Giant ROM 2 - The Giant Bomb Game Jam returns!

What?

Hey hi hello folks! Time for another one of these! :D Since it's been about half a year since the last one, it's time to make some games together again!

THEME WAS ANNOUNCED MY TWITCH CHANNEL! HERE'S THE HIGHLIGHT! OR, WATCH IT HERE!

THE THEME HAS BEEN DECIDED:

"WHAT HIDEO KOJIMA DOES NEXT"

MAY DAN HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL.

THE JAM HAS OFFICIALLY ENDED! GO CHECK OUT THE GAMES HERE!

• START: November 28th (I will announce the theme live just past midnight when that day begins, so don't start working before then!)
• END: December 6th (be sure to submit your game before that day is over!)
• There will be a special theme picked at random from the GB folks' suggestions at the PAX Prime panel! In addition to this theme, the game should also be somehow related to Giant Bomb.
• Do what you want, but please try not to be too crude or offensive -
  be a Giant Bomber, not a Giant Bummer!

So that's November 28th to December 6th - 9 days total, which includes two weekends. Hopefully that's enough to let as many people as possible make some really cool, really silly games... again!

The Themes

Nearly every member of the crew suggested a theme for the jam when I asked during the PAX Prime panel, so for the sake of fairness I'm trying to track down everybody so each staff member has a chance to contribute. Here are the themes; only one will be chosen, and I have no idea which!

• The Crowd: Johnny V
• Jeff: East VS West
• Dan: What Hideo Kojima Does Next << SELECTED THEME
• Vinny: Italian Pac-Man
• Austin: Bleak Cyberpunk Dystopias
• Jason: Babies
• Alex: FMV
• Brad: (TO BE DETERMINED)
• Drew: (TO BE DETERMINED)
• Rorie: One Big Chomp

How?

Check out the Giant ROM Boot Camp! Resources are listed there, both in terms of programs and free assets you can use! If you have any suggestions, post 'em and I'll update accordingly.

Also, I've made a Team-Up Sheet if you want to find fellow jammers! Any questions? Post 'em!

You can also totally submit a game by yourself if you want! :D No pressure to make a masterpiece or anything - we're all making silly things out of love and inspiration. <3 Every game counts!

Where?

Like the last time,i I'll be hosting the jam on itch.io, which has a terrific game jam feature! Everybody will be able to post their creations there, add them to the jam, and enter their team's details at the same time. There's even an integrated ranking system that I will fill with arbitrary and silly parameters!

Are There Fabulous Prizes?

THERE WILL BE PARTICIPATION PRIZES FOR ALL TEAMS WHO SUBMIT A GAME!

Probably Steam codes for games. But maybe Something More for the games that stand out in some way! Who knows?

WHAT NOW?

Put your team together if you don't already have one, and get to developing a ridiculous game!

Duder, it's over! Go check out the games! :D

Happy jamming! :D

I never shipped the posters for the last game jam - it's been tough to get our mailroom people around considering the floor that has the mailroom has been undergoing renovations for months now! So I'll throw two more slightly used but signed Giant Bomb Nighthawks posters into the prize pool! I'll let Havoc decide how they're dispersed, and hopefully I can get them all out in December when the mailroom is back up and running! Exclamation marks!

@rorie: Awesome, thank you so much! :D Fabulous prizes confirmed!

looking forward to participating on this one :D

Awesome... maybe this time I'll try to join in on making something that's pretty terrible.

I took sixth first time around. Which was less disheartening than Jeff and Drew's reaction to playing the game on stream and using keyboard controls. If only they'd read my incredibly cluttered title screen and discovered that it did in fact support Xinput. Yes, playing a dual-stick shooter with only the keyboard sucks. I lost all the code and project files when I updated Windows to 10 too, so don't expect any patches to Curse of the Mountain Men anytime soon.

My late November is looking kind of busy, so this time around my game will probably not be as well made, but I'll be there with bells on. In the interim I've dropped Game Maker almost entirely and have been working with LibGDX, Java and Android on mobile. I suppose I can make a PC game in Android Studio with Java and LibGDX, but yeah, not the most efficient way to crank out a PC game in a week. I predict at least jank to outright unplayability, and certainly less cinematic content. Those yapping Jeff, Brad, Michael and Kenny jaws took longer than the rest of the game.

I like the idea of a theme. Total freedom to make anything is nice and all, but it's also good to work within a more constricting framework to see what one is really capable of now and again. I also need to get out of my comfort zone and start learning some new dev tricks. I've mostly only worked on 2D shooters and platformers. Hopefully I'll expand my horizons this time around.

I'd like to participate in this. Sounds like fun and the entries last time out were really impressive. Looking forward to it!

oh boy I think I might do an FMV game no matter what the theme is

i had such a good time making something last time (and then seeing them play it) so hopefully i have a chance to throw something together this time around. looking forward to it!

I hope I can get an entry in this time.

Really excited to try and jump in this time! Going to be a great way to re-learn some Unity I think, will be tight with work schedules but the dumb ideas I have for this need to get out.

I'm looking forward to participating again. I already have some ideas but I'll be completely borked if the theme is FMV.

Regret not getting my idea done for the first jam. Gonna try my hardest to make something for this one.

Aw, that almost couldn't be worse timing for me :( Don't think I'll be able to participate in any real capacity. Might squeeze in some sort of tiny Twine thing or something, but no promises.

Good luck and have fun (and batman!) to everyone who does though! It was great fun last time :D

Woof, I've already put my name down for the Idle Thumbs Winter Wizard Jam, which clashes with this. Sorry I can't participate this year, but I'll be looking forward to playing them all when this is over.

Bah! I always have a non-game jam game to work on during these and this time is no different so I don't think I'll be able to do something this year again unfortunately :(. I could possibly take 1 day off to make something, but the last game jam game I made has been sitting in the top 1 or 2 spots in terms of popularity out of 22,000+ games on itch.io for over a year now and it makes me want my next jam game to be something good too. Hopefully next year I don't have anything big happening for this.

I could probably check in for a bit here and there throughout and do quick contributions for anyone else's games if anyone needs some programming help or something.

I might try to do something in UE4. I have been testing it a bit lately. Although some of those themes sounds too hard for me. I can't program anything either so I have to try and see if I can understand the blueprints.

Sounds like the best reason to take a bit of a break from my current level design project. Been a few months since I've touched any code. This scares me.

As usual I have many ideas already. All the possibilities are fun. Let's do this thing!

I am not going to miss it this time! Can't wait to see what the theme ends up being.

I've been wanting to make something game related this seems the place to start! Will wait for theme and see if I'm remotely inspired.

Had fun doing this last time, look forward to doing it again.

I thought I might be able to join this one, but things got a bit busy, so I'll have to pass this time! Good luck to everyone participating! ^^

I really wanted to take part in the last one, but it was too late! Can't wait. Here's what I should make for each theme

• The Crowd: Johnny V
  • Steer Johnny V through progressively brutal hazards to maximize how helpless and pathetic you look. (The scene in Short Circuit where Johnny V got nearly destroyed kinda messed me up)
• Jeff: East VS West
  • GB East and GB West wrestling game, made in a week, will maybe be better than WWE 2k16
• Dan: What Hideo Kojima Does Next
  • Hideo Kojima's "Theodore Rex" - The official game of the movie
• Vinny: Italian Pac-Man
  • A recreation of "The New Adventures of Pac Man" but with 900% more mandolin music
• Austin: Bleak Cyberpunk Dystopias
  • Point N Click adventure game called "Donald Trump's America Online".
• Jason: Babies
  • Law And Order: SVU: Babies: Kart Racing. Mode 7 Kart racer where the cast of Law and Order: SVU are babies and they drive weaponized go-karts
• Alex: FMV
  • Contradiction 2: Escalating Hi-Jenks

I might do this for my third round of Extra Life 2015.

I have no idea how to make a video game.

Should be fun!

@hell0jed: I would play all of these.

Think I might just give this a go, see if I can't get something half-not-terrible out for some duders to laugh with/at. Should be fun!

I never got a chance to submit anything last year as I had just started a full time job and was finishing up college ~_~

I have a cool / bad Simulator style game idea, a Monster Strike style game and a local multiplayer style game. Need to flesh them out, see what's doable in the time frame (still have work) and then what would match the theme the most.

Is there a collection / repo of the Giant Bomb duders just saying... stuff. Like a soundboard type thing? Would be cool to start building one for this and future Giant ROMs.

Anywho, I can offer backend / leaderboard services if people find a need for them. I've been working for GameSparks for over a year now and can offer use of the platform for free for the Game Jam =D It's pretty easy to get the leaderboard stuff working and if you wanted to do some asynchronous multiplayer stuff it's pretty easy to do! Give me a shout if you're interested and I'll help whatever way I can.

@finstern: Thank you, that's really generous! :D

@havochq Quick Question....since it's ok to use free art resources and such would it be cool if I started creating my own art now, since it would technically be the same as using the ready made assets from somewhere else? And then I will just wait and actually start my programming and design on the start date.

@robroyale: Up to you! It's a random theme, so you risk making assets that won't fit. So aside from that, feel free!

Oh crap yeah i forgot about that! The themes up top are just the potentials, sheesh I better wait.

Changed my mind, I'm now totally on board with an FMV theme. I also have a fun idea for a Johnny V theme.

Oh man this starts this weekend. I've been playing games (and guitar) and haven't coded a bloody thing in ages. Rusty rusty.

Bring your #gamedev hats duders it's almost time

Always regretted not trying something for the first game jam. Finals are hitting hard VERY soon, so naturally I'm dropping out of school for my big break on Giant Bomb! In all seriousness I'll try to squeeze something out of my old XNA skills, maybe try something new with unity.

So glad this is happening! Can I jam too?

@samanthazero: Everyone can jam! :D

HYPPEEEE TRAINNN!!!!!

I've been itching for a game jam and I've been slowly trying to get more involved in this dope community! Thanks for organizing this! I can't wait :DDD

What timezone is 'midnight' for?

@bdhurkett: Sorry about that!

Theme will be announced on my twitch channel at midnight EST! That's about 5½ hours from this post! :D

Here's hoping I can throw something together in that time. Really would like to.

Headed home from the office Christmas party to stream the kickoff! :D

I haven't jammed in quite a while. Excited to see what the theme is!

If anybody needs some music or anything, let me know. I need an excuse to get back into MilkyTracker!

I am bummed I don't have the time to spend on this this year u_u

Hope everyone kicks ass!

Kept us waiting, huh?

Tell me, do YOU think love can bloom in a wrestling ring?

Let's get to work.

(I'm done, I'm gonna go code now or something)

I'm sorry @havochq but I can't with this theme. It would be an excellent theme for a general game jam but I can't think of a good idea that would incorporate the theme as well as GB. I have a pretty cool idea for one of the other themes so I think I'm going to go with that, and I totally understand if that disqualifies me from the fabulous prizes.

I also have an idea that doesn't really fit super well with the theme. Had an Idea of a DCS / X Simulator 2015 idea and I just couldn't shake it, then Drew replied with some useful info for it and I couldn't resist! I'll be building a semi replica of the studio though so I might do a Hideo and Seek mini game in my Live Stream Simulator...

Here's the first progress vid, approx 3 hours work in so far have to go out for an Electric Six gig but hoping to get home in time to work on it more tonight!

At work this weekend so I guess it's time to get designing before I can knuckle down on the work!

Best of luck to everyone! And remember, check out the team-up sheet if you want to team up! Tons of awesome folks listed there! :D