WHAT
It’s time to announce the winners of the 2020 Epic MegaJam! It’s not an easy task to pick the finalists and the special modifier category winners, but decisions have been made, and there’s nothing left but to play the games and celebrate our amazing community.
Congratulation to all the winners and congratulation to everyone that succeed in making a game for the jam. There was a lot of good games in this jam. like there always is in the Unreal game jams. I have played as many as I could, and I had fun seeing what all of you developers have made. Even though there still is none community price in this jam, I will instead tell you what is my favorite game that I have played in this jam, and it was Victor Burgers game “The Forever Expanse”. The game could perhaps have use a bit more polish and a bit better introduction, but when I first really understood the game idea, I loved the simple and fun gameplay. If you would be interested in trying the game, you can find it here.
To all of you that have been part of the jam, and have continued the devolvement of you games, remember that now the jam has ended, that you now can upload a new version of your games on your Itch game page.
And like always will I recommend you all to play more of the games from the jam. And and if you do play some of the games, please try to leave some constructive feedback.
Congrats to the winners, but I want to put my 2 cents on results, judgement and organization. The results showed that the main criteria weren’t a great idea, good implementation, or using the engine features. It looks like the main criteria was: “The game is as better as more assets were made by developers themselves during the jam, especially if sponsors’ technologies were used”. Gameplay? No. Too many winners are really very simple platformers. Narrative? No (except 3rd place, yeah). Balance? The winner of the “Genre bash” made his game with such unbalanced and untested balance that the 2nd(!) level wasn’t finished on live stream after 3 attempts. The winner of the “Army of one” and “Procedural magicians” category made the game which is a primitive and short platformer, and it even not related to the jam’s theme (no “long time”, no “it’s been”, “no haven’t finished” and no “we”).
Sound. All these games are primitive with sound. No environment sounds. They have just single background music, a single background sound loop, and some action sounds. They are good? No. They were just made during jam.
Main menu: most winners have a very primitive main menu or don’t have it at all.
The only winners which are really good are the winners of the 3rd place and the “Is this real life category”. And maybe 2nd place, but it has a good idea but awful implementation (it is bad as a strategy game).
From my point of view, Epic should change its rules and say in its rules honestly: the main criteria is “the game is better if more assets were made by developers themselves during the jam, especially if sponsors’ technologies were used”.
Because there were many games submitted which are better in rule’s specified criteria: Unique Use of Contest Theme, Fun Factor, Visuals, Audio
And additionally would be good to give some feedback to all submitters. At least their scores. Better some optional comments about what is good and what is bad with the sumission.
P.S. Honorable mentions were very bad this time. The gameplay video wasn’t shown. It wasn’t easy to understand what are these games about if you haven’t played them before.
I might be getting a bit too defensive here, but as the solo dev of Reklaim I assure you that I spent quite a lot of time iterating the level design (so much in fact that despite my best attempt at scheduling I had to cut the last level in half because I spent that much time tweaking previous three) and replaying the levels over and over again, imposing restrictions on myself to test the levels as closely to a novice player as I could, and also testing both keyboard and gamepad Not everyone plays the same type of games, plus the stress of attempting it live while also talking definitely added to the presenter’s mishap. I wouldn’t agree on it being a simple platformer either, with the dedicated mechanics to gain and preserve momentum.
Reklaim is a pretty sound intensive game, actually. Other than the made-before-jam soundtrack, it features ~30 sound cues, many of which I created or recorded myself (and those I didn’t, I still processed rather than using raw). The sound of attaching to the hook is literally a kettle with water bouncing inside with applied distortion. Could I get a better effect by downloading a premade sample? Perhaps, but what I have now is truly mine and pretty much what I intended it to sound The wind ambient effect even reacts to your current velocity.
…isn’t that literally the point of any game jam, to make your own game? With so many different elements that are needed to make a video game (code, art, sound, writing), it would be rude to just judge the code and assume that other things don’t matter as you could just download premade assets. Look at Marsh’s Journey - sure it doesn’t have a sophisticated gameplay and the platforming looks sloppy, but it was still made by one person with many characters that had to be modelled and rigged in just a week. Absolute respect to the dev as far as I’m concerned, I know I wouldn’t be able to achieve something similar.
About publishing the scores, I think this is actually a good idea. Commenting on each game if there’s 350 of them? Sounds pretty impossible… Allar’s livestreams have got you covered though, he’s an absolute madlad to attempt playing through everything and comment on it despite not being part of the judging team! <3
Not everyone plays the same type of games, plus the stress of attempting it live while also talking definitely added to the presenter’s mishap. I wouldn’t agree on it being a simple platformer either, with the dedicated mechanics to gain and preserve momentum.
The wind ambient effect even reacts to your current velocity.