The 4th Kajam is done!

I know, I know. I'm sad too. But put away those tissues, because we've got some great stuff coming right up!

First of all, don't forget to

Check out those winners

Second, cast your eyes to the month of May (hint: it's tomorrow) for the first

Alakajam Tournament

All month we'll be not just playing, but competing in the shortlisted games, posting our scores using the new scoring system built by @wan. Great stuff, huh? Huh?!

Voting begins! Hooray!

What's next

It's the best part of the jam—where we play the games and most importantly, give each other a well-deserved pat on the back and some delicious constructive feedback. Mmmmm, yummy.

The theme is AI, but remember we're allowing entries where the player writes the AI. Also try to bear in mind that this is a difficult and quite unpredictable thing to code. Most important of all, be nice and constructive in your feedback. Try to imagine the kind of feedback that will help a person grow as a gamedev. Finally, have fun playing all the free games! :)

What to do if you haven't finished

Don't worry: we're leaving submissions open until the end of the jam, i.e. for another week. Do finish as quickly as you can, though, so people can play and vote on your game!

Rise of the robots

Improvise, adapt, and overcome! Or at least, tell a computer how to do that. Yes, the 4th Kajam's theme is Artificial Intelligence.

AI has been used in games since at least the early '70s, becoming more popular with classics like Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980). Genres —like RTS and FPS—from the '90s brought the development of AI in games to a new level, and with more recent titles like the Half-Life episodes we started to see quite convincing cooperative AI.

Your mission—should you choose to accept it—is to create a game using AI in some way. It doesn't have to CRUSH ALL HUMANS be particularly complicated: if you're stuck for ideas, try tweaking your path-finding algorithms; creating a novel NPC; or just making a really hard-to-beat opponent. If that doesn't suit you, other takes on the theme are very welcome too! (Edit: In particular if you'd rather make a game where the player has to write the AI, that's also fine!)

Schedule

• March 29th - April 23rd: The jam. Make a small gam, trying to focus on AI in ways you might not have done before. Spend as much or as little time as you want, and work with others or alone. There are no rules, so just try to have fun!
• April 23rd - April 30th: Feedback time! For a whole week, all entrants can play and rate other people's games. Try to give encouragement for things that went well, and useful suggestions on what to improve.
• April 30th: The results!

For inspiration

• How to simplify your AI code with Finite State Machines – an introduction to state machines and how to model simple, deterministic behaviour of AI
• The Monte Carlo Method for Game AI – for finding good-looking moves in a somewhat random fashion, useful when there are just too many things that an AI can do
• What Makes Good AI? – some considerations for what a player could appreciate in enemy AI
• A* search algorithm – extremely popular algorithm for pathfinding, navigation, or even finding "paths" in other kinds of state spaces
• Artificial Intelligence in Games – a summary of various kinds of AIs you might want to use for different game genres
• Artificial Intelligence in Board Games – simple techniques for AI in the board game genre
• Video games where people matter? The strange future of emotional AI – for more story-rich, emotionally-focused games

EDIT: some people have suggested we start the event a little earlier, to squeeze in one more weekend—so now the event is now going to start on March 29th. Sorry for the confusion!

Kajam competitions are month-long events in which people make a video game from scratch, focusing each time on a specific aspect of game making, as chosen by its host. They are perfect to learn, experiment and improve your gamedev skills! More details here.

The topic of the 4th Kajam will be announced by its host, in complete non-jokey seriousness, on April 1st March 29th.

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