2018 Spring #ue4jam - May 10-15

General Announcements
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86

I can understand how people had problems, considering I tried to upload my game 4+ times until I could really figure out what was going on. Honestly I would’ve probably had similar issues if I was not in full zombie mode already at that point… game sorely needed more content which there were ideas for, but I figured that in the state of mind I was in, it would’ve done more harm than good.

That said I can definitely recommend the experience, it is a really hectic push. I spent first days figuring out how to set up camera and collisions to be… “good enough”, and needed to really start prioritizing content quickly.

Now I must figure out how to properly support gamepad in menus :o

87

We have never used before and didn’t really know our way around it and this was our downfall because we missed a step of getting our game into the Jam itself.

Either way we had fun participating and are very happy with our game whether we are allowed to be in the competition or not, but I can fully understand people’s frustration when there was not a step by step guide on how to get your game into the jam, when being giving an entirely different submission system than previous jams.

Looking forward I think the Jam need a bit more information about stuff like this to help people, because the idea behind jam is to bring people together, not exclude them.
You may say its all time management but unless you plan on giving yourself hours to do something which should be a straight forward process like it has been before you can end up in a situation like myself and others have found themselves.

This is not a rant, just a point which needs to be raised for next time. Submission systems should be easy not stressful. It’s like sitting an exam then going to hand your paper in and having to cross a maze to do so, without being given a map.

88

This was the first time for me participating in a UE4jam, but I have done other jams like Ludum dare before and honestly, submission was super easy for LD. Here, I had to say “holy ****” when I saw that upload page. Also, the requirement of submitting as draft first, then going back and submitting as public for the second time is anything but straightforward for a newbie (+going back to the UE4jam page and submitting for the 3rd time). I definitely think that at least this should be mentioned in the instructions. But actually, I really think it would be even better if we could submit a dummy file (can we do this right now?). Or if this is already possible, the first line of the instructions should be “make a dummy submission plenty of time before the deadline, you can edit it later with the final files”.

89

I’ve already admitted before I can come off as a jerk (I never try to, I’m just very straight/blunt) and I hate to pull you down with me, but I agree completely. It worked fine for me. And many did have issues, as is apparent now. I also went through the submission process and got my entry uploaded, but noticed that it wasn’t actually submitted as an entry. I quickly remedied that. Had I not done the very common and important step of double (and triple!) checking my work, I might have missed out as well.

I can’t help but be amazed at how many people lack basic problem-solving skills, or think to plan ahead, read documentation, etc. Look- I’m not trying to rude, shame people, or any of that. The fact here is that there are basic steps in projects that should, or *have *to be taken. I can’t tell you how many various jams, where there are droves of people who fail to get an entry in because the submission process isn’t intuitive. Or how many people lose their project completely because, well, no back-up. I’ve fallen to this vile demon myself! And there was only myself to blame.

There is a silver-lining to this madness, and that is, hopefully people learned some good lessons: plan ahead. Map out what you need to do. Get a lay of the land and understand the moving parts in play. It’s fine if you are new, and want to throw some shapes around on screen to jump in on the fun. The community (my blunt grumpy self included) welcomes with open arms! But we also need to share lessons, and not sugar-coat some things. One of them being, if you fail at uploading and submitting something, you might be rough around some certain edges.

Save for language barriers, actual technical difficulties, and other legitimate issues, the only challenge I see with using the platform for jams, is user error. Plain and simple. It works, and works well. 168 people/teams got in just fine! That being said, I’m sure peeps from Epic will be courteous and apologize for the difficulties. Because they are sweethearts <3.

Anyhow, there some crazy looking entries, hehe. I had a blast, always do. I think I’m going to clean up my project and make it available for download- perhaps making this a jam tradition on my part. Does anyone else do this? I’m thinking any of us that do, can attach the project files right onto out game page, making it even simpler (and showing another pro in the itch side!).

90

It does appear that 4 games submitted late have appeared in the submissions. Problems do happen the first time you try something new (first time used for submission). The main lesson learned is, just as you “package early and often”, you “submit early and often” as well as soon as you have something that is worth submitting. Last minute submissions, if 170 are doing it at the same time, can be troublesome! (Esp. with timezone issues—Raleigh, NC is currently on EDT (Z-4), and some might have interpreted ET to be EST (Z-5) instead)

91

The process was anything but intuitive. It was seemingly intuitive. Click on jam, submit project, voilá.

Except while you could “add a game to the jam” through the jam page, you couldn’t (afaik) add it as a jam entry unless it was an existing project. The process is *seemingly *highly-automated. From what I can tell, submitting a new project through the jam page itself was just the same as it would be when adding a project from anywhere on , which is why the separate step to add it as entry was required. If that is correct, the submission is “easy to do” if you know how but it is confusing, there’s no doubt about that.

I got mine up on time (though next time I’ll know that making a package doesn’t mean going all the way with an installer, and rename the project back properly after resubmission) but even I can see how people had problems. The rule of one submission can also deter people from trying to add the entry early.

92

I didn’t realize there was a rule of one submission—unless it meant, just one game submitted. I would think it would be allowed to “edit the submission” as you finished the game, re-uploading the new zip file. But I guess you’d need to check with Epic first to be sure!

93

You could edit your upload (ie, upload another zip), but as soon as you selected that upload/game for the jam submission, it got locked. This was to prevent people from modifying their submissions after the deadline.

94

The best way I could think of (aside from clearing the confusion with “add your game to the jam” link on the jam page and providing instructions next time) would be to not show any of the submissions until deadline. Everyone could upload a game to the jam and whatever is the latest version linked in the draft will be shown. Even if you think you’re all done before everyone else while there’s still a few days of jamming to go, your submission would not be shown until the moment when everybody’s submission will be shown. This would also screw some people with wrong timezones or internet outages less, because if they play their cards right, all that is left is a bit less polished version or a game that lacks an extra level in case they miss submitting the final product. Bandwidth requirements would likely increase but not sure how much it matters in this context.

And if there were few hours or even a day added between deadline and the showcase of all the submissions, that would be enough time to check for, say, screenshots or in case some idiot releases an .exe file. :slight_smile:

95

I don’t really understand why deadline is such a big problem? Okay okay, prizes - everybody wants them but really approaching it as little fun thing to do on the weekend will do you much better :smiley: What’s much more worrying for me is complete lack of comments on submissions. For most of the games I managed to play so far I’m the only person commenting. Maybe that’s because my very first game jams were Ludum Dares where it’s a tradition that you play other people games and leave feedback so everybody can learn something from that.
Just to check I looked at random game from last LD - he got many comments, 43rd place based on 44 ratings which is quite a lot considering over 3000 games were submitted.
I had great fun using Unreal for the first time during a jam but I’m probably not going to take part in future jams - that interaction between people is adding so much to the fun and I’m missing it here.

Anyways I played few really awesome games, good job guys! :slight_smile:

96

The deadline was mostly a problem because the submission system wasn’t intuitive. And yeah, people might end up taking it more as a competition - to be fair, it lasts a good five days as well.

About LD, idk. Afaik it is “the jam” among indies with a more established community, and it involves the community in the voting process. It’s no surprise there are more comments on the pages when the process itself is more involving.

I got great feedback by seeing people play the game on stream.

97

Do we know when the winners are announced?

98

I believe they will be announced in four days eight-ish hours.

99

It’s on the 31st Livestream

100

Is it possible that it might be latter then the 31st livestream? I ask that again because they changed the voting period on the jam page. https:///jam/2018-spring-ue4jam

101

I have just noticed that too.

102

I don’t think the results are based on votes though… also, doesn’t seem like people have been voting on all the games anyways

103

Ahah yeah that’s true

104

Any news about today’s livestream?

105

I’m wondering the same thing, I’ve booked a venue to watch the stream with a group of people!