Hello!
I want to raise a question that I don't think have been discussed yet. Should future game jams be voting/winner based?
What I mean by this is that all submissions are voted upon after the jam time is over. After the voting period is over, the results are shown and the one with the most votes win. Votes could be made on the basis of enjoyment when playing/theme relevance/concept or even possibly things like code neatness. This would of course be decided and made clear before the jam starts.
Personally I would like this. My arguments for this are:
- It would serve as a motivator to make the games more fun/polished. This is good since the final results could become a bit more attractive both for the participant to show others, and also for the SFML community to show outsiders.
- It would turn the current post-deadline anticlimax to an event with a resolution and a conclusion. The two last jams (this one especially with so few participants ) ended very anticlimactic imo. The results are in, and some people try them out, people talk a little bit about it and then that's it. A voting evaluation would make it feel more complete.
- It would create more incentive to provide builds for various platforms. This is related to the previous discussion on providing binaries. When you want to attract votes, it makes sense to make it playable for as many people as possible. The drawback with this argument though is that people who are not able to provide binaries for popular platforms might be at an unfair disadvantage. This is also irrelevant if there would be a build service provided for the jam entries.
All in all, I think it would be a fun idea and create a bit of "spirit"!
For those of you who think that it would be too "serious" and too "competitive", keep in mind that the vote/competition part of it wouldn't necessarily have to be serious and something big. Just a fun addition. It would still mainly revolve around making games with SFML.
A possible drawback is that it creates more maintenance load on the arrangers since they have to also organise the voting and whatnot related, and at least this time around, time was of a concern for many people involved. However, I think that whoever decides to arrange the next jam, ought to make sure they have time for it, so then it could be okay.
What do others think?