I hope everyone had fun playing all the games, and I hope people making the games learned some useful insights! But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. But it's not too much of an end, you can still play the games and leave feedback if you haven't done so yet!
We will have our regular meeting this Wednesday! Don't forget! At 21:00UTC in everyone's favorite Discord server! If you don't know where that is, you can find it at https://discord.gg/yZPBpTn
Next up will be the 18th Alakajam, at October 27, 2023. See you then!
We will be having a meeting to discuss next year's plans, to determine if we have enough manpower to provide additional events, and everything else we need to talk about! The meeting time has been official set to Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 21:00UTC! It will take place on the Alakajam official Discord channel which, you aren't yet a part of, you can join here. https://discord.gg/yZPBpTn
See you there! (Or maybe we will just hear you there, there will be no cameras…)
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!