It’s kind of against the spirit of the comp (that’s what IntroComp is for), but also I think the principle of fewer rules here is a good one. Maybe someone realizes their own seed combines really well with a new one that just dropped and inspires them to go in a new and exciting direction. I wouldn’t want to forbid that.
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While I am fairly active in the Tumblr-y side of things- you’d probably be better off asking Manon (manonamora) who runs the big Discord for Tumblr IF and the matching Tumblr blog that curates suggestions and highlights jams/games, or Autumn Chen (cchennnn) who also occasionally promotes jams and runs the Tumblr blog for layouts of games in Twine in terms of people in our community who have more reach/a broader audience!
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You’ve convinced me.
Anything that goes, would support the hype and thrill of the event.
I meant, even with a strict rule for “do a blurb”, the first phase would work really well.
Hey, maybe the blurbs could be allowed to be very elaborated, with cover, intro, and even fake criticisms and accolades XDDD
Also… for the introcomp suggestion, maybe authors of introcomp are allowed to join the first phase. Without restrictions (less than the actual game does not exist for real).
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Here is an example about that NES covers jam
“A game by its Cover”
The jam takes advantage of a previous archive and repository of fictional game cartridges covers. So if you find a way to have an already technology to archive blurbs, or just text, there you have it. I can’t think of any right now.
Take note you can right-click the fictional cartridges site to auto-translate from Japanese to English.
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I can def do that 
(I’m everywhere 
)
Timeline sounds good to me!
To test out the waters on this comp, itch would prob easiest to start out.
Same also with Phase 2 for ranking and the non-ranking version
That would be possible in the Community Tab on a Jam page on itch. And I do think we should encourage discussion about seeds (esp to interpret code/images/etc…). But like @pinkunz said, we should still tell them not to advertise their choices there.
I would be fine if it is combined with another seed (and it’s explicitly not just their seed). But we should encourage people to try out different seeds.
This jam is so fun! It still going on too! There was a cute IF created thought this Jam : Space Frog
EDIT: ok I caught up. additional stuff
I can create a fake Jam on itch to see how stuff looks (and make designs stuff :P). It’s also possible to add multiple people as organisers (if you want your name there at the top).
EDIT 2:
Lol, that’s sounds like the Goncharov meme happening right now
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That was going to be my suggestion - “jam” is more of a motivational process focused on the work with everyone working together and being encouraging, where “comp/competition” implies people competing and being awarded prizes or placements.
I know you want to do voting which is cool, but this feels more like a jam than a comp. And if there are no physical nor monetary prizes other than friendly ranking, that makes it ethical for organizers to participate. Think of it as a “workshop” where everyone’s creating something, but the teacher also creates something for example and motivation.
Itch is useful for this type of jam thing, but realize that opens this up to gazillions of creators outside the community, many of whom will enter non-IF projects - some due to misunderstanding and also because one of the things people do on itch is summarily enter all their existing games into every jam they can legitimately or marginally qualify for to promote them and gain traffic in the search results. You might lose a bit of control over the participation.
I’m not saying don’t use itch; just be aware it’s it’s own unique beast that could have positive and not-so-positive effects making this new project extremely public as you’re trying it out. It’d be akin to the difference between having a meeting in a private classroom and having a meeting in a busy airport terminal.
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True. Though, if we include it in rules/guidelines that we don’t accept non-IF work, that should detract some creators to submit non-IF work. Similarly with including Interactive Fiction or IF in the title of the Jam.
At the end, it is always possible for an organiser to remove a submission in a jam too
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Fair enough, just realize you might need to clearly explain exactly what you are soliciting due to the wibbly-wobbly and subjective definition of “IF”: “My game is fictional and you interact with it! My Flappy Birds clone has a storyline!! I’m using RPG Maker and all conversation and dialogue is emojis!”
It might also work to provide a list of acceptable game engines to rein it in.
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How does ECTOCOMP deal with that issue while being hosted on Itch?
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This seems to be it:
Games should be recognizably “interactive fiction”. (Comp admins are not here to police edge cases, but if your game isn’t primarily text-based, why are you here?)
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That does seem to have worked well enough for ECTOCOMP, so I’d go with that for this one too.
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This all seems solid enough to work with to me. At this point, it’s just a matter of aiming people in the right direction and telling them to Do The Thing.
I feel like at this point we need a forum better suited for chatting and making decisions than this thread. A discord server, maybe? That would come with real-time voice and text chat. Then it’s a matter of figuring out all the Thing What Need Doing, and deciding Who All Does What.
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Here’s the discord server (I just created it). There’s nothing in there yet, but we can work the channels/thread out
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We’ve hit the ground running, so feel free to jump in hash out some of these undecided points. I believe @Draconis, @MiloM, @lpsmith, and @manonamora all expressed interest in steering this, although we’re not excluding anyone from popping in as well; it’s an open invite link.
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Yeah the link isn’t time sensitive or has a max number of clicks.
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To be clear, I created a (I think) complete amalgamation of everyone’s thoughts/comments/concerns/summaries from this topic.Bolded sections in brackets are things that I’m not sure are nailed down yet. Everything else I think has been settled, but I could be wrong.
Amalgamation
Seedcomp! is a 2 round creativity/interactive fiction competition. The competition will take place on itch.io and [will not have a separate landing page/will retain its own dedicated landing page for continuity]. People may take part in either or both rounds. The first round launches [December 7th? 14th?] and people are invited to submit ‘seeds’ into the competition. These seeds can be absolutely anything (that isn’t offensive, obviously) [Hypothetically, we could have a NSFW section, but that is up for discussion]: game intros, pieces of art, blurbs, a design document, puzzles, poems, characters, an I7 extension, settings, feelies, anything. [People may even submit their own unfinished Introcomp entries as seeds if they wish.] Submission of a seed includes an acknowledgement that the author of the seed is freely relinquishing any and all exclusive rights to the seed in the spirit of the competition. People [are/are not] limited in how many seeds they can enter. There [is/is not] a minimum word count for static text seed entries (like blurbs). The deadline for the first round is set for [January 7th? January 14th?] with an open public posting of all the submitted seeds on [January 9th? January 16th?] to give organizers a chance to screen for openly trolling/abusive seeds.
People may enter round 2 any time after the seeds are made public and before the [March 1st?] submission deadline. The entries into the second round must be complete games, ideally between [15-30 minutes long] in total gameplay but there’s no limit on size if people want to write more, and they must be based on one or more of the seeds in some way either incorporating it directly or not. Multiple people can sign up for the same seed. To be clear, “calling dibs” on a seed is not a thing. People can sign up for multiple seeds [or even all the seeds simultaneously] . People [may/may not/may-but are discouraged to] use their own seed in conjunction with another seed. In the meantime, open discussion and/or reviews of seeds [are/are not] [encouraged/allowed] . It will be made clear on the itch.io jam that this is specifically and Interactive Fiction competition and submissions should be in that realm in a similar fashion to how ParserComp and EctoComp signpost this. Shortly after the round 2 submission deadline, games are open for playing and voting [and round I awards are given out: things like most number of people that signed up for your seed, and most number of finished games from your seed, etc].
The playing/voting/[ribbon submitting?] period ends [March 31st? Earlier?] and results are released [in late March? Early April?]. People [may/may not] make up unique awards/ribbons similar in a fashion similar to Spring Thing [and these ribbons are screened by the organizers to prevent hurtful/abusive ribbons]. Awards/ribbons are handed out. There is some kind of back garden area for people who don’t want to have their entries subject to voting [and/or special awards or ribbons?]. [Organizers may participate in either round as long as they submit their entries to the back garden.] [The seeds used for each round 2 submission are displayed alongside each finished game to show the inspiration and the change.]
[Starting obviously next year, we would list all of the unused seeds from each year in a growing “leftovers” category (another reason for a domain; handy place to keep it). In future comps, someone could choose from among that year’s seeds or from the list of unused seeds from previous years. If a leftover is used, it gets removed from the list. This would increase the chances that any particular seed gets used eventually while also growing the number of choices available to entrants each passing year.]
We’re breaking down and discussing each bracketed point on the discord, so if you have an opinion either way on any of those points, or you feel I forgot to include something that should be discussed, please join the discord and weigh in.
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Currently trying to settle on a name, so, if you care, pop into the discord for the Name Poll if nothing else:
ETA: Poll image update, currently SeedComp, EggComp, and RelayComp are leading.
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(SeedComp! SeedComp! SeedComp!)
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You can have a jam with ranked competition, and don’t put the focus on prices or winners. Like ECTOCOMP.
It is a very good idea to have voting phase, because if not games will pass almost unplayed. The voting phase is just an excuse to have people engaged playing and giving feedback.
So… you can call it a jam, and you can have a voting phase.
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Seed Comp won in the poll
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