Competition style voting?

[therocode]

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?

[Nexus]

Sounds like a very good idea in my opinion. I also think that it might attract more people.

Currently the jam is not "focused" enough, it's simply another SFML project where people have shorter time to work on. A lot of users don't care about the deadline because it makes no big difference whether the game is submitted timely and "officially" or simply announced here. An evaluation would motivate people to cling to the offficial rules and it would also raise discussion about the actual games, which has always been tiny so far.

Initially, an evaluation with a score was also discussed; somehow the idea got lost over time. I'm against prizes however.

[select_this]

I'm all for it.

[eXpl0it3r]

Sounds good to me.

Since voting leads the winning, I guess one has to think about whether winning should lead to any rewards. Though we had this mostly discussed already. Personally I wouldn't hand out actual prizes, but something virtual would be quite alright. For the SCC (SFML Community Contest on the German forum) one would "win" a trophy in form of an image. I'd link one, but it seems the images aren't at the right place anymore...

[Lo-X]

Usually in Jams I don't really care about the ranking (since in stuff like Ludum Dare you can't actually have a very good rank), so I'll follow your mind and say I'm for it !

Edit: I don't know about the forum features but can't there be some sort of "rank" / "title" that could be given to the winner. A funny one, even related to the theme can be nice !

[Laurent]

I don't know about the forum features but can't there be some sort of "rank" / "title" that could be given to the winner.

Can be done, yes. But if the winner is not registered, or not active on the forum, that will be quite a useless reward

[eXpl0it3r]

Can be done, yes. But if the winner is not registered, or not active on the forum, that will be quite a useless reward

The event as it currently is, is basically from this community, as such I think it's alright, even if they are not very active.
Besides that it shouldn't really be something big or of actual value, just something to be a bit proud of.

[zsbzsb]

I have no problem with doing something like this, but if we do something like this we should also talk specifically about how the voting system would work.

[zsbzsb]

So, does anyone have any specific comments on how I should go about doing this? Or should I just design a system based on LD and see how well that works?

[Lo-X]

I do like the Ludum Dare categories voting style, because it tells you where you did good job, where it was less good. But I would suggest to re-think the categories, because some Ludum Dare ones are bad or redundant IMO.

[Nexus]

What about this very valuable discussion? Do we draw any conclusions for the 4th game jam?

In my opinion, we must do something differently than last time, in order to motivate people to participate and to give them the feeling that their projects are at least looked at. This has really been a pity in the past -- once the jam was over, 2 people checked out your game and that was it.

Another thing, even more crucial than voting, is to allow only themes that are a bit more specific and challenging. In my opinion, "Puzzle" was a really awful theme

[Nexus]

Would be cool if someone who's organizing the jam could comment on this
And also other people, some additional opinions would be great!

Only two weeks left, and theme voting starts already earlier (probably in a week?).

[zsbzsb]

What about this very valuable discussion? Do we draw any conclusions for the 4th game jam?

Would be cool if someone who's organizing the jam could comment on this

Yes, I have been busy...  So lets clarify some things.

In my opinion, we must do something differently than last time, in order to motivate people to participate and to give them the feeling that their projects are at least looked at. This has really been a pity in the past -- once the jam was over, 2 people checked out your game and that was it.

Yes, there will be a voting system based on the LD design. There will be categories so each game can be judged on different characteristics and then each category ranking will be combined for the final score.

Another thing, even more crucial than voting, is to allow only themes that are a bit more specific and challenging. In my opinion, "Puzzle" was a really awful theme

Theme suggestions has been revamped, there will be voting rounds where people can vote +/- for each theme. All suggestions (after being previewed by one of the admins) will be broken into different rounds. The top rounds will then enter the final round to determine the winner.

https://github.com/zsbzsb/sfmlgamejam/blob/master/notes/theme%20selection.txt

Only two weeks left, and theme voting starts already earlier (probably in a week?).

Theme suggestions will open in a few days and then voting will start about a week prior.

[Nexus]

That sounds already pretty good
With some nice themes and hopefully participants this could become a great game jam!