For ranked game jams, itch.io compares a game’s raw average score against the median number of ratings received by all submissions in that specific jam.
Raw Score: The direct mathematical average of all star ratings or category votes a game received.
Median Threshold:Itch.io finds the median vote count across the entire jam. If a game has at least this median number of votes, its final ranking score equals its raw average score.
Vote Penalty: If a game has fewer votes than the median, its average score is multiplied by a square-root penalty factor based on how many votes it missed.
Very interesting though it feels too early to congratulate anyone specific as those who used the google form may not have rated on itch. So congratulations to all contestants!
But when both systems are evaluated, it may be a good foundation for discussing next year and similar comps
The game ranking results between Itch and Google Forms are comparable.
Itch had 45 ratings which is significant. There are 9 completed ratings with special categories with Google Forms.
The top three game authors will receive challenge coins and a printed certificate. Special category authors will also receive a coin and certificate. I have the coins in hand but it will take time to have them engraved.
All of these charts and rankings are rather confusing. There is also a technical error. The ParserComp 2026 page states this rather clearly and the outcome does not follow the stated rules.
As a post mortem thought, the things that the itch players ranked as important are different than what the custom algorithm ranked as important. There is a lot of movement in the scores from 4-10 of what itch thought was important and the custom algorithm thought was important.
Congratulations to all, especially the winners DC and Mathbrush and all who receives a medal. Well done.
Also, well done @fos1 and thanks to @mathbrush for his contribution to calculating the ranks!
I must say I misunderstood the purpose of having two systems, which is why I did not rate using the itch system which I kind of regretted. It would be interesting if the itch votes and the Google Form “best game” could be merged into one final standing. But that would of course mean that those who rated with both systems should get one set of ratings removed - that was what I thought was the idea when we had to identify us in the google form.
Oh well, it isn’t that important, just my nerdy mind that is curious.
Similarly, if possible it would be interesting to see similar stats for the Google form ratings: Raw vs modified scores and the number of ratings for each game. Again, not really important but I definitely recommend to have the voting system in place next year before we begin
Another interesting(?) fact: Looking at the two systems against each other for best game, the list can be divided into three chunks: Rank 1-2 (and 3), Rank 4-6 and Rank 7-10. Within those chunks the systems seem to disagree.
Hypothetically, What about that person who doesn’t follow the thread but submitted a game and came in first only find out they were 4th? Some games moved that much using the custom algorithm that the competition winner helped devise. It is not a good look. Better to just update the page next time.
