Winners and results of AdventureJam 2017

AdventureJam is a competition in which the participants have to create an adventure game over the course of 14 days.

The games (and even soundtracks, sometimes) can be downloaded and played by anyone for free. Some of them can be played on a browser.

The 2017 edition was held in May and since nobody has talked about it here I thought that it would have been interesting to create a topic about it.

The winner: “Peridium”

Link to the game page

Mycologist Dr. James Turner had been stationed at an Antarctic research base for the past decade. He and his wife were nearing completion of their study into the ancient fungal organisms buried deep below the ice, when something had gone very wrong.

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Second place: “Void Quest”

Void Quest - What happens when you face something mysterious and indescribable right on your own land? Will your own curiosity lead you to your demise?

Link to the game page

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Third place: “iD”

An android is reactivated in a long deserted factory. What is going on here?

Link to the game page

Ranked list of all the games/winners:

Some of these games have really beautiful pixel art, have a look!

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How does it work? The programmers must create the adventure from scratch, in 14 days?

Yes, exactly. Everything from scratch: story, code, graphics, music…

Well, no, I correct myself: the authors can reuse assets that they already have.

Here is the FAQ.

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It doesn’t say which platforms are supported. I am designing a sort of adventure game for the Intellivision. Would they accept an executable package with a bundled emulator?

dZ.

I’m always a bit confused by these “jams”. I don’t get the point. If you can reuse almost everything you already have, and if they don’t put strong constraints on theme, story and so on, it means nothing. You could have a game that’s already half-ready and spend the two weeks coding it for the jam and that’s it. It loses ALL meaning of a jam, that should be “look, this has been entirely done from scratch in 14 days”.

It’s for fun. So… let’s say that what you suggested occurs. So what? The developer gets to showcase it, and people get to play a new game,

As someone who has made similar contests for niche subcultures, the point is not to recreate a government or military process – it is to motivate people to participate, create and publish, and to have fun!

Part of the motivation is a dearth of participants and enthusiasts in your selected niche. A contest is a way to bring people together, attract new talent, motivate people, and generally have a good time.

You’d be surprised to know how many half-finished projects suddenly get completed or the number of would-be game programmers that decide to finally take the chance to do something they wished to do for so long – just because the contest gives them the motivation.

Putting lots of rules and restrictions just turns people away, and removes the fun out of it.

Always keep this in mind: if the contest ever gets to the point that it attracts so many people that cheating becomes a large problem, then as strange as it sounds, that is a very good problem to have. It means you don’t have to struggle to promote or motivate people to fill your niche; you’ve gone from community contest to the olympics.

Then – and only then – is the time to start working on constraints and stricter rules and checks.

dZ.

It makes sense.

But still, for a person like me, it’s quite the opposite. I did not know about this jam, but even if I did, I wouldn’t have enrolled. Why? Because I don’t have anything ready beforehand, and I’d think “how can I compete against people who probably have all set up and will just need to polish their game?”. My two-weeks work would be awful.

But I’m thinking of entering the itch.io’s lowrezjam because of its constraints: it must be a 64x64 game :stuck_out_tongue: ok, the same problems above can apply for this jam, but the chances someone has assets for a game in 64 pixels resolution are lower, and I feel it’s more fair.

That’s fair, but that may just be your view. I’m sure many people enter not for the prize, but for the chance to compete and have their games judged, played, and admired publicly.

dZ.