For the first time, we’re throwing a PunyComp. Some quick facts:
Submissions are due on 29 December 2024.
The voting period ends on 19 January 2025.
The theme is announced right away, so authors can start working whenever they want.
Judges are expected to cast their votes after playing a game for one hour. Hopefully this puts the focus more on short games, which can be done with high quality even in the limited time available.
All the details can be found on the competition page:
Gonna be the fool for asking but…
how is it different from the PunyJam?
There’s a lot more time to write a game. For our jams, authors have had 3-4 weeks to produce a game. For this comp, they have 3.5 months.
If this becomes an annual comp, they may have even more time next year.
But otherwise, it’s still the same rules with submitting/voting, right? The only thing that changed was the length between announcing the theme and submission deadline?
Not sure what you mean with the same rules. If you mean that anyone can submit a game, and anyone can be a judge, that’s the same as before.
Some rules have been rephrased and expanded, to make them more clear and precise. The voting period is longer. For the comp, it’s explicitly allowed to submit a remake of an older game - this was never the case with the jams. Judges are asked to submit ratings in more categories than one, and we plan for some kind of recognition for the top scoring games in the other categories.
Very good news. Thank you!
The Comp is now open for submissions, until 29 December.
Since the aim is to write a short game, it’s perfectly fine to join and start working on your game now. There’s a friendly Discord community offering support.
PunyComp 2024 is now in its judging stage! Anyone can be a judge. Each judge needs to play at least three of the games. The judges are asked to play each game for one hour before giving off their vote.
These are the games, in alphabetical order:
The Candy Striper of St. Asterix, by ImprovMonster
A Day in the Life, by GrubStudios
Late Night at the Mall, by Johan Berntsson
Mars, 2049 AD, by Fredrik Ramsberg
Thornfell Manor: 1984, by Tijn Kersjes
A Train to Piccadilly, by Marco Innocenti
Henrik Åsman will be handling the voting process. There is a link on the start page of the comp to a form for giving off votes.
Please help us judge the games!
Great news! I like punyinform games a lot, and of course this great comp. This is a properly time to play puny games when the weather freeze the rivers.
This year, becouse of the busy work I have been less resolutive in testing, but I liked so much what I have seen; Good games with great and original histories, puzzles and literature.
Have fun and I wish you the best luck.
So, I understand that this year we have an punycomp instead a punyjam.
Thanks to the authors and the organizer for this New Year’s gift 
! I won’t play all the games, but I’ve already put a few boxes aside. I will open them one by one.
Happy New Year to everyone! 
Ten days left to judge the games. There’s still plenty of time to join in as a judge.
Just checking since I don’t see it mentioned in the rules: can judges rate games that they beta-tested?
There is no rule against it, so feel free.
34 hours to go for judging games. We’d love to have some more judges!
I played a few of the entries after seeing them also entered into the Short Games Showcase, and they were pretty great. If anyone’s looking for something to play this weekend, I think these are worth checking out!