Thanks for the jam! As always, I learnt a lot and had fun along the way. This time I made the game and everything in it, from the animations to the music, all by my self in the 5 days, which posed a new challenge, since I’ve never composed music before!
If you would like to check my game out, here’s the link: Rivet by Distant Dimensions
We do not accept late submissions for the contest, but we allow you to upload your game to the jam page. Send an email to community@unrealengine.com with a link to your game page and we’ll get back to you!
Hi, I was a bit late on getting a working build so I could not make the submission deadline. I would still really like to share my work! You can watch it here on Youtube https://youtu.be/60gj_KGzMBM , it will also be with the rest of my work at samuelcoallier.com if you want to check it out! All comments are welcome!
I made my submission https://itch.io/jam/2020-unreal-spring-jam/rate/667521but didn’t use the right filename for the zip file , so today I tried to upload the correct file but did not realize that after deleting the old one from my submission I wouldn’t be able to upload the new one because the voting is in process, it there a way I can upload my game again? It really shouldn’t let you delete the file if you cant upload again :(.
Hi! I’ve participated on the Jam, and it was awesome!
My question is regarding updating the gameplay footage. Can I create another video with better resolution and edit the submission entry with the new link? Does doing this will disqualify me or is against some of the jam rules?
The footage I’ve uploaded is low res and is concerning me…
Thanks in advance!
@ffuhro Anything that can be updated on your page is allowed (which I believe is everything). You’re just unable to upload a new version of the game.
Hello everyone
I am not here to come with an happy comment, but I still think is is an pretty important one, so I hope you will keep reading it anyway.
I have been part of the Unreal game jams more then 20 times, and I do really like making games for jam, but there is one thing I really do not like about this jam, and it is the lake of an active community. Every time I have been part of this jam, I try to play as many of the games as I can, and since the jam have been on Itch I have tried to leave some comments/feedback on the games I have played. But when I look at number of comments on the games I have played, there is nearly none or actually no comments. This make me sad, and I do not understand why there is not a greater interest in playing and taking about each other games. At least for me it is just as fun and interesting to try the game as it is to make them. And I can promise you there are a lot of fun games to play.
But okay it is perhaps because you are only are interested in your own game, or perhaps it is because it is competition with real prices, that makes you are afraid of saying something. But I will strongly recommend you to play and give feedback on the games. I can with nearly 100% security promise that your comments/feedback will not change any of the judges evaluation. If it did change anything, there would have been some other winners of the jams:)
I will also recommend you to play the games, that are not looks super amazing. They are often made by people that do not have much experience with UE4 or with game development in general. The developers of this kinds of games really needs some feedback and they are normally really happy to get it.
To the makes of this jam. I would really like if the was some kind of commodity price, where the developers has to rate on each others games. I believe this could push the developers to play each other games more, and perhaps also give each other more feedback.
So come and play my game I know he did it by JK5000 (Or a new and better version here Game Jolt - Games for the love of it) or some of the other games. I know you can do it, and I believe you will not regret doing it.
Thank you for reading this comment.
Sounds a great initiative, I’d also support if the jury, who actually play the games, would give feedback for all the played games. Even if it’s not positive, it’d be great to understand what’s great and what’s not so that developers can use that experience in the next jam and for self-improvement. Now, if you’re not in the first 3… you have no idea why not, even if you see winner games which have a very weak relation to the theme (it has happened multiple times before, i.e. just by having coins in a game should not immediately pass maximum points for an “Other side of the coin” theme).
Was it not fun? Too short? Imbalanced art? Crashed? Lack of sounds? Teams have no idea what was the project missing, even if they have put a lot of effort in it. Of course, working on the project is, by itself, an experience and a way to learn; but people knowing their mistakes would be a great addition.
Also, not relevant, but it’d be great to know how fairness is guaranteed. Does each jam introduce different (guest) jury members? Or it’s always the same 3 people, always resulting winners for their own taste? Etc, jurying is certainly a huge task for this amount of projects, but more openness could result in wonders for many reasons I believe 
We understand the value that this feedback could give, but it’s unfortunately not possible due to the amount of games that are submitted to the jams.
The jams in 2019 and 2020 have all had guest judges. It’s not that we don’t want to be more open, but due to the jams having prizes up to several thousands of dollars, there are legal reasons why we can’t do certain things.
Could there not be some internal rating system to just keep track of games each judge has looked at? If they’re playing the games (let’s say spending at least a minute looking at or playing each one) it doesn’t seem like that much extra time to tick a few stars.
EG each category they’re judged on, clicking 5/4/5 etc after they’ve looked at or played the game, then auto-post the rating to the related games’ itch page after the jam.
Completely anonymous, but just giving people a scorecard (even an average, or each judge rating separately).
The issue I think a lot of people have with gamejams, is that if they’re not going to win, their game is completely lost into the void. Wondering did anyone even play it? With a system like this, even if you don’t win, you could see an improvement from last time. It would gamify the process where people want to beat their previous ratings and can see their improvement (or what they need to focus on).
We don’t want a huge paragraph detailed review of every game, but just to know what it got out of 5 for each of the rating criteria.
Not only would you get more people entering (knowing that at least one judge has seen their game), you’d get a better quality of submissions over time.
I do not expect or hope to get more from the judges. It is really time consummating to play and judge all the games. BUT I do expect much more from the jammer’s. If you can spent 5 days making a game, you also have time to spent playing and giving feedback to the jams games. There is still a lot of games with no or nearly no feedback. So WE can do better.
And please do not only play the games that wins or you think will win. In my opinion is there a lot the games, that never will have a change to win, but they are still much more interesting and fun to play, then the games that wins.
Certainly we don’t want any of you to break NDAs and such, I also wouldn’t expect you to overhaul the whole process; what I meant by openness was more simple:
I don’t feel like any of these should invoke any legal issues and therefore be held secret. Even more, because there are prizes so valuable, it should be much clearer how exactly is the evaluation kept fair. Something we can stick to.
Of course, we know that the purpose of jams is self-improvement (and helping others improve), but I don’t see why can’t the two things go hand in hand.
As you said earlier, an underlying supportive system would help a lot in this. Even if it’s as tiny as a forum badge for people who have rated 100+ jam games in total.
Hi there!
I’ve noticed that our game (Let It Melt) wasn’t even highlighted on corner videos on the stream.
I’m wondering if it’s even have been noticed by you.
It’s not the first time we participated and didn’t get any kind of mention.
So I’m worried if I’ve messed up a form.
Here is the link to itch.io of our game Let It Melt! by NNJohn for 2020 Unreal Spring Jam - itch.io
Thanks
No Summer jam this year unfortunately, but we’re planning to host the Epic MegaJam as usual.