Why aren't you in the finals? (venting thread)

[nilstastic]

So, why aren't you in the finals right now? Unfair screening process? Bugs? Bad luck? Or simply the fact that THE WORLD IS NOT READY FOR A JUMPING GAME. Let's vent here!

First reaction.
My first reaction when not reaching the finals was the classic "screw you guys, I'm going home". I put a whole months work into this, working after the kids got to bed until I was to tired to think. All this felt like wasted time, my heart sunk and the motivation for doing anything VR related just went out the window.

Then I stared at the ceiling for a bit.

Then I mustered up some courage and when I went though the list if found a lot of entries missing that I was sure to reach the finals, and I realized that i was not alone, and that made things a bit better.

The worst part
The wort part for me is that I really like my game, I've spent hours making the boss fight feel just right (for me), inventing lasers and modeling rockets - and It feels kind of sad not many people will be able to experience my vision of the best (and only) jumping game in the world.

But I do also realize that my game is special to me. As the creator I know every part of it, get nostalgic when moving through certain parts of it ("oh, the cold I had when i modeled that laser"). I am sure that everyone that made a game in the jam is connected to their game in a similar way. But that does not make me feel better, just more logical.

End game - what to do next
So, What to do. The screening jury has failed to realize that my game is awesome. Carmack will never be be able to tell me all the mistakes i made in it, and Palmer will never be featured in a stupid .gif jumping like the madman he truly is.

What to do..

Well, I got 25 videos of coworkers playing my game, and I got the exact reaction i was hoping for when they were playing (laughter). I've also gotten some great feedback from the community, and a few good review as well. And I really like my game, not because of nostalgia but because I like jumping, and I like lasers. But then again, Oculus does not like my game, or at least not in the way it needs to be liked. It might be the jumping, it might be the execution. The fact remains the same.

So, should I be a reasonable man and stop here.

Hell no!
I did not quit during the jam, and letting the anti-jumping lobby win is not an option! I'm going to finish the game, and I'll put it in the store where it belongs, judges be damned!

So, save up you dollars kids. Because this fall there will be a jumping game in the store, and it will be AWESOME.

// nils

[Nilspferd]

I don't complain, this jam helped me opening my eyes and finally realize that in games marketing is at least as important as the actual product. That's true for full games and that's true for other jams too. It's just true for every product I guess unless you're very lucky.

[creat326]

Marketing is extremely important for games. Hugely important! (that's in fact part of getting into a VR Jam). What's not usually the case is that you have to do the marketing to the Jam itself.

Once you go into the store or you are selected, that's usually the time you focus on all the pretty selling stuff: screenshots, cool intros, t-shirts, the Ferrari with your logo at the door...

ps. and yep, I would love video reactions to first opening some of those and be like... so... now what?

[MadManR]

I admit: We were VERY disappointed. It doesn't seem fair that the finalists were chosen by a panel of people who apparently never played the game (my understanding is that the cut was made based on the video and other materials). Honestly we spent much more time making an awesome demo that we die on the video.

But no hard feelings! We will move forward and finish the game and publish on as many platforms as possible. A little cashola would have made that easier.

There is still time for all of you to check out our project and vote for it. We would love to win the community vote! Go top http://vrjam.challengepost.com/submissi ... struction#. PLAY our game. When you finally come out to reality, VOTE for our game!

Robert

[creat326]

oh boy, I hope this doesn't turn now into a spam contest "vote for me! vote for me!"

I already voted the ones I really liked (some made it to the finalist list, some didn't). And I also tried to leave feedback on those.

[dignifiedweb]

Finding out I didn't get in hurt me more than I thought it would actually. I put a lot of work into my little game. On Saturday I had a great opportunity to demo my game to 20+ people at a huge gaming event. I had zero negative feedback and lots of positive reactions from totally unbiased people. A couple pro game developers stopped by and tried my game, they said it was really cool. I was up front with them saying that I sort of mashed a bunch of assets together from free sources or the asset store.

All that aside, I'm warming up to the idea of polishing it a bit more and attempting to publish it for free on the Gear VR store and Oculus Share. I think if people really do enjoy it, they'll ask for more features and such and at that point I can maybe consider making a full-fledged game.

I had a lot of great feedback here already and from others. It's a shame that all of us tend to go into "review mode" when trying games. The ones I tried: Kangaroo Dash, Snowball Fight, Tank You, those 3 I thought would for sure make it in as they were way more professional than mine. I could name quite a few others like Islands in the sky for instance. That one had way more to do than mine, it's a shame we didn't get there. But, what we learned I think is the important part.

I recently ported my game to a phone version using Gyro as a fake "head tracking" moving the phone around. It's pretty neat! But low and behold: If you turn the location services on, it uses Gyro + compass data and it messes it all up if it can't get a proper compass northing. So even something like location services can mess it up. How did oculus do such good head tracking? I think the little things like that I took for granted.

I would personally like to thank Oculus for making an awesome SDK that gives easy access to hard stuff, so we can focus on the end product. The SDK may have been a buggy experience for lots of people. But seriously, at the end of the day, it's a lot of hard work getting that together, sorting through our comments, ultimately sifting through our work. That's my vent for today, thanks Oculus. Please post my game to share when I'm done, *cough cough*

[Nilspferd]

[double post sorry]

[HelloMeow]

I think I have a good idea why my game didn't make it. The graphics are very minimal and it looks very bare-bones. It's the game I wanted to make, with that style, but I didn't get to adding a lot of effects and gameplay that I think would have resonated with the style.

I think that if I would have used some cliched tron-style graphics, or just something cheap that looked cool, the game would have done better.

[ricard2798]

I hear ya... but you know whats funny... i was thinking the exact opposite about my approach. When i started, i thought, i want to make a Vr game that feels like i am playing it on a PC... no polygon graphics with simple textures, but real arcade visuals and stuff. In addition, it must run smooth! What saddens me is that i think i did that. it ran smooth (maybe to 60fps, but above 50), and i spent time and time again optimizing. i also did a lot of different textures and environments. So now that i look at the winning entries, i go like... maybe that was my mistake.. I should have done a non textured, simple polygon game. i mean, why would someone want to experience a game like elite dangerous on their phone when they can do it on their PCs... mobility is overrated 😛
so there you have it.. one man things he needed better graphics... another (me) think he needs less graphics. what i know that i truly need is an antidepressant 😛 or need an internship on game making... or a good book on how to make games... because i am so badly lost its not even funny. One thing is to set some goals, and not reach them, and then be able to say.. well, i failed because i did not achieved my goals. But on my case (and maybe i am totally oblivious at how bad my game was), i thought I had met all my goals:
-graphics = they were decent
-level design = I had 4 levels, each with a different thing to do and even diff kind of environments
-innovation = i still think the teleport beacon was cool and seldom seen in Vr
-sound = could be worse, but i had original music and even used text to speech for voice overs
-menus = I had warning signs, menus with select-able levels, etc
-ease of access = I did a cockpit view to help with motion sickness.. and moreover, i made the camera way back into teh cockpit to reduce the effect
all done by one single person... on his first jam... so honestly.. i did meet all my goals... so i figure that the problem with my project was the goals... i started with the wrong goals, so i ended with the wrong product to deliver. That is my fault... So if anyone knows a good read, tutorial, or book to help with this, please let me know, cause i really, really really need to know what i did wrong and how to correct it.. that is whats killing me the most

[dignifiedweb]

"KoningStoma" wrote:
I think I have a good idea why my game didn't make it. The graphics are very minimal and it looks very bare-bones. It's the game I wanted to make, with that style, but I didn't get to adding a lot of effects and gameplay that I think would have resonated with the style.

I think that if I would have used some cliched tron-style graphics, or just something cheap that looked cool, the game would have done better.

Your game was extremely smooth and very well done. The menu system was sweet and I still want to import my own track when I get a chance. Making a game based on audio isn't easy, I'd be interested to know how you ended up getting stuff on queue like that in your thread 🙂

[HelloMeow]

"dignifiedweb" wrote:

Your game was extremely smooth and very well done. The menu system was sweet and I still want to import my own track when I get a chance. Making a game based on audio isn't easy, I'd be interested to know how you ended up getting stuff on queue like that in your thread 🙂

Thanks. I used my music analysis package for Unity that I'm working on off and on. The hard part was optimizing it for mobile. When I first tested it, it ran at ~40 fps while just analyzing a song with nothing else going on. It's done on the fly, because otherwise you'd have to stare at a black screen for ~15 seconds.