A Pokecommunity game jam?

[TBM_Christopher]

Hey guys,
One thing I see a lot is a lack of interaction in our fan game community, outside of asking for critique on material. This is definitely a way in which I feel the community could improve. At DigiPen, there are times when students will get together on a long weekend to do what's called a game jam, in which students have a fixed timeframe in which to create a game, sometimes on very different constraints than they are used to. Personally, I'd love to organize such an event, but would others be interested in participating in a game jam? I'd love to hear any ideas on the subject.


A couple ideas I had for possible game jams:

Spoiler:

The Gym Challenge - This game jam would be all about a gym milestone. Using an engine of choice, participants' goals are to build a gym. Catching and training Pokemon is not the concern - the designer would pre-make a team appropriate for the player to begin the challenge. The focus would be on the gym itself. For a competitive aspect, the jam's results could be judged in categories such as theme(how appropriate the gym is to the types as listed), puzzle(how interesting the gym's puzzle is), and difficulty(if the trainers/Gym Leader are challenging but defeatable).

The Safari Zone - Similarly to the Gym Challenge, this game jam would be solely about the Safari Zone - making an interesting ecosystem to explore and populating it with unique and diverse Pokemon, as well as possibly rethinking the Safari Zone's mechanics(Compare Fr/Lg's iteration of the original Safari Zone to Ru/Sa or Diamond/Pearl's). For a competitive aspect, the jam's results could be judged on environment(the theme/location), ecosystem(the Pokemon encountered and how they coexist within the environment), and mechanics(how Pokemon are caught, as battling Pokemon in the Safari Zone has always been a no-no, barring X/Y)

How It Would Work:

Spoiler:

A game jam is a pretty simple event: at a certain time, all participants would be given the information needed to get started on their game(be that a downloadable pre-packaged project to start from, information on the theme of the Jam, etc.), and have until a specified end time to submit their finished entry. At which point the games would be made publicly available in some form of showcase.
To make this as involved as possible, I'd like to make this game jam into a bit of a competition. With myself and hopefully 2 others as judges, when all entries are turned in for the Jam, the judges would then rate the entries based on different criteria(I've mentioned in my game ideas some different ideas for criteria an entry could be judged on).

Where We're At Presently:

• We don't presently have a theme - I've listed a couple potential themes above, and am open to suggestions.
• We presently have 1 judge - I'd love to make this a competitive event, but we'd need at least one more judge, so that I wouldn't be alone in evaluating entries. If you'd like to volunteer, I'd really appreciate it, though keep in mind that as a judge, you probably wouldn't be allowed to submit an entry.
• We don't have a concrete date set - I've suggested a date(May 24th - May 25th), but I'm open to just about anything. I'd recommend something on a weekend and later in the month so that younger members can participate without school or work being a concern.

 

[Ratty524]

Not a bad call. I probably won't join since I'm pre-occupied with a lot of things even outside of game-making, but honestly this is something this community could use to... actually feel like a community?

Also, doesn't the hack forum put on some mini contests as well? There's no real reason not to try this!

 

[Radical Raptr]

Sounds real fun, and I would take part.
I'm not exactly sure how though, but I would give it a shot, bounce ideas off others, help map, w/e - It's fun and would get the community more involved, so I'm all for it.

 

[TBM_Christopher]

Hey guys,
I'm thinking that the best time frame for a game jam would probably be on a weekend in either May or June(allowing younger members to join in without educational scheduling conflicts). However, there are a lot of things which would need to be discussed prior. For instance, what sort of limitations would be put on assets? Would jammers be allowed to use their own sprites and tiles? Someone else's? Would they be limited solely to Pokemon Essentials, or would other engines be welcome? How long would the game jam last? Just the weekend? The Friday afternoon prior? Would we want to regulate the start time? I'd love to hear anyone's opinions on how this could be made into a fun event for everyone!

 

[th3shark]

I think the most crucial factor would be length. Entire adventures typically take months or years to make, so the length of a game made in a game jam would have to be a lot shorter. For example, one game could be just infiltrating Team Rocket's base, for lack of a more creative scenario.

I think variety would benefit to include games made in Essentials as well as other engines and rom hacks.

 

[Nathan]

Or maybe we could open things up a bit. Someone picks a general theme such as infiltration, just an example, and asks you to come up with a gaming sequence about it. Doesn't have to be centered on Pokemon.

 

[TBM_Christopher]

I think the most crucial factor would be length. Entire adventures typically take months or years to make, so the length of a game made in a game jam would have to be a lot shorter. For example, one game could be just infiltrating Team Rocket's base, for lack of a more creative scenario.

I think variety would benefit to include games made in Essentials as well as other engines and rom hacks.

Actually, that was the basis for the suggested themes I have in the original post - something that could be a couple hours' gameplay at absolute most. Plus, people may feel that it's something useful towards their own long-term projects. Perhaps they design a gym to be used in their upcoming full-scale fangame project, or the main hideout of Team BadGuys.

Or maybe we could open things up a bit. Someone picks a general theme such as infiltration, just an example, and asks you to come up with a gaming sequence about it. Doesn't have to be centered on Pokemon.

My main reasoning for focusing solely on Pokemon(despite not developing any Pokemon fangames in a very long time myself) is because it's a common theme. There are very few non-Pokemon games presently underway here, and most of the Game Development community here relies on the same engine, meaning that they'd be able to work under similar constraints.

 

[TBM_Christopher]

Hey everyone, I'm hoping to go through with this game jam, and was thinking about potential dates for it - how would everyone feel about a jam lasting from the 24th to the 25th of May? That way we'd have a full weekend to work with, late enough that most schools would be out for the summer.

Additionally, while I feel that the focus shouldn't be on graphics, I'm inclined to think that any tilesets or character sprites should be allowed, with a default set provided for those who don't want to sprite their own.

Finally, I've updated the front post for readability, so hopefully people will be more interested in getting involved - I'd love to get some others to help me judge and make this a more competitive event!