We all love to meet, so let's have a meeting! This meeting will discuss events and plans for 2024. If you want to help with AKJ, or if you don't want to help but you want us to know what kind of events you would like to see, or if you just want to hang out with the cool kids, you should attend! We are looking for volunteers to give us new energy and ideas, so if you have lots of energy and ideas please attend! Everyone is welcome!

The day and time will be set according to the poll linked here. I tried to include all sorts of strange times so as to accomodate you if you are in the Americans, Europe, or East Asia. The bulk of Alakajammers are in Europe, so if you are not, let us know what kinds of times work for you. Further, this website does not seem to translate the time zone for you, so you will have to figure that out on your own.

https://framadate.org/EYZsmVma3mNjS9Kr

On the day that the Feedback Fortnight ends, I will look at the poll and determine when the most popular time and date is. I hope that you can find some time that fits your particular time zone!

I hope to see (I mean hear) every one at the meeting!

Welcome to the 2023 edition of Feedback Fortnight! If you aren't familar with FF, take your project that you've been working on, that is ready to show to people, that you want to show to people, and show us! Then, go play the games and projects that other people have posted, and let us know what you think! Look for bugs, look for what is fun, what is not fun, what you like, what you don't like, try them all out, and give us your feedback!

As always, remember there is a person who is showing thier artwork and may be shy, so be nice. Try to give constructive feedback, so don't say "this sux!", say something like "the artwork doesn't make sense to me and the game play wasn't fun, perhaps you could change these things?"

Since we are so excited, we are opening the website so you can post your projects now! We will keep FF2023 open at least until September 24th, so that should be enough time for you to play all the games and contemplate all the thoughts.

We will have another announcement tomorrow regarding something different! Alakajam needs help… maybe you can help?

On the date of 2023-09-08 we start Feedback Fortnight! FF is an event where we all post our projects, play each others projects, and offer advice and ideas. There are no ratings, no winners, no scores, and not even the different scoring categories. So, take that secret project you've been working on, pull it out of the basement, shine it up so that you can show it to people, and show us!

There aren't many rules beyond the basic rules. You can submit anything you want feedback on, even if it's just a bunch of screenshots that you might turn in to a game! If it's a commercial game, make it such that we can play for free for two weeks. Keep it without racism or sexism or other awful isms, and it should be okay!

We will open submissions a few days early so that you can get it all submitted before the official day starts. You can even play and offer feedback ahead of time if people submit early! People paying close attention might notice that the official dates encompass 16 days whereas a fortnight is usually defined as 14 days. We like extra time. Making games is hard, finding time to play games is hard, and writing up our experiences and thoughts is hard, so there is an extra two days.

Can't wait to see what comes to this FF!

I knew I wouldn't have enough time, but I also know I can make quick simple games in a short amount of time. So of course, I decided to make an open world multiplayer roguelike deck builder, that should be quick and easy! I am not certain if I wrote a single line of code, but I did throw a lot of things in to Unity and made a mess. So, there is no playable game, but at least I can put up a screenshot.

The images are all done via AI programs (specifically Diffusion Bee), except the lizard comes from the Liberated Pixel Cup Character Generator and the card frames come from CraftPix

I do have a theory that game jams are not always about making useful things, but just taking ideas and throwing them at the wall and seeing what happens. It's art, as they say. So, there you are.

We have played the games! We have crowned the winners! Go see them here!

Our next Alakajam will come in February! Come join our traditional game jam format with 48 or 72 hours to make a game! We can't see what you make, and keep in mind that if you make a high score feature (and you click the box to give us permission), your game migjht appear in the next tournament! Even games not made in Alakajam are eligible to be in tournaments, so if you make such a game, let us know!

See you all in February (or maybe even in January as theme selection and such will start sooner)!

Did we forget? Don't we host events here? Isn't something happening in November?

Why yes! There will be a November AKJ Tournament! Don't you want to play some games!

Those who have made games and want them in the tournament: either tell us in the comments below (I'll be watching), or on Discord, or if you have said "consider my game for the tournament" when submitting an AKJ game, we will pick from the games available to us to have in the tournament. The only real rules are that there must be a way to show a high score, and that people can play for free. Of course be good and polite and not awful rules still all apply.

For those who just want to play: When the tournament begins, we will announce 4-6 games and you can play and compete for high score! There will be scoreboards!

We are running about to make this happen! Come join us!

There will be a meeting to talk about upcoming events happening on Alakajam. If you would like to be involved, would like to host an event, would like to let us know how to make AKJ better, or just want to attend, you are more than invited! The main purpose of this meeting will be determine the schedule of upcoming events, and assign responsible people to host them. There will be other things to discuss, as well. The more people we have volunteering to run events, the more events we can host!

The meeting will be held on Discord. You are always welcome to join our discord server, it can be found here: https://discord.gg/6XzN7BUs8z

I hope everyone can join us!

Thank you to our game submitters, and thank you to everyone who played these games! Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and though sometimes we like to continue things after their due date, alas we can not! I hope you had lots of fun playing new games and I hope the game authors got lots of things to think about!

With all that, prepare yourselves for the upcoming 16th Alakajam, coming on 9 September! See you soon!

It is time for Feedback Fortnight! How does this work? Show us your game! Look at everyone else's game! Comment!

To reiterate the rules, submit a game you want commentary on. It can be near anything, but it must be free and legal to play for anyone here. An old game you are polishing? Perhaps you didn't finish the last alakajam on time but want people to see it anyway? That sekrit project you've been working on but haven't told anyone? Something you are looking to get ready for commercial release? Just looking for bug testers? Just have a handful of ideas and want to see if the game might be fun? As long as you there is no monetary component it will be fine to post here.

Then, go play all the other games. Give your opinion. You can give as much or as little detail as you want. Remember to be nice, since someone took the courage to post their work here. Remember to give constructive feedback.

There are no ratings, no prizes, none of that. At the end, we will thank our most prolific feedback givers.

This is to help each other make better games.

You can look at this for more rules.

Since there is no "race" component of Feedback Fortnight, there is no reason you shouldn't submit early or late! We are opening submission posts shortly after the posting of the message. If your game is ready for comments, feel free to submit your game, and make a post telling us all about it! The official schedule is that we start giving Feedback on July 15th, but if you play a game before then and have something to say there is no reason to wait.

Submissions will be closed July 24 so that there is a full week of nothing new submitted, so those determined to give good feedback on every game will have a full week to do so.

Thank you everyone in advance for playing and evaluating all of the games! Together we can make our games better!

With the 15th Alakajam over, we move on to our next event, the Feedback Fortnight! Do you have something you want to show people? Did you not finish in time for alakajam but still want people to see? Do you have project that you've been working on for years? Do you just have some screenshots you want feedback on? If you want some feedback, this is your event!

How does it work? Post your project. Then, look at other projects, and evaluate them. Look at the descriptions and see if there is something in particular they want feedback on. Remember there is someone who is reading this, so don't just say mean things. Write up your constructive criticism, and we will share our ideas and thoughts to help each other make better games!

Feedback Fortnight 2022 starts soon so get your project ready to share with others! Chase that game breaking bug away, write up enough documentation so someone else will understand how to play package it up, it doesn't have to be perfect, just enough to show others! The event officially starts July 15, but we will open submissions soon! We can't wait to see your projects!