Oh my goodness! What a wonderful surprise this is, I truly didn't expect to place with something this personal--especially when I discovered an array of game-breaking glitches after submissions closed! I'm glad you all enjoyed it in spite of those!
That being said, I'm very, very curious how many of you did see the end XD I'm planning to upload a patched version after my family holidays, and I hope that those of you who didn't get to see it will play again so you can!
I would be very interested in hearing the judges' feedback--and I cannot even begin to tell you how delighted I was to see a rubric and score breakdown for this jam! (That was my biggest complaint about IGMC.) Thank you, judges!
A little background on my entry: almost the entire thing is a true story. I really do go around local towns with gifts for service workers and candy canes for anyone kind. And I really do dress like that! The fire company really did gift us a tree the year my mom missed Christmas when I was younger. I really did have a cashier break a candy cane I offered. I'm glad you enjoyed the experience of being the Elf! I highly recommend it in real life too!
Announcement - Results! Winners! ~Sleigh the Competition! 2023 Christmas Game Jam
● ARCHIVED · READ-ONLY
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She's not new to art but she hasn't been doing *game* art very long. This is also a new style she's developing, and because she doesn't own the RM engine herself she couldn't test the size of the sprites before she drew them. In hindsight we should have redone them. I did note the proportion issue and there's actually a joke about it upstairs in Chris's house if you examine the toilet.Glad she enjoyed reading it. Did she just start with pixel-art?
If she did, that's actually a pretty solid work already, there's some problems with proportions here and there (some furniture is a tad bigger\smaller than how it's meant to be) and some shading is needed (some stuff looks a bit flat) but other than that, it's pretty cute.
If we wanna be fussy here, I think the interior maps should've been a bit smaller too, they are unnecessarily big.
I wouldn't say the pixel-art was MS Painty level though, I think it's not and I should know because I'm an artist too, but there is always room for improvement of course.
Make her pursue the pixel-artist way so she can get even better, and you two can be a strong team one day (programmer and artist). You guys are similar to me and my wife (my wife is the programmer though in our case).
Doing technicolour was decided on fairly early on so it wouldn't take her too long to draw the art, as she had several craft fairs during the month she had to make stuff for. Hopefully next jam we do she'll have fewer other obligations.
Her art has improved so much since she started though!
Honestly I'm just stoked I managed to pull off a fully-functioning jigsaw puzzle in RPG Maker. :D -
No worries, I'm done and will be moving on.@AquaEcho Yes, so you keep saying...even on the first page of this thread. It's not like the comment you quoted was even directed at you :stickytongue:
If you didn't enjoy yourself, we're all sorry for you, but what's the point of repeatedly injecting it into conversation between people who did like it? -
Congrats to all the winners and thanks to all the judges! Good work for everyone who completed their project and submitted :thumbsup-left:.
Hope everyone had fun in this jam and Merry Christmas! -
Some time ago I was on the forums when you were talking about borrowing from DnD mechanics and I was writing a lot of responses warning that this was not a wise idea. Coincidentally I tried your game and saw many of the responses I was seeing around that time was not only ignored, but the extent you took those inspirations went deeper than what I thought was possible, from the pacing to the narration style.I'm a sucker for
punishmentfeedback so I'm happy to hear anything that anyone wants to offer. Don't feel obligated though.
I went into this with low expectations and I thoroughly achieved them. :LZSlol:
- The intention with these long pauses may be to emulate human speech but 1/4th second pauses are all you need to gain this effect in a text-based medium.
- Krampus talked to you like a Game Master railroading you to playing their way and for reasons that do not appear diagetic. Good story games in my experience know how to blend story and gameplay so it feels diagetic.
- Mechanics such as dice rolling are fun in-person but they're uninteresting in a computer medium. There's literally no difference between me "rolling" the die versus Santa or your literal self-insert rolling the dice in the racing game. In tabletop gaming, each dice roll can be full of drama and suspense. That drama doesn't exist in single-player games.
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@Gensun Thanks for your thoughts. I vaguely remember a past DND mechanics discussion, but my memory is not great so I would have to go back and refresh my memory. But apparently, I am full of surprises.
The pauses were meant entirely to try to time the auto advance of the dialog, which, based on feedback, wasn't a preferred choice. It seems that most people prefer being able to advance dialog boxes at their own pace. Which is actually easier to implement anyway. I seriously thought twice about auto advancing the dialog, but I was too far in with too little time left to change that at the end. Still worth experimenting with.
I had to look up "diegetic" and I think I get the point you are trying to make.
I understand your point about dice rolling, but for those who might want to play a board game that has been converted to play alone, on the computer, I don't see how you get away from the mechanic of dice rolling. For instance, if you were playing a computer version of Monopoly, against the computer, I think the dice rolls are a necessary part. Even if it is not a computer game. But that is just my opinion. Same with something like Yahtzee. If you wanted to play against the computer, dice rolling is still an inherent part.
I have already stated that my approach to the Game Jam was backwards and that I was focused more on implementing concepts that I was trying to learn how to do rather than conceive of a game concept that would be fun to play. Backwards. But since it got me motivated to start using MZ again, I can't say I regret my choice. I learned too much from this experience to regret it.
For me, success in the Game Jam was not about trying to win anything. It was about actually completing a project to submit while learning in the process. By that account, the experience was a success.
As far as what I have enjoyed from the Game Jam, I have only been able to play a few, but I have liked most of them so far.
Next Game Jam I will focus more on trying to conceive of a game that fits better within the stated parameters.
Thanks again. -
What a surprise to have reached the top of such a contest! It was a real pleasure to take part, and a nice birthday present in advance to have won it. What an achievement for me and my little elve Luky. :kaopride:
Thanks to @TESTOSTERONE and all the judges for taking the time to support this jam and for giving us such valuable feedbacks.
Thanks also to all the creators who provide us with magnificent resources... without you, I wouldn't have got this 5/5 for the visuals.
And to all the competitors, congratulations again! It's all the more gratifying to come first when there are so many great games to compete with.
And in conclusion, for those of you who were participating for the first time, I can only encourage you to persevere, because it's by doing that you improve. Listen to the comments of the judges and other members of this community... it's a valuable source of learning. And one day, you'll be on top too!
Merry Christmas to all of you! -
@ZombieKidzRule Are there any jam games you enjoyed from the event?
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Alrighty, here's my feedback for those who asked.
Trihan@Trihan The narration and art was well done, though I do think the interior maps were bigger than necessary and felt empty as a result. The minigames were fun, though it took me a moment to realize I needed to use my mouse with them so mentioning that early on would be good. I'm sure there was a lot of work into the minigames but I kinda wish they all were more related to the situation, like the snowman jigsaw felt a little random when it could've been a balancing or 'roll the biggest snowball' minigame instead.
I could farm niceness points from the dog, which I did, so if you don't want that having a "Employer is tired and ignoring you now" scene after trying a few tricks would work. Overall it was a nice and short game, but it felt like it was missing that last piece of the puzzle to make it an excellent game.JohnDoeNews@JohnDoeNews It's a very sweet shoutout to the community and the tiles did up the xmas spirit, but the gameplay is where the game suffered. Placing the food on the table led to nice comments but it would have been nicer if the mc placed it all himself as he spoke since I didn't realize that I needed to check each spot on the table at first (I also didn't realize that it was a table, I kept checking the table on the right of the map :rswt ). Finding the key also took me a while because I had looked at the manger already so when I realized I had to find a key I was checking all the couches, not the decorations.
I didn't read the book because of the time limit, so it's kinda a shame since there could have been something interesting in there but I didn't have the time to judge it. Unfortunately the humor didn't quite hit for me, I got what you were going for but it didn't get any bit chuckles. And I wasn't sure about the end of the game, after finding the envelope I expected a minigame or something to rush around to invite others but the game just seemed to end.Izzy_MS@Izzy_MS The art was adorable, but the mapping could have used a little more love since it felt a bit big. The gift choices was the main gameplay, and while it worked I wish there was a bit more to it since all I could do was pick a random item and hope for the best. I got a Bad End with 2 out of 3 gifts being good, so I assume you need to get every gift right for the Good End.
If you had had more time, having more choices such as giftwrap and more comments from Harold to point players in the right (or wrong) direction for gifts could have been interesting.ShadowDragon@ShadowDragon Making a platformer is a clever idea, but unfortunately the controls just failed for me. I always turn dash on when I start a game, and since I couldn't open the menu midgame I ended up playing on hard mode. I restarted to turn it off, but I still kept falling and missing my jumps... I ended up running out of time and giving up on the second stage because I kept falling into the death trap.slimmmeiske2@slimmmeiske2 Very cute game and nice gameplay, though it would be nice to have some more sounds or animations when grabbing something since I wasn't always sure if I had a cup or not (it took me way to long to realize my held item was shown in the upper right). Having the item held above Reid's head would have really helped with that.
It would have been nice if something happened if you gave a customer the wrong item, I tried a few times but they just ignored me. Having different timings for when customers made a decision would be cool too, since by the last round all three customers decided at the same time so I just did them all and then made them stand there until I collected their money. But overall it was a fun little game.Starmage@Starmage The battle rush mechanics worked well, though I do wish you had redone the skills to all be more holiday related. There's a lot of replayability here, but since I only played 20 minutes I didn't get to see all that work and it left me wishing you had spent less time on alternate party members and more time on connecting skills and enemy mechanics. I ended up going with a 'buff then smash' gameplay loop that let me win without really having to think or pay attention to the enemy type. Also, I was just double-checking something and the battles have popups if you hover over them?! I had no idea, that would have helped a lot since I pretty much just ignored the states while playing.
A minor issue I had was all the flashing during battles started giving me a headache, so it would be nice to be able to turn off battle animations completely. The pre-battle menu felt a bit cluttered but I'm not sure how to do it cleanly. Overall it's clear you have big ideas for this game, but for the jam shrinking the scope would have helped.Erif@Erif I was very confused during most of the game since I'm not familiar with any of your characters and it seemed there was a lot of info they knew about each other that I had no clue about. It would have worked better for a jam game if you put this story in your game's world but focused on a npc so I didn't need to know backstories when characters were interacting to get the full story. The battle system seemed pretty cool, but I did just spam 'A' to win.
I ended up only getting to the second battle because a loading error occurred during the fight, so if you had been able to wrangle all the bugs I think this would have worked better.ZombieKidzRule@ZombieKidzRule Some interesting ideas here, but you already know my main complaint: the messages are too slow! I only had 20 minutes to play, and having a 5+ minute intro was a bad choice. The naughty-nice quiz went on for a while and from the sounds of it the results didn't matter, so cutting it entirely would have been fine and left more time for minigames.
The art style you went with was unique, but not very cohesive. Wrapping the portraits in frames could have helped make it feel less like just images on the screen.
I only got to play the racing minigame, and unfortunately it seemed to rely on random luck and nothing I could do. If I was already on the naughty list, being able to 'cheat' during the game would have worked better and would have given krampus another reason to punish me (if he caught on). I bet you learned a ton while making this, which is a reward all its own, but the end result was a slow and not very engaging game.BabeElena@BabeElena The xmas spirit took a back seat to the cooking mechanics, if you had been able to tie those in more I think it would have worked better. There were a number of messages when describing the meals that weren't in English, which took away from my understanding of the story and may have been hiding a lot more xmas connections. The game also crashed for me near the end, so I didn't even get to see the ending...
I love cooking games, but for this game jam I think you had just too many options. Instead of feeling like I was cooking the game was me just reading the quest log and following the markers, but if the number of recipes had been cut down then you could have made the player think a bit about how to make some of the recipes.NekoCassowary@NekoCassowary I know you said you don't want feedback, but I do want to say that I loved the racoon! Such a cutie.TeiRaven@TeiRaven All the mapping and sprites were adorable, and the story was sweet too. There were a few situations where pictures would stay on the screen after the cutscene, so I would have to talk to another npc to clear the screen.
I didn't finish because I ran out of time before handing out all my candy canes, a marker or list of how many people I needed to give them to would've helped. I also don't know if the joy points mattered or not. I spent most of the game wandering and enjoying the atmosphere which was well done, but it would've been nice to see the ending.jssf1992@jssf1992 There was a lot of dialogue before getting to any gameplay, and the battle tutorial worried me since it covered a lot before I even got to attack. In the end, the battles were mostly me spamming my strongest attack I could afford that turn instead of really thinking and planning anything out. I get what you were going for, but a more limited list of skills may have worked better for a jam game.
Counter also didn't seem to work when I used it, so I ignored it after that.
The mapping was a bit big and empty, santa's room for example had so much space in the middle for movement and it wasn't used. The story was fine, but I didn't connect with it since I was left wondering how carol would feel when she finds out she'd been tricked by all her friends.Aesica@Aesica I liked that the puzzles were worked pretty well into the world, like the sliding ice puzzle, without being too overwhelming. The story and battle were done well, but nothing personally grabbed me.
The mapping was good, but I was disappointed to see that ai art was used since there are nice blonde options without using a resource that didn't match the rest of the game.
Okay, I think that's everyone I spotted that asked for feedback. If I missed you, let me know and I'll add it. But everyone did great, making a game for a jam is tough so good job completing something!
:ptea:
Edit: Added jssf1992. Added Aesica. -
I had asked as well, though in a general sense and in the other thread, because I thought that it would more appropriate there . . . but if you'ld rather not I understand. (Not sure if it being locked means to stop talking about it though.)
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Thanks so much! The dog being a repeatable nice point source was actually intentional following feedback that you could repeat naughty points by hitting people with snowballs but no such mechanic existed for the nice points. It's there to allow the neutral ending without too much balancing of minigame outcomes.Alrighty, here's my feedback for those who asked.
Trihan@Trihan The narration and art was well done, though I do think the interior maps were bigger than necessary and felt empty as a result. The minigames were fun, though it took me a moment to realize I needed to use my mouse with them so mentioning that early on would be good. I'm sure there was a lot of work into the minigames but I kinda wish they all were more related to the situation, like the snowman jigsaw felt a little random when it could've been a balancing or 'roll the biggest snowball' minigame instead.
I could farm niceness points from the dog, which I did, so if you don't want that having a "Employer is tired and ignoring you now" scene after trying a few tricks would work. Overall it was a nice and short game, but it felt like it was missing that last piece of the puzzle to make it an excellent game.JohnDoeNews@JohnDoeNews It's a very sweet shoutout to the community and the tiles did up the xmas spirit, but the gameplay is where the game suffered. Placing the food on the table led to nice comments but it would have been nicer if the mc placed it all himself as he spoke since I didn't realize that I needed to check each spot on the table at first (I also didn't realize that it was a table, I kept checking the table on the right of the map :rswt ). Finding the key also took me a while because I had looked at the manger already so when I realized I had to find a key I was checking all the couches, not the decorations.
I didn't read the book because of the time limit, so it's kinda a shame since there could have been something interesting in there but I didn't have the time to judge it. Unfortunately the humor didn't quite hit for me, I got what you were going for but it didn't get any bit chuckles. And I wasn't sure about the end of the game, after finding the envelope I expected a minigame or something to rush around to invite others but the game just seemed to end.Izzy_MS@Izzy_MS The art was adorable, but the mapping could have used a little more love since it felt a bit big. The gift choices was the main gameplay, and while it worked I wish there was a bit more to it since all I could do was pick a random item and hope for the best. I got a Bad End with 2 out of 3 gifts being good, so I assume you need to get every gift right for the Good End.
If you had had more time, having more choices such as giftwrap and more comments from Harold to point players in the right (or wrong) direction for gifts could have been interesting.ShadowDragon@ShadowDragon Making a platformer is a clever idea, but unfortunately the controls just failed for me. I always turn dash on when I start a game, and since I couldn't open the menu midgame I ended up playing on hard mode. I restarted to turn it off, but I still kept falling and missing my jumps... I ended up running out of time and giving up on the second stage because I kept falling into the death trap.slimmmeiske2@slimmmeiske2 Very cute game and nice gameplay, though it would be nice to have some more sounds or animations when grabbing something since I wasn't always sure if I had a cup or not (it took me way to long to realize my held item was shown in the upper right). Having the item held above Reid's head would have really helped with that.
It would have been nice if something happened if you gave a customer the wrong item, I tried a few times but they just ignored me. Having different timings for when customers made a decision would be cool too, since by the last round all three customers decided at the same time so I just did them all and then made them stand there until I collected their money. But overall it was a fun little game.Starmage@Starmage The battle rush mechanics worked well, though I do wish you had redone the skills to all be more holiday related. There's a lot of replayability here, but since I only played 20 minutes I didn't get to see all that work and it left me wishing you had spent less time on alternate party members and more time on connecting skills and enemy mechanics. I ended up going with a 'buff then smash' gameplay loop that let me win without really having to think or pay attention to the enemy type. Also, I was just double-checking something and the battles have popups if you hover over them?! I had no idea, that would have helped a lot since I pretty much just ignored the states while playing.
A minor issue I had was all the flashing during battles started giving me a headache, so it would be nice to be able to turn off battle animations completely. The pre-battle menu felt a bit cluttered but I'm not sure how to do it cleanly. Overall it's clear you have big ideas for this game, but for the jam shrinking the scope would have helped.Erif@Erif I was very confused during most of the game since I'm not familiar with any of your characters and it seemed there was a lot of info they knew about each other that I had no clue about. It would have worked better for a jam game if you put this story in your game's world but focused on a npc so I didn't need to know backstories when characters were interacting to get the full story. The battle system seemed pretty cool, but I did just spam 'A' to win.
I ended up only getting to the second battle because a loading error occurred during the fight, so if you had been able to wrangle all the bugs I think this would have worked better.ZombieKidzRule@ZombieKidzRule Some interesting ideas here, but you already know my main complaint: the messages are too slow! I only had 20 minutes to play, and having a 5+ minute intro was a bad choice. The naughty-nice quiz went on for a while and from the sounds of it the results didn't matter, so cutting it entirely would have been fine and left more time for minigames.
The art style you went with was unique, but not very cohesive. Wrapping the portraits in frames could have helped make it feel less like just images on the screen.
I only got to play the racing minigame, and unfortunately it seemed to rely on random luck and nothing I could do. If I was already on the naughty list, being able to 'cheat' during the game would have worked better and would have given krampus another reason to punish me (if he caught on). I bet you learned a ton while making this, which is a reward all its own, but the end result was a slow and not very engaging game.BabeElena@BabeElena The xmas spirit took a back seat to the cooking mechanics, if you had been able to tie those in more I think it would have worked better. There were a number of messages when describing the meals that weren't in English, which took away from my understanding of the story and may have been hiding a lot more xmas connections. The game also crashed for me near the end, so I didn't even get to see the ending...
I love cooking games, but for this game jam I think you had just too many options. Instead of feeling like I was cooking the game was me just reading the quest log and following the markers, but if the number of recipes had been cut down then you could have made the player think a bit about how to make some of the recipes.NekoCassowary@NekoCassowary I know you said you don't want feedback, but I do want to say that I loved the racoon! Such a cutie.TeiRaven@TeiRaven All the mapping and sprites were adorable, and the story was sweet too. There were a few situations where pictures would stay on the screen after the cutscene, so I would have to talk to another npc to clear the screen.
I didn't finish because I ran out of time before handing out all my candy canes, a marker or list of how many people I needed to give them to would've helped. I also don't know if the joy points mattered or not. I spent most of the game wandering and enjoying the atmosphere which was well done, but it would've been nice to see the ending.
Okay, I think that's everyone I spotted that asked for feedback. If I missed you, let me know and I'll add it. But everyone did great, making a game for a jam is tough so good job completing something!
:ptea:
I agree with pretty much everything you've said; we're gonna get Kytt a copy of MZ so she can see how her art looks in-engine as that wasn't something we had here and she had to do a lot of guesswork based on Krita grids and dimensions I'd given her, but she sometimes got the numbers mixed up a bit without realising it (Santa was originally about four times the size he is now XD
Honestly the reason I went with a jigsaw was that I didn't think it had been done in RM before (at least not anywhere I've seen) and I wanted to give myself a technical challenge, but you're right that it would have been better to give the puzzles a Christmas theme.
But we improve with every jam! Those placers better watch out. ;) (they can cry if they want) -
@ZombieKidzRule Are there any jam games you enjoyed from the event?
I have only been able to play a few, but I have liked most of them so far.
If you would like me to clarify, of those I have played or watched so far, I have particularly enjoyed the games from @Trihan , @r66r , and @TSR . The others I have played so far were nice and interesting and pleasant experiences.
But I am still working my way through them.
I know it may sound weird from someone who is learning RPG Maker MZ, but the genre that is typical for RPG Maker is not my favorite type of game. I particularly don't enjoy the default type of combat that is inherent in RPG Maker.
I am also looking at the Game Jam entries for what I can learn from what other people created. Mostly from a mechanical perspective at this time, but I do enjoy seeing what everyone else did and think about whether or not I have learned enough to so something similar. -
@Nowis-337 honestly my primary goal was to do better than you, since you win jams with a frequency I can only put down to you having made a demonic deal for game making talent. XD I'm looking forward to trying yours.
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if you didn't manage to beat my game, I will upload later a skip version to
any level and an option to the good or bad ending as well skip to end.
but you can still complete all levels if you want it the hard way, below a good ending.
(minus some text)
Good Ending
@hiddenone jumping and dieing is what probably alot did at level 2 or above.
Trihan did made it to level 5 with many tries, but he might be able to beat the
game after more patience and more time.
thanks for trying though =) but I promise, the next jam join is NO platformer,
but there will be jumping again :D but a bit easier, I promise ^^ -
@hiddenone Thanks for those thoughts and no surprises. There was definitely more I wanted to do that I just didn't have time for. But many of the things wouldn't really have changed the core nature of the feedback so far.
I definitely learned a lot from start to finish. There were many parts of "completing" and deploying a game that I had never tried yet. Even simple things like changing the title screen.
Even before the feedback, I learned things I definitely wouldn't try again and learned how NOT to do certain things so as to avoid making more work for myself.
All the experience was worth it.
Thanks! -
@hiddenone Thank you! I do recognize it was slightly (not, very) rushed, but i've never participated in a jam before so i was really dumb with the deadline on top of me. I'll try harder next time!
I did the 'A' thing because of the Redux thingy on the battle system's name: Christmas Redux Multishift - Linear Motion Battle System. Had i put the normal battle system i wouldn't even have finished. So i did so you can still play without needing to sit through a massive dialogue on how to play haha, it was so you at least could play! -
Congrats everyone!
Kind of disappointed at how absurdly short the window for player's choice voting was, as I haven't even gotten through half of the games yet. Since my vote didn't make it in, I'll just call out the 3 games that I liked best so far out of the ones I did manage to play: (In no particular order other than alphabetical. Hope you don't mind the small feedback)
- Candy Cane Warrior ( @jssf1992 ): Creative battle system, although a lot of the skills felt useless.
- Christmas Cat-astroph ( @AphoticAmaranth ): Last battle pretty much requires consumables. Can you run out and softlock by wasting them/playing poorly prior to that fight?
- Cringles in Chaos ( @Slaughty ): UI and on-screen enemy sprites were a bit rough/didn't pop very well, but you had me at chrono trigger's battle system.
These are my 3 winners. Come claim your prize~ (the satisfaction of a job well done)
Enjoy your holidays, everyone! :D -
@hiddenone Thank you so much for this feedback! Unfortunately it sounds like you got got by the end cutscene glitch. None of the candy canes were strictly required! All of the required points were marked with sparkles--you could hand out as many or as few candy canes as you wished, as long as those sparkly points were done. You should have gotten a pop-up when they were complete, letting you know that you could go home at any time, but that glitch was my undoing!
The Joy comes in during the end cutscene, but largely, it was a score marker.
Thank you so much for playing and sharing your thoughts! I hope you'll come back to see the end once I get it patched up <3 -
I missed this somehow. If it's not too late, I'm always open to feedback--even if it's harsh. Especially if it's harsh, actually.Alrighty, here's my feedback for those who asked.
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Nah, I understand that. @Aesica We really did debate leaving the poll open till New Years but kind of wanted to get everything squared away before Christmas. I wouldn't mind posting another "unofficial" one for the data junkies but I am at the point where I don't wanna be the guardian of @TESTOSTERONE 's cash in my PayPal anymore.
Lemme tell you something I didn't know. Apparently if you have cash in PayPal, you have to go through EACH vendor and deselect "use PayPal balance first." And...that's the story of how TESTOSTERONE technically bought me cat food and in an absolute fiery panic I had to replenish it with my own cash.