Hello All,
I have just launched “An Adventuron Christmas Jam”, the 5th Adventuron gamejam.
AACJ is a system-specific (Adventuron) festive illustrated text-adventure-game gamejam.
The first prize is a Raspberry Pi 400 (donated by myself) and hopefully there will be a few more prizes appearing over the next week (donated by others).
Chris
New prize donation…
Classic Adventurer - donated by Mark Hardisty.
Classic Adventurer is the text-adventure bookazine. Ideal for the coffee table of lovers of classic text-adventure games.
Features interviews with classic text adventure and new text adventure authors, beautiful layout and artwork, and interesting features on the subject of text adventure games.
A new prize donation has been offered by Julia Minamata. A license for THE CRIMSON DIAMOND, an EGA-style Sierra style parser-based mystery adventure game, similar in feel the THE COLONELS BEQUEST.
Huge thank you to Julia for the prize - which goes in the participation prize draw category.
A new prize has just been donated …
Acorn – A World in Pixels – Book
“Celebrate the visual games history of the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron with this case bound book, contained within a beautiful slip case.”
Donated by David Williams Founder of the ITEM Alliance of Schools and Educators.
Hey,
Just an update on the prizes for the gamejam, we are now up to 11 prizes, which are a combination of self-financed prizes and donations.
There are prizes for placement (1st place to 5th place), then there is also a prize draw. Terms and conditions apply (such as if you take a placement prize then you are not in the prize draw, but you may opt out of a placement prize).
If you would like to take part or have something you think that would be interesting to donate as a prize, then check out the contact information on the jam page.
See the Adventuron Christmas Jam page for more details
There are currently five placement prizes, and the winners of the jam by overall score (in order) will be able to select the placement prize of their choice.
The Raspberry Pi 400 is a standalone Linux desktop computer, with integrated keyboard, wifi, bluetooth, 4GB memory.
“Celebrate the visual games history of the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron with this case bound book, contained within a beautiful slip case.” - from website.
Many thanks to David Williams- Founder of the ITEM Alliance of Schools and Educators, for the donation of this prize.
PICO-8 is a fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs. It feels like a regular console, but runs on Windows / Mac / Linux. When you turn it on, the machine greets you with a command-line, a suite of cartridge creation tools, and an online cartridge browser called SPLORE.
Many thanks to Lexaloffle Games for the donation of these keys.
Note 1: each Pico-8 prize is just one key, each placement prize is one key, see terms and conditions about placement prizes are allocated.
Note 2: An additional Pico-8 license is also available in the prize draw.
The following prizes have been donated for participation in the jam, subject to creating a game that satisfies all the jam rules.
Participation prizes are allocated by a prize draw for all participants that have not won a placement prize (full terms further down the page).
Classic Adventurer - Special Edition - physical copy (donated by Mark Hardisty)
Classic Adventurer is the premier text-adventure bookazine. Ideal for the coffee table of classic adventurers.
Features interviews with classic text adventure and new text adventure authors, beautiful layout and artwork, and interesting features on the subject of text adventure games.
The special edition is not yet released, and the prize will be fulfilled (subject to prize fulfilment rules) when this edition is released (should be soonish).
Thanks again to author Mark Hardisty for this donation.
“Follow amateur geologist and reluctant detective Nancy Maple to the fictional ghost town of Crimson, Ontario to investigate the discovery of a massive diamond in this retro-inspired, EGA text parser mystery adventure!” - From Steam Page.
A digital download code will be supplied to the winner of this prize, once the full game is published (target release date is late 2021).
Many thanks to Julia Minamata for donating this excellent prize.
NOTE: The Crimson Diamond is not developed using Adventuron Classroom.
This prize will be the offer of your very own portrait drawn by Steve Horsley (Horsenburger). Thanks to Steve for donating this awesome prize.
“In 1981, the eight-year-old Bob Fischer was entranced by Daleks, Vogons and crack Imperial Stormtroopers. Almost three decades later, Bob decides to rekindle the affair with a tour of the UK’s sci-fi and cult TV conventions. Freewheeling from Doctor Who to Discworld, Star Wars to Star Trek and Robin of Sherwood to Red Dwarf, he combines misty-eyed memories with a terrifying travelogue of terrible, torturous . . . terror. Or something. In space, no one can hear you scream. And don’t expect much sympathy in Peterborough, either.”
Many thanks to @Bob_Fischer for the donation of this wonderful book. Bob is a radio presenter / blogger/ author / performer, and hunter/gatherer of gems from our recent cultural past. Bob also used to write text adventures back in the 80s and recently rediscovered a dusty version of PAW along with several non-released adventure games.
Thanks Bob.
"Twilight Inventory is a collection of reviews of forgotten text adventure games from the 1990s.
Created by enthusiastic amateurs, during the last days of the 8-bit computers, these home-grown titles forsook the flashy graphics of commercial arcade game experiences, concentrating instead on devious puzzles, descriptive text and interesting stories. Taking inspiration from folklore, legends, films and books, these were games with tales and settings unvisited in mainstream titles both back then and now.
Featuring contemporary reviews and additional background information, this book is designed to give the reader a flavour of the small, but vibrant and flourishing, British adventure game scene of the early 1990s. A time when companies such as Zenobi Software, Compass, River, Tartan and FSF Adventures, kept a loyal community supplied with unique experiences, delivered through the postal system in a protective Jiffy bag."
PICO-8 is a fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs. It feels like a regular console, but runs on Windows / Mac / Linux. When you turn it on, the machine greets you with a commandline, a suite of cartridge creation tools, and an online cartridge browser called SPLORE.
Many thanks to Lexaloffle Games for the donation of these keys.
Note: each prize is just one key.
What a glittering array of prizes!
A rag-tag fugitive fleet.
Considerably better than a poke in the eye. If I was feeling reckless, I might even go so far as to say: not to be sniffed at.
This was my first game-jam, ever! And my first time on itch.io! I had a lot of fun, and it’s also my first real video adventure game.
I learned a lot. A few of my beta testers were not familiar with playing these types of games, and even playing video games in general (they come from the puzzling world).
Beta testing was so interesting, and a lot of gaming mechanics I took for granted (like saving and loading!)
Thank you so much, @adventuron! I learned a lot!
EDIT: OH! I do have one question: How does the jam get judged? You mentioned scores in the rules, so I was wondering who assesses the scores.
Jam participants score each others’ entries (I think).
It’s not limited to jam participants. Anybody can play the games, but I’m pretty sure you need an itch.io account to judge the games. (Otherwise, you would be able to rate a game multiple times.) Judging is based on the categories listed in the jam rules and you vote 1 to 5 stars in each category. It’s a pretty simple system. itch.io automatically tallies up the scores and works out the winner as soon as judging closes. The winner for this particular jam is based on the overall enjoyment category, not an average of all categories, so make sure you give a lot of thought to this category. Don’t just rate everything as 5.
Thank you @Warrigal and @ChristopherMerriner!
So each category gets rated in 1 to 5 stars, cool, and everyone with an account gets to judge?
I should check the page again to see how long judging lasts…
Looks like a really interesting selection of submissions. 12 in total; which seems very apt.
Some stunning graphics too!
I’m working my way through this lot. The standard is high and they are well worth a look for anyone seeking a bit of fun festive escapism at the moment (and who isn’t?).
By the way, @ChristopherMerriner, thank you for all your thoughtful comments. Not on just my game, but on all the games in this game jam! 
They’re greatly appreciated, and you put a lot of work into them!
