Giant ROM 4 - The Giant Bomb Game Jam Encore

What?

Hey hi hello folks! A new year has begun and there's still plenty of time before the convention season takes over, so in the meantime, let's make some wonderful and silly games together! :D

THE THEMES WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON UPF FRIDAY, JANUARY 27TH!

THE THEMES HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED!

• EAST VS WEST
• ONE BIG CHOMP

PICK ONE (OR TWO) (OR NONE)!

• START: January 27th
• END: February 5th (submit your game before that day is over!)
• There are TWO special themes picked from GB staff and community suggestions!
• Follow one theme, or both! (but if you don't want to follow either that's okay too!)
• 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 January 27th to February 5th - a little over 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!

The Themes

The list started being put together when I asked GB folks to submit themes during the 2015 PAX Prime panel, and I've since tracked down everyone else to get a complete set. Dan is off cooldown and has submitted a new one, so there's a chance his idea will be picked again! Here are the themes; two will be chosen!

• The Community: Johnny V
• Jeff: East VS West <<<SELECTED THEME
• Dan: Waluigi's first official Nintendo game
• Vinny: Italian Pac-Man
• Jason: Babies
• Alex: FMV
• Brad: Dave Lang's Ideal Game
• Drew: (on a 1-jam cooldown)
• Rorie: One Big Chomp <<<SELECTED THEME

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 here and we'll help!

Danielle Riendeau at Waypoint just posted a neat article on how to get started making games if you want some pointers!

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?

OFFICIAL JAM PAGE ON ITCH DOT IO

Like the last time, I'm 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?

I WILL TRY TO FIND 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?

The scoring system for the voting round has also been revised; Themeness is out (since themes are optional) and has been replaced by Concept, which is a more general evaluation of the idea behind the game.

WHAT NOW?

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

Happy jamming! :D

Was there ever a wrap up of the last Giant ROM?

If anyone needs interface graphics, hit me up. I can do 3D graphics and programming at a stretch.

For the last jam, I contributed 2D, 3D and some programming to Stress Rehearsal with the EU team. Sure, it was great craic altogether.

It was low-key! The wrap-up is one thing I've been wanting to improve this time (last time was team coordination, and thanks to @pseg things got a lot better). These jams keep syncing up with very tumultuous events in my life so I hope this time everything goes smoothly and we can give the jam a nice send-off.

This is pretty good timing for me, I've spent this month switching from Game Maker to Unity and could use a project like this.

Wasn't satisfied with the game I made for the last jam so I'm hoping to do better this time.

gaaaah I so wanna do this but this school quarter's kinda super important if I wanna work in games. I can probably do the next one though!

:D

I might use this to get more familiar with Unreal 4's paper. We'll have to see though!

When are themes picked?

Okay, I think this time I will try to make something. Thanks for organising this once again, and good luck everyone!

Oh man, I am excited for this.

I'd also love to know when the themes are picked.

EDIT: Woops, it said at the top. UPF Friday, January 27.

Thank you for doing these @zandravandra , they're so much fun.

I hope my free-time permits me to take part because I had a blast doing the last one. We'll see!

With the option to ignore the themes I think I will enter this one. GB is not a large enough space to require themes for jams

ive been such a lazy bugger when it comes to actually joining jams. *crossing my fingers* for this one

I'd love to join this one. I am a musician, so if anybody needs cool sounds for their game, hit me up.

Well looks like I know what I'm doing for the next couple of weekends.

I've never done a game jam before so this could be my first one... if I don't forget.

I'll be skipping this one as my wife is currently jamming out the greatest game of all: our first child. We started about 8 months ago, so we already broke the rules.

Wish us luck!

Edit: I might be able to provide sounds for someone else. http://soundcloud.com/underwaterbob.

@sinusoidal: Congratulations! :D

Danielle just posted a really neat article on how to make games over at Waypoint! Please check it out if you need that little push of inspiration to jump into the jam! :D

I've been largely ignoring these for some strange reason, and I think I'd like to not do that again this time.

I'll probably screw around with Unity and try to make something relatively simple. I might be looking for somebody for art, or might just offer my assistance to others instead. Either way, I'd like to try in actually join all of y'all this time. :D

Oh, you know I'm down! I put my info on the team-up sheet. Anyone who needs help with anything, hit me up! I'd like to try and make a VR game this year, so if anyone else has access to a VR headset and wants to make a game, let's get together. I can work with people of any timezone, I think. I'm good with 3d models, asset generation, I can kind of do animation, and I'm baaarely a programmer but I think if you are too we can work together. Last year our team used a bit of FMV to pretty okay effect and I'd like to make good on that effort so maybe let's also add FMV like we did last time? I don't know, I drank too much coffee near the end of work, and anyway let's make something cool!

I've been wanting to get back into Unreal Engine 4 development for a while now but haven't had any inspiration. I have a buddy of mine who is also a wiz at unreal and he is a giant bomb fan. I think this might be good for both us to get back into Unreal. :D

Sweet! I missed the last one but I am definitely doing something for this. I have been checking out Pico-8, seems perfect as an engine for a game jam game. Count me in!

Going to miss this :( For next year, where should people look to know in advance when this is coming up?

Glad we're able to pick from two ideas again this time. Some of these ideas are really hard. "One Big Chomp" has to be my biggest stumper.

Thanks for running it again @zandravandra :)

Sweet I can't wait! /starts waiting

Also @zandravandra, is there anything against using art assets made from a previous Jam?

I had just done a game jam last weekend... Oh what the hell, why not ;)

@sykosis said:

Not at all, that's fine! If it helps you make a game, go for it. :D

@shorthair said:

Feel free to poke me on Twitter (same handle) about it! I try to schedule them in advance but it's difficult. The way it's going, there's usually going to be one in winter and one in summer. I want to do better about announcing them in advance in the future, though!

I'll try to participate. I'm a programmer and can also do some game designing. If anyone wants to team up, let me know! Also, if you are just starting and need help with Unity or Construct, I'm glad to help.

The timing is finally right for me to do one of these. WOO!

Although it means pausing other gamedev-related projects. lol. But I think this will be good because it will force me to actually finish something despite its quality--something I've yet to do with any of my game projects.

Hey everyone, I am a composer. I tried getting in on the last game jam but my collaborator fizzled out. The music I have been working on recently is electronic, sometimes drone-y, sometimes rhythmic. I am currently in the middle of a month-long project where I am recording a song every day using a small 1-voice analog synth. I will post links to a few examples of this stuff and my slightly less recent work, but my SoundCloud is is packed full of stuff.

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-17-jan-2017

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-10

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-3-jan-2017

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-19-jan-2017

If anyone is interested in these types of sounds hit me up. I've been a musician and a gamer all my life and have always fantasized about writing music for a weird game.

I'm in. I've started working on something for every previous jam but never submitted anything, this time that changes. Best of luck to everyone.

Just coming off the trail of the global game jam so this might be a bit a bit of a tough one, but I'm down to give it a shot again this year!

@willza92: @ungratefuldead: Yeah, I participated in GGJ last week as well - but I figure, why not keep the momentum going? Never stop making games!

I've been meaning to get in on this jam since it started, but I feel like I'm ready now. Already got some ideas!

@stevo746: I dig your stuff, especially that Day 3 one. Do you have any other fast/dance-y sort of tracks?

Well, this brings back memories from 5 months ago. After how much work it was making Passes, Please, I don't know if I'm feeling up to throwing all of myself into a huge thing, but I'll try to see if I can get something out for this jam.

Bit late I guess but if anyone needs a programmer I'd be happy to contribute. I don't have a lot of free time during the week though. I have a ton of experience in Unity but no experience actually finishing projects. Message me here or on Twitter @sarkahn if you're interested.

Some random out of context gifs from a project I'm working on (almost all programming by me, art is placeholder) https://gfycat.com/@sarkahn

thanks for posting this! im a science geek with a lot of ambition to make a game and zero knowledge of where to begin, this guide is quite inspiring. i wish i could just take a year off from life and learn how to do this. maybe some day i will.

@carpe_dmt: Never stop making games. Never stop making games. Never stop. Making games. Never stop. Making. Games. Never. Stop. Making. Games. Never. Stop. Making. Games.

Can't wait.

Also, if any artists are happy to throw some art at a Designer, Developer and Sound guy (that's-a-me, Mario!) then please do. I'll be keeping an eye on the team sheets and perhaps asking for quick cheeky art contributions (because my art SUUUUUUUUUUCKS).

Alright then, let's make a bloody video game.

@soylentgreen I definitely have some more upbeat ones, and would be willing to write some more specifically in that style if you like it!

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-5-jan-2017

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-22-jan-2017

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-11-jan-2017

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-10-jan-2017

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-17-jan-2017

https://soundcloud.com/itssteveblum/day-18-jan-2017

@willza92: Yes! That's the spirit. If they're announcing a theme this afternoon, why not get a jump-start on this stuff? Let's team up! I'm a CG guy, So I can do animations and assets, not so great with characters but I can try. I can also do writing, a tiny bit of programming, acting if the FMV category gets picked...You name it, I'll give it a shot. I've got a fair bit of free time this week.

Anyone else want on board this game train? I live on the east coast (GMT -5) if that helps anyone.

I'm using this as an excuse to teach myself Unity. Spent the last few hours just running through some tutorials and it seems somewhat simple (I've only made games previously in Java, and most of that is just text based stuff because I'm awful at graphics).

I have a really stupid/great idea for one of the categories, so here's hoping it gets picked!

No promises on actually delivering something as don't know if I have enough time within the next week, but I'll at least try.

THE THEMES HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED!

• EAST VS WEST
• ONE BIG CHOMP

Happy jamming, folks! :D

If anyone is in need of 3d character art I can help out with that. My own game will have simple enough art that I wouldn't mind making more.

I was planning to make a kart racer but started testing that out over the past couple weeks and it's way too much work for 9 days.

Instead I'm going to make something in the vein of classic arcade. Burger Time and Donkey Kong being the biggest inspirations.

here we go!

I've always wanted to make music for a game and I feel like this would be a great opportunity! I can make stuff all the way from ambient to hip hop to electronic/dance. Here's some of my stuff! https://soundcloud.com/natenoah

Before the theme got announced I made this document full of helpful tips for getting ready to Jam that maybe you guys might find helpful when getting started, especially if this is your fist time jamming. Hopefully it'll be helpful for you guys as you duders work out what you're going to do for the jam.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o0Z09Nx778EqQ6rvgDza1fCYlyf1UxzIWtOkIiA9FeE/edit?usp=sharing

And of course, good luck to everyone. Our team was personally really inspired by Jeff's call for "The War on the War on Drugs," so we'll probably try tackling that this time.

@sarkahn: That gfycat site looks incredible! would you like to join our team? We'd love to have a talented programmer (and, artist!) like you on our side. we don't have any ideas yet, either, so you're welcome to contribute any, and all!

@frump , @mijati , @ungratefuldead , I extend the same invite to you as well :)

@peterious: I'm in the process of making a DDR-style rhythm game, more music would totally be appreciated if you're down for working together. I'm looking for fast dance/electronic stuff with good beats, if that makes any sense at all (it does in my head!).

@soylentgreen: hell yea I'd love to! do you have any examples/references for what sorta style you're going for?