I'm starting an hour early because I'm a dirty cheater. Current plan is to do a Game Boy entry…

For the last few days I've been putting together a little cross platform game engine. It's not at all ready for use but a good JAM will make the problems with it pretty obvious real fast, so that's my plan for the weekend - write game in unfinished engine.

Also if the theme is boring I will make a GIANT ROBOTS game regardless, thanks.

My current plan is to use the haxe programming language to create my kajam entry. In theory I can write a single codebase that can be compiled down to a headless (no graphics) server to run in the cloud, while having that same code be able to produce the playable version of the game. In order to get multiplayer support in the browser, I'll also be using websockets.

But more importantly I want to be able to quickly iterate on my entry during my free time, so I've set out to automate as much of the build and deployment workflow as possible. Nothing fancy, just a makefile that builds the server, deploys it to the remote server and launches it. I can then launch the client on my local machine and see messages passing between the server and client, which seems like a pretty important precursor to a remote multiplayer game. Testing with a local server on your development machine is OK but bypasses a lot of the issues that can occur with a 'real' server out on the interweb.

The test was successful but revealed that terminating the server on the remote server left a zombie process sitting on port 8000, which means that attempting to run the server again would fail as the port was unavailable. This behaviour didn't occur when hosting the server locally, so there's some instant proof that it's worth testing on as realistic a setup as possible. Hooray.

Checking out the prison cells

Meeting a doggo in a tunnel

Might have made a mess here

Meeting the staff and students in the re-education centre

A very blocky train at the yard

Added directional sprite support to my raycaster today, so now you can see FRIENDLY WORLD INHABITANTS from multiple directions

Welcome to the 7th Kajam!

From the 1st of April until the 28th of April, everyone is invited to create a game! There are only a couple of rules, covered here.

Details of the theme are in the announcement video above! I encourage you to make a game that can be played on genuine hardware of the era, but that's completely optional! Interpret the theme however you like, just remember to have fun.

Some suggested resources for anyone interested in making a game for genuine 1996 hardware:
Gameboy development
PlayStation 1 development
Tapegro: write DOS games in javascript!
Nintendo 64 SDK
Sega Saturn Jo-Engine

A few people have asked how to actually DO alakajam recently, particularly wanting to know how to submit their game, so here's a basic guide:

1. Sign up for a free account on alakajam.com! That's this website, you're already there 👍!
2. Pick which category you would like to enter. Your choices are:
   • SOLO: 🧑‍ The traditional gamejam where you work ALONE to make a game within 48 hours, creating your assets from scratch.
   • TEAM: 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Identical to SOLO but you can collaborate with teammates to create your masterpiece within 48 hours.
   • UNRANKED: 👽 A whole extra day gives you 72 hours to make your unranked game. Almost anything goes, and you can even continue work on a project you previously started.
     The full details of what's allowed in each category is available on the rules page.
3. 🚦 When the jam starts, the theme will be announced here on the website, in the discord channel, the irc channel and on the alakajam twitter account.
4. Make your game, adhering to the 📜 jam rules 📜 and incorporating the theme into your game in any way you like. If you're entering the SOLO or TEAM categories, your use of the theme will be one of the categories your game will be judged on.
5. Submit your game before the deadline! ⚠️You don't upload your game to alakajam.com ⚠️. Instead, you need to host the game somewhere else, such as dropbox, google drive etc. My recommendation is itch.io, which lets you create a free store page for your game, hosts the game for you and can even accept payments if you decide to charge for your game later on. Once your game is uploaded, you link to it from your game entry page on alakajam.com.
6. Vote! Making a game for alakajam is only 51% of the fun. Once the jams have finished, the voting and feedback phase begins and typically lasts for a couple of weeks. Your game will be played by other entrants and they will be able to rank it on various criteria, such as graphics, audio, etc, as well as leaving feedback comments 👍👎. You can do the same for their games too, and the more games you vote on, the higher your karma score. The higher your karma score, the nearer to the top of the entry list your game will be displayed, which means more people are likely to play it. If you don't vote on other entries, your game is not likely to receive enough votes to get a score in the final step.
7. Ranking results! After the ranking period has ended the votes are all added up and a score is given to your game. If your game places in the top three for any of the category you will receive an amazing 🏆 virtual trophy 🏆 and be the envy of all your friends.

READY TO RACE. Actually I might have to work that weekend but I'm pulling out all the stops and doing whatever it is you do with the nitro to get everything done in advance.

Haven't decided what technology I'm going to use but I'm hoping to put together some basecode so I can get off to a 'ROLLING START'

My only tip to everyone is to have your development environment set up in advance to avoid any stress or chaos during the jam.

Finally, I'm looking forward to a fair, sporting and above all, FRIENDLY competition between the entrants with lots of cooperation and constructive feedback

Making some progress

Since the jam ended I've been stuck on 4kbps internet and haven't managed to play many entries because everyone uploaded huge, presumably AAA quality games filled with high res textures and lossless format six hour soundtracks. I'll keep trying to play more, but would really appreciate it if you could take five minutes to try my entry https://alakajam.com/2nd-alakajam/137/garden-of-statues

I'm sure on your fancy non throttled internet connection it'll be but the work of a moment to download and open the game. Please enjoy your time in the garden, because there's more to it than it may initially seem