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!

I had Friday off, so I thought I'd throw some ideas around before the theme was selected. I made a controller for the player, except it wouldn't work at all. I could get the player moving around, but colliders wouldn't work. Or colliders would work, but I'd get strange behaviour, like the player being tilted just enough towards the sky so that it would fly up to the air, and gravity not seeming to work.

Variations in my code look like so:

        //rb.AddTorque(Vector3.up * r);
        transform.Rotate(Vector3.up * r);
        //rb.MoveRotation(Quaternion.Euler(Vector3.up * r));


        //transform.Translate(Vector3.forward * s);
        //rb.velocity = transform.forward * s;
        rb.AddForce(transform.forward * s); 
        //rb.MovePosition(transform.position + transform.forward * s);

Transforms on the rigidbody (abbreviated here as rb) work with collisions, but do not result in the motion I am looking for (most notably, staying on the ground!). Moving the transform itself does not respect collisions.

The next thing I did was delete the scene I was working in. So I can't make an animated gif of the various things the player did. I don't know how I deleted it, but I can't find the scene anywhere. I hadn't made prefabs of anything, so lots of stuff was lost.

Next, I modeled a mushroom in blender. "Model a mushroom in 3 minutes!" the advert for the video said, but it took me closer to an hour. However, upon importing said mushroom to Unity (and find the scene disappeared), I find the normals of the mushroom cap are inverted.

I can't seem to include images here, otherwise you'd be looking at a mushroom and the inside of a head of a mushroom. (Edit: It appears that the brower I am using, Brave, is not showing the images, but Firefox does show the images. So your mushrooms may vary. Let me know if the normals are working on the second image.)

I've been programming in Unity for years (my first global game jam was in 2012 with Unity) and yet today I feel like a beginner all over again. I've been mostly doing 2D stuff, and today I am recognizing how much easier the 2D stuff is.

Today has been rough. Even the man pages are returning error messages instead of telling me how use things.

Thank you to everyone who has submitted and played the games! We are now at the end of Feedback Fortnight!

As always, just because the event is over does not mean you can't still play the games, and leave meaningful feedback on them. It does mean that you will no longer be able to submit new games. Don't worry, there will be another FF coming soon -- usually in about 6 months but the schedule is not set yet!

Making a game is hard work. Showing a game can be fraught with emotion. There was a quote in a magazine I read recently that struck me:

"Anything beautiful or meaningful now seems like a miracle when I consider how easily it might not have been made, and I imagine the odds it had to beat just to exist."

--Aaron Cometbus, from Cometbus #59

One of the reasons I do the things I do here at Alakajam is to promote new beautiful and meaningful things. While it is easy to throw your hands in the air and decide it is not worth it, or there will not be an audience, or that we can't make it beautiful enough for our discerning critics, I feel it is worth to let the insanity carry us and try to make new artworks anyway.

With that crazy thought, Alakajam #14 is coming soon! Try to make something wonderful! Don't despair if it doesn't come out beautiful, and remember we only get better with practice!

It's time to play games! If you haven't submitted your game yet, do not despair! We will leave the submission window open until the end of the event.

Go! Play the games! Give the authors of these games your ideas, your constructive criticism, and your feedback! Try to answer specific questions they may have, and try to give them new ideas so that they can come up with new questions!

If you didn't submit a game, that's okay! Anyone can play these games and give their feedback!

Remember, there are no ratings. Please, remember that there is a person who is showing their craft who will be reading your comments, so please do not be mean with no other value. Instead of saying "this game sucks!", try "I am not enjoying this game because …. , but maybe it could be improved by making changes like ……". There is a lot written on the topic of giving criticism, and I can not rewrite it all here. But please try to be considerate while still giving good feedback!