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I meant that everyone slings the word "slop" around, whether the games warrant it or not.

Incidentally I don't see how you can have enough vision or design or iterations in one day. But good luck to you.

Without a way to granularly set your AI usage, and a way to filter it when reviewing, this jam is going to be a hard pass for anyone in the "craftsman" category. It's very likely this jam gets overrun by low-effort generated games, and everyone slings around "slop".

Any chance the AI choice can be added to the filters? Otherwise with thousands of entries it will be impossible to find the kind-of games that you might want to rate.

It would be good to separate games made entirely (or 90%+) by humans from the games made largely by LLMs, even if it was an opt-in category. This would allow human devs to better compare their games and connect with other humans devs, whereas vibe coders could connect to compare their techniques.

This is a terrible solution. it is trivial to just add fake data to a game to make it bigger. 

Also some game jams have a requirement for small sizes, and some engineless games (especially web games), and text games (e.g. traditional roguelikes) are naturally very small.

Personally I like more time, like 1 month.

I didn't know how much of it is customizable. Thanks, that's a good idea. /t/7003709/custom-categories-for-game-jams-especially-ai-gen-vs-h...

Some jams have a strict no-AI/no-LLM policy, whereas others have an open policy that allows AI/LLM usage. The problem with the latter group is that many hand-coding enthusiasts only want to compare themselves to others in their category, and don't want to play and review a large number of vide-coded games. 

An analogy: It is like having a running race where some of the athletes are on performance-enhancing drugs, and others are natural. They can certain share the race track together, but at the end of the race the natural athletes are not going to want to compare themselves to those on performance-enhancing drugs. They can't have the same meaningful discussions ("how did you train for the race?" ... "I just did more drugs. lol."). Likewise those using AI-generation might have separate discussions ("how many tokens did you use?"... "Did you use special harnesses?").

What I'm requesting is a category that can help filter these games apart, in a similar way that the Platform choice already does. Ideally it would be customizable so that the jam organizers can define their own thresholds (e.g., 100% human-made, 90% human-made, Half vibe-coded, 100% AI), but at a minimum just have two groups based on the current binary (Y/N) gen-AI disclosure selection.

Specifically I would like is a way to filter games so that I can only review human-made games (if I decide to also make a human-made game). It's not always obvious from the the thumbnail or the first 10 seconds. There are filters for Platform, etc. already. I'm curious if there can be one for AI-generated vs. human-made. I understand that the category selection would have to be an honor system, and that the definition is fuzzy.

Will there be a way to categorize games by whether they were AI generated or not? This way anyone making a game without AI can prioritize giving reviews to others in their category.

This is quite fun! Please add the option to try the levels without the timer. It seems like a lot of fun just to make awkward creations from ducttape, even without the pressure.

I like the calm music, and especially like the intro voices. I made a similar game, so I am a fan of the physics gameplay. The game was fun enough for me to try many times, but sadly was too difficult for me to get a successful landing. (I blame whatever targeting got me so off course at the last moment. 😄)

Yes, it technically looks at 7x7 blocks as the room, which usually includes some walls. I love the idea of a blacklight. That's going on the wishlist.

Yeah, I should find a way to make it easier to find the last dirt pixel. But also the 100%-clean reward is meant to be optional for only the truly OCD janitors.

Some of the chests are just empty and meant for decoration. I wonder how to make that more clear.

There should be an infinite water source in every couple of rooms. They do look different though; there are 4 varieties.

This is an insanely professional level of quality for a game jam! I hope you expand it further. 

Great game and so faithful to the retro style!

Nice work. The choices for the power-ups were the best part. As others have said, combat could definitely be improved. Mopping was straightforward, but I do wish the max # of slimes spawning was based on the amount of slime - then the progress would feel good (but maybe be too easy?)

Top notch art and sound and gameplay. The art was so perfect that I forgot I was even playing a 64x64 game, which is hard to do. I loved the weird theme, and the pulsing brain backgrounds too.

I did get stuck on one mini-game, so it would be nice if there was a skip or re-roll option. 

Very chill and very well done. Very creative use of the background to extend the beach line.

This was quite fun! Trying to see the ice cream booths in the distance did hurt my eyes (just the nature of 3d games in 64x64), but the car handled nice, and the road was fun to drive on. It was a perfect length and difficulty for a jam game.

Animations were really great; the fire was fun; the sounds and music were really well done, and sense of progression was very enjoyable. The navigation was very challenging because it wasn't clear what could and couldn't be walked on. I almost thought the game was broken until I saw a comment mentioning to avoid the rocks at the start. The other downside was that the resolution was not strictly 64x64.

The gameplay is good; the effort put into the tutorial and level design is really impressive; the music suits the vibe of the game, and the humor works really well.

Only things that could use improvement: Movement feels a little too slippery in the game. In the tutorial, the turn rate seems much too slow (different than the actual game). Since you end up dodging enemy attacks and trying to shoot them when they are far away, they are little more than a few pixels, so might be good to have a consistent color for the enemies.

This definitely has the potential to be expanded into a larger game. Well done.

Controls are good, the graphics are perfect, and you've dealt with the resolution in a perfect way! So many great little details.

Only cons: It's a little too hard right away. The gameplay is too frantic to bother dealing with inventory. I would like some slow moments to walk around and admire the map and all your details.

Glad you appreciate the Red Dwarf connection. (I wanted the time skip to actually allow a new species to evolve.)

The ship is procedural and endless, and sadly it does reset rooms at a certain distance. I didn't get a chance to implement a solution to that; didn't really think people would play long enough to notice. Thanks!

Thanks for the kind words. 

I didn't test that exploit but thought it might be there. Good job finding it. I figure that the ship's computer that gives the payments really isn't paying close attention. 😄

It is a good start. I'd like to see some interaction between the skills though. Maybe you can refine scrap, maybe build something in one skill that helps upgrade another, etc.

Maybe! I still don't know what I'm making yet. I'm going to wait until the themes are released, and then see which (if any) of these ideas fits best.

I made some sample artwork to test out different game ideas. No idea if any of these will fit the theme(s) or if I'll use any. Do any of these look like fun?

Dev log is here: /__site/deathray.itch.io/nomads-fire/devlog/1505602/expanding-the-game

Yes, the things you can mine are the triangles, and sometimes smaller pixel clumps of red, blue, or yellow. You have to blast them for a while, and then check your inventory, and you should see some quantity of an element.

What's the license for these? Creative commons?

As I understand it, we must make a farm themed game with either a day/night cycle or a season cycle w/ surprises.

I am not sure whether the surprise themes (nuclear winter and harvest or be harvested) are required or not, and if so - are they both required?

Do the 2 Mechanics take the place of all of the themes?

That was a lot of fun! There are some bugs with selecting upgrades, and having an upgrade get stuck, which almost made me ragequit, but then I kept playing and had a blast. I got to wave 25 before I decided by base was effectively unbeatable.

Great gameplay and ramp-up in difficulty. I thought I was pretty smart until I had to combine 3 waves together. 5 stars in the theme of course!

This was pretty fun! And as someone who also programmed 2d waves, I appreciate the effort involved. 

Three things to consider improving: (1) Jumping the boats is a lot of fun; probably the best part of the game. You should get bonus points or a speed-boost for doing it. (2) If the AI dies from a shark, they should respawn. Having the game end because the AI is dumb doesn't feel great. (3) It's possible to get stuck on the boats. Maybe the dolphin needs a way to flop/jump off.

I had a lot of fun with this game. I died the first time, but on my second run I made it all the way to Satan -- but died when he spawned into me. The random map is nice, and the upgrades feel good. 

Three improvements I would recommend: (1) Full-screen please! (2) Give a warning where/when the enemies will spawn because it feels like a cheap loss when they spawn right into you. Maybe show some (non-harmful) fire or a pentagram for 1-2 seconds where they will spawn. (3) Give an indication when the character is hurt - like turn him red and/or knock him back a little bit.

I had no idea what to do, even after reading the instructions. Neat idea, but it definitely needs a few more components of a "roguelike" in order to be called that.

For the repair: no need to mash, it can be held down like the other buttons. It does currently immobilize you and I thought the holding down would be a good system, but it probably should just be a toggle: flip the repair switch on when you feel safe; flip it off if a threat shows up.

I agree it needs more sounds! No idea how to make water splash sounds though.

Thanks for the great feedback.

Does anyone have some links to examples of previously made dungeon zines? I want some inspiration.

Thanks! What's funny is the AI is incredibly dumb (it picks a foe, fires somewhat randomly, and tries to stay within a certain distance of its foe), but because of the interplay of all the NPC boats crowded together and the waves, they sometimes appear to be smart.

Re: sounds, I wasn't sure how to get nice wave/splashing sounds with my retro sound-generator (zzfx). What other sounds would you recommend?