Organizing a Giant Bomb game jam

I'm updating the main topic now with a tentative time frame: March 28th to April 5th. Essentially it's a 9-day jam, hopefully enough time to let everybody make something awesome and stupid, but not too long so that people get bored or discouraged.

How does that date work for everyone?

I put together some really simple Giant Rom logos for anyone that wants to use them.

Here's a zip with the two logos below and the Photoshop file for the design: THA-giantrom.zip

These look great! Thanks. Perhaps something could be done in the way of a meme, too, across all the games. If say everyone's game opened up with that splash and a <5s audio clip of a great GB moment, it could be a really fun way to give the splash screen more flavour without making it more complicated (like an animation would). I'm just spitballing here.

Further spitballing: I often get lost or stuck in the initial setup period when I do game jams, and it usually kills my project. It might be possible for someone experienced in a certain game framework or engine to construct a Giant ROM 'starter pack', basically a ZIP file with the assets for the splash and the code to display it already in there. Obviously that depends on the complexity of the framework. It would be nice to be able to download something like that and build a game inside it. I could theoretically knock one together for Phaser, although almost anyone else who's used that framework would probably be better.

I wasn't joking about the authentic ZX Spectrum pixel art.

@hamst3r: That's utterly fantastic! Thank you so much! :D

I hadn't played "Make My Video - Giant Bomb" yet. It's fantastic! I don't know why people are complaining about how video editing is hard, I was a pro at it in no time!

@havochq: I can probably find a handful of days in there to try and make something!

Are there any good collections of audio clips out there?

@waronhugs: Do you mean GB quotes or a sound effects library?

A pack of standard Giant-Bomb related sounds would be nice. Of course, the library of Bombcast episodes is already available. So anyone who wants can browse through that and pick whatever they desire out of it.

Sound effects are a different matter, but I would point anyone interested to SFXR. This is an excellent little program by the maker of Sculptris (Dr. Petter). It is a great way to create and tweak some quick-and-dirty 8-bit styled sound effects. Very efficient.

I would also like to address some of the content guidelines. On the one hand, I think it would be best if the entries tried to be Safe-For-Work. For a publicly-facing competition, it is best to keep things relatively tasteful. At the same time, I don't think there should be any restrictions on the language used. (again, within the bounds of good taste) The Giant Bomb crew generally work "blue" when it comes to the Bombcast, so some F-Bomb dropping probably wouldn't be much of an issue in terms of content.

@roger_wilco said:

Is this really necessary? Ive been in countless game jams and I've never had a content guideline imposed upon me before and tbh very rarely seen anyone submit anything knowingly offensive. I find it a little unnecessarily hand-holdy.

Well, "guidelines" is a considerably gentler term than "rules." It implies wiggle-room from the outset. Though you may be right. This is a creative effort, after all. And creative types usually prefer not to feel that they are being repressed in any way. Even a term like "guidelines" might still scare some people off, despite its ambiguity.

Perhaps just a minor disclaimer that empowers the community in general to disqualify any entries that are being willfully offensive/in epic bad taste? The goal here isn't to suppress expression, but simply to discourage the kind of expression that could paint the site, or the site's community, in an excessively negative light. And enforcement of such a policy could be the work of those running the jam collaborating with those participating in the jam. A bit more of a general consensus solution, as opposed to managerial enforcement.

Yeah fair enough, I think just a single sentence along the lines of "Make what you want, but we'd ask you to try not to be needlessly crude of offensive." is more than enough. I wouldn't have thought anyone from this community would go down that path anyway.

That sounds good! I'll add something to that effect. And I'll make a proper new post detailing the actual jam soon!

The post for the jam proper is live here! Please check it out, organize, and get ready! :D

I have no knowledge of programming a game, but I'll try and see if I can make it happen.