybe, we are spending too much energy focusing on these strict rules instead of promoting a fun environment and advertising the jam to bring more participants.

What strict rules are you talking about? As far as I know the rules are open ended allowing any external library as long as it is not one of SFML's competitors.

Quote from: http://sfmlgamejam.com/rules/
External libraries are allowed, but not SFML's competitors, such as GLFW, SDL, Allegro, etc. The use of OpenGL/framework libraries is allowed.


As far as changing the rule about requiring an executable of the game I think we should open a separate thread to discuss specifically that rule change.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Lo-X on June 07, 2014, 04:40:37 am
Sorry to intrude so lately in the discussion, but...

For me, impossible to provide an executable on the 3 major OSes, I just don't have any apple device for that.
I think Nexus talked about something that build automatically from sources, it would be nice even if I've troube to see how such a thing can be made.

I feel like the rules are pretty fine, except for the duration which could be a week imo.

As a side note : I should be able to help the team (jebbs, zsbzsb mainly) with web stuff at the end of august
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Jebbs on June 07, 2014, 07:23:40 am
Hey guys,

Sorry for being late to this as well. The discussion in this thread seems to have toned down, but I will say that if anyone wants to discuss how the jam works, that is fine and I am all for it, but let's do so in different threads where we can focus on one subject at a time. And let's also do it in an amiable manner please.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 07, 2014, 09:44:49 am
Maybe the jam should happen more freely? Let everyone do as they please (as long as SFML is a part of it). Just maybe, we are spending too much energy focusing on these strict rules instead of promoting a fun environment and advertising the jam to bring more participants.
I think a dedicated and organized jam needs some rules (more than just a deadline), otherwise it's like every other SFML project. And the point of such rules is to improve the accessibility. Fewer dependencies -> easier to build -> game can be compiled for more platforms -> more people play it :)

I really don't want to get into this discussion again as we already have a thread full of why or why not we should allow external frameworks / libraries
Then, we focused especially on OpenGL and not so much higher-level libraries. Also, the aspect of being easier to distribute/build with fewer dependencies wasn't a criterion. We were not in dire need to restructure everything, either ;)

but let's do so in different threads where we can focus on one subject at a time.
Can you split the posts starting from this one (http://en.sfml-dev.org/forums/index.php?topic=15415.msg109893#msg109893) into a separate thread? If we open a new thread just to continue the discussion here, information will again be scattered.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Tank on June 12, 2014, 08:34:55 am
Ah, I so much remember the goold old SCC (SFML Community Contest) from the old German forum. :P We had 26 rounds and faced similar problems. The rules forbid any external libraries except SFML and the C++ standard libraries, though. Each submission had to include your own source code _only_ (we checked that).

In the end two things might have turned the SCC into something even better:

The browser was even almost finished when interest got lost.. Here are two screenshots I was able to rescue: ;) (it's German, but you will get the idea)

(http://i.imgur.com/mA7rgzl.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/PRhpqFt.png)

Don't mind the ugly theme, I was on the purist train back then. ;)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 12, 2014, 09:39:14 am
Contest SDK and browser sound like really great ideas :)

For me, already a 7z archive containing all the games would be much nicer than having to download every single one from different sites. And yes, using something like CMake would definitely make cross-platform build easier. An option would also be providing templates, where developers would only have to fill in a few parts (or none at all), so that no deep CMake knowledge is required to participate.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: select_this on June 12, 2014, 11:11:32 am
Yeah, I'd rather not learn CMake just for the sake of it (I use other tools for my builds), so a template would be ideal for someone such as myself.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: zsbzsb on June 12, 2014, 12:56:25 pm
You guys gotta remember that the SFML Game Jam is not limited to C++, any language is allowed as long as there exists a SFML binding for it.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: dwarfman78 on June 12, 2014, 02:42:07 pm
Come on guys just build for ms windows and be done with it. It represents 90% of the targeted systems. Other people are just a bunch of hippies (including myself) that will know how to build on their own systems or at least start a vm.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 12, 2014, 02:43:20 pm
You guys gotta remember that the SFML Game Jam is not limited to C++, any language is allowed as long as there exists a SFML binding for it.
The most popular binding is probably C#. You know this binding quite well, do you see any portability challenges? How well does Mono work on other platforms?

Concerning other bindings, it depends how many people are actually interested in them, before making a huge effort for nobody. I'd say people that use a binding should announce it beforehand so that it's possible to think of a way to run the game on as many systems as possible.


Come on guys just build for ms windows and be done with it.
Have you considered the possibility that not everyone might own a Windows operating system?

Also, since SFML is a portable library, I don't see why we should exclude other platforms. Let's rather find a solution to ease the cross-platform build process.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Tank on June 12, 2014, 03:11:51 pm
This might sound light a bunch of work, but providing templates for the bindings as well can work, what do think? It's at best something you have to update every release, otherwise you create those once.

The CMake file can be made really generic, so that you don't have to change one single setting before you can start working on your game.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: zsbzsb on June 12, 2014, 03:18:20 pm
The most popular binding is probably C#. You know this binding quite well, do you see any portability challenges? How well does Mono work on other platforms?

My experience with Mono is really only on Windows / Linux. That said, SFML.NET has no problems at all running on Linux with Mono. The hardest part is properly installing SFML/CSFML and setting up the config files to remap the native binary names (config files that are required to setup SFML.NET on Linux are not specific to projects). I was even very easily able to embed SFML.NET within windows forms that mono provides, in fact it was no different than code on windows.

The only thing you would need to watch out for is if the user picks and other libraries to use with their code. Mono has implemented 90% of the CLI (MS implemented it as the CLR aka .NET framework) so most libraries will have no issues running with Mono instead of .NET. What Mono has not implemented is the Windows specific namespaces that would have nothing to do on Linux (System.Management, System.EnterpriseServices, WPF (does not apply to SFML), and some ASP.NET stuff (again does not apply to SFML.NET)). If you want to check it out, Mono has a compatibility page here (http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility).
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: dwarfman78 on June 12, 2014, 03:56:56 pm
Quote
Let's rather find a solution to ease the cross-platform build process.

I won't be building anything because my dad nor my girlfriend would. I'm a final customer here using a standard you will or will not acknowledge.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Tank on June 12, 2014, 04:12:08 pm
Which standard?
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: dwarfman78 on June 12, 2014, 04:22:26 pm
I'm talking about the os.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 12, 2014, 04:27:54 pm
I won't be building anything because my dad nor my girlfriend would. I'm a final customer here using a standard you will or will not acknowledge.
If you have read the discussion, you will have noticed that we're investigating solutions that do not require the end-user to build anything and instead move this work to the developer and community.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: zsbzsb on June 12, 2014, 04:35:16 pm
I won't be building anything because my dad nor my girlfriend would. I'm a final customer here using a standard you will or will not acknowledge.

To counter your point, a game jam is something ran by programmers, participated in by programmers, and games that are intended to be reviewed by fellow programmers. If you are participating you should be capable of building projects...  ::)

If you want your friends/family to play programmers games then consider building it yourself then.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Tank on June 12, 2014, 04:36:44 pm
Imagine there are like 20 contributions. Do you really want to build all 20 of them in order to try them out?
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: dwarfman78 on June 12, 2014, 04:38:22 pm
Quote
If you have read the discussion, you will have noticed that we're investigating solutions that do not require the end-user to build anything and instead move this work to the developer and community.
Good I thought you were asking people to systematically build each game they wanted to try. I guess I wasn't the only one thinking that and I'm happy this is now clear.

Quote
To counter your point, a game jam is something ran by programmers, participated in by programmers, and games that are intended to be reviewed by fellow programmers. If you are participating you should be capable of building projects...  ::)
If you want your friends/family to play programmers games then consider building it yourself then.


you mean my granma can't vote ? Is this the official point of view because such communautarism breaks my heart.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Nexus on June 12, 2014, 05:01:55 pm
To counter your point, a game jam is something ran by programmers, participated in by programmers, and games that are intended to be reviewed by fellow programmers. If you are participating you should be capable of building projects...  ::)
It's not about participating, but playing.

I have mentioned here (http://en.sfml-dev.org/forums/index.php?topic=15415.msg109881#msg109881) why requiring all end-users to build games is a bad idea. Instead of having the build/configuration effort once, you require every user to do it. Only few people will be motivated to invest a lot of time and configuration just to try a game, even more if it's a jam game that people may play only a few minutes.

The idea of this discussion is to make the game jam more popular and accessible. Enforcing end-user builds is counter-productive.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: BaneTrapper on June 13, 2014, 10:42:08 pm
:P, i didn't catch it, is there a twitter, where you post, "Next game jam on 12 june..."?
Or any announcement page where it will constantly stay up?
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Lo-X on June 14, 2014, 12:20:06 am
:P, i didn't catch it, is there a twitter, where you post, "Next game jam on 12 june..."?
Or any announcement page where it will constantly stay up?

You can check for the #SFML tag or follow some of us, talks on twitter starts something something like 1-2 days before the jam. But I don't think there is an official twitter account. That's something we could do while working on the website (something that auto-tweet dates reminders)
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: eXpl0it3r on June 14, 2014, 01:11:08 am
There's an official one @sfmlgamejam (https://twitter.com/sfmlgamejam). No idea who has access to it though and there's been only one tweet. :P
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: Jebbs on June 15, 2014, 10:42:22 pm
Sorry guys, I am trying to get ready for my finals so I have very little time lately. This term is over for me on Thursday, but until then I won't really be around. I'll try to be a part os some discussion today if I can though.

I think having a dedicated SDK for the jam is overkill. The rules aren't really that restricting in terms of what you can use, and they're that way to allow people to just go in and make games. It isn't a competition, so I don't know what the big deals is. If people want to use Thor, they can. If they want to use their own stuff built off of SFML, they can. The important part is that SFML is at the core of the game, and you're engaging in a fun weekend activity with your fellow SFML users.   

I also don't see why it's a problem to make at least one playable binary for one of the OS's. It isn't required to make one for each, but I'm assuming you are building it to test, so I'm not really sure what the problem with making a single, stand alone, playable binary with all the shared libs/assets needed to play it packed in on the OS you are working on.  You should have plenty of time to do so, especially with the additional hour you get before the jam starts along with the time given after the 72 hours for people to submit.

I addition, I have a much better strategy for voting for the next jam's theme so we won't have the problem we encountered this time.


:P, i didn't catch it, is there a twitter, where you post, "Next game jam on 12 june..."?
Or any announcement page where it will constantly stay up?

Right now we've been doing a every 4 months, but on the following Friday thing. The jam always takes place over the weekend. Using that, the next one will take place October 3rd. There was mention of changing how often the jam takes place, but I personally like how things are. If someone wants to start a thread discussing that then we can discuss what works best for the most amount of people.

There's an official one @sfmlgamejam (https://twitter.com/sfmlgamejam). No idea who has access to it though and there's been only one tweet. :P

I have access to it. I started it as a means to provide updates, and it was on the original site before zsbzsb took that part over. I plan to start using, but up until now it's something that just hasn't been utilized.
Title: Re: Game Submissions now open
Post by: zsbzsb on June 16, 2014, 01:06:18 am
I have access to it. I started it as a means to provide updates, and it was on the original site before zsbzsb took that part over. I plan to start using, but up until now it's something that just hasn't been utilized.

We can plan on utilizing it again on the newer site.  :D