is the sidebar thing too small to put two lines:

Running Now: XYZ Art Challenge (link)

Coming June 1: OGA Summer 2018 Game Jam (link)

?

Just having the links would be huge even if there isn't room for much text around them.

I guess wether the game jam counts as an Art Challenge or not depends on wether you consider games art or not, so it's good with me, just don't ask Roger Ebert's ghost  ;)

Can do. Should I link directly to the itch.io page, then? Or should I link to this thread instead?

@MedicineStorm:  I think a link right to the itch.io page makes the most sense.   That's the main page for the Jam.  If there's a discussion thread (like there was last year), then we should just link back t

@chasersgaming:  At the risk of making the wall of instructional text even taller on the Game Jam page, it might be nice to add a link to some of the recent art challenges, or maybe a link to a list of them (does OGA have such a list somewhere on it?).   Just thinking of people that are new to OGA, or otherwise unfamiliar with how to browse all the challenge entries.  

Isn't there already a list of links?

oops,  I somehow missed the fact that those were links, sorry about that!

Also, any (most) art that was submitted as part of an Art Challenge has the tag "challenge". This includes all the much older art challenges as well: https://opengameart.org/art-search-advanced?&field_art_tags_tid=challenge

Is there anywhere you can see a clear breakdown of the rules?

They seem to have gotten ass complicated, I was hoping I could just make a game, enter it into the jam, and call it a day.

the "the rules" section of the itch page seem pretty straightforward to me. Maybe they could be given a summary header for each rule? 

1.) Use whatever framework you want. You can use ANY game engine/software you desire, as long has you have ...

Would that help?

Oh! That's where you have to go to see the rules, ok, I will read that ^^

Oh. I see. Confusion over where rules were listed. Chasers, are you able to edit the OP to include a link to the new itch game jam landing page?

I didn't ask for the rules to be changed or simplified. I just found it hard to figure them out piecemeal from reading 3 pages worth of forum posts.

> I'm just sorting Me kids out there dinner

haha, definitley been there before,  I feel your pain! ;)

@WithTheLove: @Chasersgaming: no, still working on getting access to them. It's a bit like recovering a password to an email account that sends the new password to that email account.

EDIT: wrong attribution. fixed.

So, I've been hitting the arts pretty hard this month and before I finalize exports and stuff for the jam I just wanted to be sure that it's cool to have some potentially messed up scenery. Nothing xxx rated or anything but people hanging from nooses and decapitated heads... Actually, I think that's about as "bad" as it gets, but I may want to add a few more things of the like, last minute, if time permits.

Edit: This scene, is my biggest concern, I guess.

"Games that have violence, horror and/or gore, I would ask that you provide some sort of warning before hand to protect younger audiences."

I think it's fine so long as you have a small disclaimer about the imagry on your downloads page. :)

As a note since the Gam Jam is being hosted on itch.io we need to keep in mind their terms of service agreement (found here: https://itch.io/docs/legal/terms ). In particular section 3 and 4 are relevant to the games we upload.

In the document the clauses that I feel are most likely to cause challenges with a screen shot like that are the bans in section 3 on:

• Posting unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory content
• Bullying, intimidating, harassing, defaming, threatening others, or violating the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others

I kind of doubt that is your intent. So, if you are careful with your presentation I think it would be no problem.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<personal rant>

I would like to mention just because we can do something does not mean we should. You should think about your intended audience and how what you include or exclude will affect their experience. It may be that the art direction discribed above is absolutly necessary or it could be an unwanted distraction that drives users away.

I am honestly tired of seeing pointless violence. Please don't just leave them hanging. Make their lives (or deaths as the case may be) mean something.

Here are some examples of games I think used graphic violence well for different effects:

• FF7 uses graphic violence very rarely, but each time it does is one of the most memorable scenes in RPG history.
• The Dark Souls series uses graphic violence almost constantly, but after the initial shock it just kind of fades into the background of their brokenworld.

</personal rant>

What the hell am I gonna make a game about, I've no ideas.

@Saliv sadly violence is the easy path to fun game design :P

@Saliv:

Fortunately, nothing about Venn's game concept could be considered unlawful, misleading, malicious, discriminatory, bullying, intimidating, harrassing, defaming, or threatening. I agree pointless violence isn't good, but that section of itch.io's rules is about being directed at a real person, not fictional game characters. Horror theme is none of those things. :)

With a disclaimer about content, no reasonable person would be driven away from the community due to offense unless they chose to expose themselves to content they know offends them. Do people who hate horror movies ever accidentally watch The Exorcist? I understand your rant, but I feel like Dark Souls lines up better with the above screenshot establishing a feeling of horror than as an example of not-pointless violence. The desensitization to violence you describe is what you want?

Lol no there is no way that would break the rules if Saliv is implying that.

I think it actually looks pretty cool, kind of a BoI vibe but still original.

Yeah, no, it's not pointless. Its like, a part of the story, not completely unlike how the jumi's were hunted to almost extinction in LoM for their cores. So, it's basically genocide.

Here's a story boarding draft I did.

@VinnNo.0:   Yeah, no worries at all about the violence you describe.   Although it helps that the creatures being so abused are adorable.   Well, actually I don't know, maybe that makes it worse.  :)

Either way, no worries, although as MedicineStorm suggests a small warning might be nice.  Last year, I did play all the Jam entries with my two young boys, and was planning to do the same this year.  

On a technical note, pretty sure what you are describing would be called 'fantasy violence'.   I see that label on ESRB ratings a fair bit.  Seems to be applied to games that have violence in a cartoon or otherwise abstract setting.

Ok, two more questions before the Jam officially gets underway.

First, I know we have already discussed engine and framework code and deicided that was ok to use for Jam entries. What about re-using and/or re-purposing code more generally?

I have written a fair bit of procedural world generation code for various other projects and was hoping to borrow liberally from it for my Jam game.
The code will have to be considerably re-worked and tuned to fit my Jam game but it will be a starting point, so I figured I should ask if that was ok with the community?

I know the simple answer would be to chose an open license and publish the code before the jam, but I have a myriad reasons for not doing that, not the least of which is that it's actually just snippets from several experimental and incomplete projects, so not really anything that's comprehensible to anyone but the author much less suitable for publication.

Anyways, I'm sure I'm not alone in this question.  There's a lot of 'not quite engine' code that every game requires (state machine, movement/jump physics, etc) and it seems pointless to ask folks to re-code it all from scratch for a Jam that's about showing off OGA assets not coding wizardry.
On the other hand, starting from somewhere is always better than starting from nowhere and so could be considered an unfair advantage in the competition.
I guess the devil is in deciding where to draw the line between allowing sensible code re-use and allowing outright re-skins of existing games and asset-flip type stuff.

Secondly, the game I'm hoping to make for the Jam is called 'Medusa Must Die!' and I have to confess I did make a (very) simple prototype for it many moons ago.   This was during a period when I was protyping several different game ideas trying to decide on which I should pursue for my next big project.  I decided on a different game and shelved the Medusa Must Die! prototype having never gotten any further than extending surt's original ikaros set a bit and working up a simple 'player movement' demo where the player could walk left and right and jump about.
In the run up this year's Jam, I've done more work on the sprite set and released it to OGA.  As far as the code goes, I plan to start a fresh project and not even look at the work in my prototype.
Still, I wanted to ask if this was ok with everyone?
I know enough about the protype to know it will not be useful in creating the actual game.  Still, I suppose just having made a prototype once upon a time could be considered a headstart on making the game and I am happy to pursue another idea if folks think this would constitute an unfair advantage for me in the competition.

WHAT TO MAKE A GAME ABOUT GUYS?

I might back out from the jam if I don't get a decent idea in time :/

@chasersgaming thanks for your suggestions. Maybe my lack of creativity right now is just a sign of lack of motivation.

Having sniffed around the forum of course, the entries I know about so far seem much more amtibitious and driven that anything I can come up with right now.

@Spring:

https://opengameart.org/popular

click until you find something that inspires you.

@chasersgaming:   Well, I had a pretty big reply for you, including results of some looking I did to see how other Game Jams handle this question, but it all got lost when the submit ('Save') failed and the whole of my comment disappeared into the ether.  So you'll have to get the brief version.

I looked at Lundum Dare, Global Game Jam, Weekly Game Jam and Once A Month Game Jam, and they're all pretty open about what they allow.  Lundum Dare is quite explicit about allowing you to start with any 'base code' you want.  The others are similar.  The general attitude seems to be bring what tools you want to the table, the challenge is creating something new.  OGAM sums it up nicely with the line: 'Starting a game is easy. Finishing a game is hard.'

There's so much that goes into making a game, it really does seem pointless to ask folks to do everything 'from scratch' for a jam.  All you're going to see then is how quickly people can type.  TBH, the challenge of making a game goes so far beyond writing code, if you focus on that element, you won't even be getting to what are the interesting questions (eg. gameplay, story, level design, etc, ie. making it fun!).

All that said, I think I'll start fish around for another idea to use for the Game Jam.

I am pretty jazzed to make Medusa Must Die! and figured the Jam would be a good excuse to finally do it, but given the prototype work, the code I'd like to re-use, not to mention the years spent day dreaming about the game design for it, I'd have a really hard time saying the game was something new made solely within the timeframe of the Game Jame.

@Spring:  Looks like I'll be taking my own adivce here (clicks on https://opengameart.org/popular)...

I actually had a chat with SCay and she suggested that I could use these spaceship drawings she made 

https://opengameart.org/content/speed-runners

https://opengameart.org/content/speed-runners-2

for a racing game, so I might do that actually.

(except I've just tested these and they actually don't work for me)

AHH, I can't think of ANYTHING I want to make a game about right now!!!

I guess I'll stop moaning about it, but there might not be any submission from me.

@chasersgaming:  Oh not disgruntled, sorry if I came off that way.   I'd say I'm opinionated on the subject but not upset about it.   A little bummed to be putting my Medusa Must Die! concept back on the shelf but I've actually already come up with several other ideas to go with instead.   Going to sleep on it and pick one in the morning.   And yes, the link did help me, sorry it didn't work for you Spring.  :(

@withthelove I want to make somehting using these 

https://opengameart.org/content/breakout-set

but if I'm just making an Arkanoid clone it'll be too simple and it can't win.

Last year's oga Jam was my first Jam and I've done (attempted?) 9 since then and honestly, I like fresh starts. I've learned to make cleaner systems, in a shorter amount of time. Planning and time management has been my biggest gain this past year or so. I had a huge project I was poking away at from 2014-2016 but looking at it now... I don't wanna mess with it because it is a mess compared to how I structure now.

@withthelove I GUESS what I'm getting at is that you might be able to make a better base to build medusa must die on, than what you did 'many moons ago'. If you've prepped/organized, most of the work is importing and coding and a month to do so. Just a shot in the dark.

@spring You should totally do a breakout game. You make awesome music, so maybe it can be a music-based breakout? Like the blocks change colors to the beat and like uh... The ball's color can be changed with a button press, and it needs to match the block (which is changing to the beat) to damage/break the block? Another whacky mechanic that comes to mind is when you mess up (or mess up too many times) the camera rotates, or flips? I dunno. That's just a few things I might try with it.

@VinnNo.0 I think I have conjured up an idea based around breakout actually!

You awake one fateful night to find your bedroom barricaded and all of your family gone. Luckily, you're armed with a nice soft pillow and a bed running on tank threads and have the ability to curl up into a ball. You'll need to bounce from your bed to repeatedly smash into the attic in hopes of breaking the barricade. Then, hurry to rescue your family and the other creatures in your village and ultimately try find the evil force that blocked you in.

 I wanna make a breakout clone which has a little bit of story to it. Sounds like a good concept?

Oh yeah, thanks for the compliment about my music,   totally missed that, XD

@Spring:  I love it!   'Bedtime Breakout!'

I knew you'd find some inspiration on OGA.  :)

@chasersgaming:  I think the new rule about pre-written code sounds good.   Honestly, unless you want to start getting hyper persrciptive about what tools people can use, I think this is the only approach that makes sense.   I suppose this is going to sound cranky-old-man, but really, the idea that anything done with Unity or GameMaker was 'made from scratch' is preposterous. 

Actually, what I was planning for the procedural world generation code would have fallen right within this rule.  I have some code that would be useful for the game, but I wasn't going to start putting all the pieces together until the Jam started. The code wasn't written specifically for the game, so it's not like I was trying start coding for the game beforehand. 

The prototype by constrast is more problematic as that literally was coding the game before the competition even if it didn't amount to much more than some basic platformering code.

@VinnNo.0: 9 jams!  you've been busy!   As far as code orginization goes, I definitely know the feeling when it comes to looking back at old projects.   Fortunately, over the years I've learned to write pretty atomized code, although that's actually what's causing the issue here.  I have a bunch of well generic code that would be great to reuse for the game.  If it was more customized or tweaked out for my existing projects then it wouldn't be worth the trouble of re-using.

@all:  Don't worry, Medusa Must Die! will live someday, just not for this Jam.  At the end of the day, I think this is one of those things where just asking the question revealed the answer. 'So I got this game idea I've been developing for years, it'll use a bunch of code I already wrote, plus I made a prototype already, that'll be cool for this 4 week game jam, right?'   Yeah, maybe not.

But it's no problem, I already have a bunch of other ideas for the Jam.  Still narrowing the list down this morning, I'll post to the Hype thread when I decide on one.

@withthelove thanks, I'm having high hopes for it right now.

@chasersgaming, there's no rule that your game has to be able to compile for a specific platform in order to participate, right?