LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby katp32 » 25 Nov 2020, 02:45

I've been searching around for something like this for a while, but couldn't find anything (apart from OpenJam, which hosts their community on itch.io and Discord, both of which are proprietary services). So, I'm trying to organize it myself!

LibreJam is a game jam aiming to promote open source game development. At the beginning of each month, a theme is announced, and participants then have seven days to develop and submit their games. After the submission period ends, another seven days are given for participants to play and rate each others' games, before a winner is announced!

The first LibreJam starts on December 1st, which is one week from now! We're slowly but surely gaining new members in the IRC channel, and hoping for a fun and diverse jam.


Also consider introducing yourself on the mailing list, by replying to the introductions post. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Check out LibreJam, the monthly game jam for libre games!
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby ffaf » 25 Nov 2020, 14:30

I like the idea, tho I feel that 12jams/year maybe is too much. In any case good luck, I am subscribing to the ML now!
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Julius » 26 Nov 2020, 00:24

Posted about it on our new lemmy.ml sub-community: https://lemmy.ml/post/43181
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 29 Nov 2020, 08:30

Never participated in a game jam before. I will take a look at the theme for December once it is up.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 04 Dec 2020, 05:40

I have tried both my addresses and have not received a confirmation email from the mailing list.

I am working on a game though.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Julius » 04 Dec 2020, 11:55

Let me guess, a outlook or gmail address? Likely a spamfilter problem :(
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 04 Dec 2020, 17:16

Wrong on both actually. Mail.com and icculus

Been checking the spam folder too.

EDIT: It has now showed up in the spam folder.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 07 Dec 2020, 05:03

Hull Breach

Submission for December 2020: "Engineering in space"

http://icculus.org/piga/Files/LibreJam/HullBreach-1.0.tar.gz (contains executable and project file)

Image

Requires Gambas 3.15.2 or newer as well as SDL 2 for audio and GTK 3 for graphical
interfaces.

Arcade game where you play an astronaut trying to seal breaches with duct tape.
Last edited by Technopeasant on 08 Apr 2021, 04:11, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 14 Dec 2020, 04:37

Just wanted to give a shout out to Gatemender, my favourite game submitted to the jam.

Image

Avoid or destroy the asteroids and repair the broken parts of the warp gates! Collect materials from blowing up asteroids. Use materials to repair the gates! The color of material needed is indicated by the highlight around the damaged gate component and the number of needed materials is indicated by the number in front of the component. Finish the gate to open the vortex! Fly through to reach the next gate, but beware, as the difficulty increases for each new gate!


https://libregamewiki.org/Gatemender

All in all, seven games is pretty impressive for a new jam with a niche target.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby ffaf » 14 Dec 2020, 05:22

I wrote some reviews on the jam ML but yeah, Gatemender for sure the most playable and fun of them all!
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Magellan » 14 Dec 2020, 19:17

Thanks for the kind words @Technopeasant and @ffaf! I'm the developer of Gatemender, I'm glad you liked it. Thanks also for making the LibreGameWiki article! I intend to expand on Gatemender somewhat now post-submission. I have heard from a few players both on and off the LibreJam mailing list that it would be better if the controls were more easily changed, so I made a commit this morning that should make them easier to switch up to your liking by changing the values in src/constants.py. I want to also make it so that you can configure the controls in-game soon. You can get these recent changes by cloning Gatemender from here: git://git.hmagellan.com/gatemender.git

All in all, seven games is pretty impressive for a new jam with a niche target.


I agree! It was a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to the second LibreJam :D
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 29 Dec 2020, 01:17

Magellan {l Wrote}:Thanks for the kind words @Technopeasant and @ffaf! I'm the developer of Gatemender, I'm glad you liked it. Thanks also for making the LibreGameWiki article! I intend to expand on Gatemender somewhat now post-submission. I have heard from a few players both on and off the LibreJam mailing list that it would be better if the controls were more easily changed, so I made a commit this morning that should make them easier to switch up to your liking by changing the values in src/constants.py. I want to also make it so that you can configure the controls in-game soon. You can get these recent changes by cloning Gatemender from here: git://git.hmagellan.com/gatemender.git


Being able to change the controls so that I can use arrow keys will certainly improve my enjoyment of the game, so thanks. As for the article, I honestly think the biggest issue in libre gaming is that people do not even know what is out there, so I find things like Libregamewiki to be invaluable.

I have also been upgrading Hull Breach over the past several weeks, mostly with the addition of a 15 level campaign and numerous improvements to presentation. I have some gameplay tweaks in mind as well but have not implemented them yet as of time of writing.

I also ported it to Qt 5, which makes it run 50% faster than the GTK 3 version. I usually develop for Qt 5, but the code base I was using was from before this and I did not notice this until it was too late to change it. If/when Gambas adds a component for GTK 4 I will be interested in seeing how it compares. You can easily switch between by selecting a different component, though the player speed timer usually needs to be tweaked to compensate for the difference in performance.

Even though I got no feedback on my game (I realize that using a niche language like Gambas does not help, but it really is no different than Python fundamentally), it was a pleasant experience from a design perspective. I can not commit to doing it every month, but if the theme appeals and I have some free time I certainly may give the jam another go.

EDIT: Just checked the thread and I did get some feedback, which I have replied too. So that is nice.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby ffaf » 20 Mar 2021, 05:47

Reminder that the next jam will start on April 1st (and no, it is not April’s fool)!
As usual more info here, but tl;dr: a 7day jam for libre games (code & assets).

Do you want to help? Use your social media to spread the word, the more we are, the more fun the jam is for everyone!

And do not forget to visit us on freenode/#librejam!
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 24 Mar 2021, 01:32

Probably too busy for this one, as I am still improving my first submission, but glad to hear things are still going forward.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 08 Apr 2021, 04:50

A 3D horror game inspired by the famous snowy hedge maze from The Shining (and also its homage in the game Blood) made for the April 2021 LibreJam.

"Just took a job here at this distant retreat to focus on my programming, but the wife seems to be acting a bit strangely.... better lie low out here."

Image

http://icculus.org/piga/Files/LibreJam/Hedged-1.0.tar.gz

Having a four day long weekend this week certainly helped me produce something pretty nice this time.

EDIT: I have been informed that the original upload did not have an executable attached. This has been corrected.
Last edited by Technopeasant on 10 Apr 2021, 01:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 07 Aug 2021, 05:00

A top-down arcade swarm shooter created for the August 2021 LibreJam.

"Welp. My teleportation experiments have gone awry. I only just got away with my life, but they are not far behind. If only I had paid attention to any video game of the last thirty years... well, bring them on I guess."

Image

http://icculus.org/piga/Files/LibreJam/BringThemOn-1.0.tar.gz

I was fairly sure that I was not going to be able to do this jam as August is my busiest month at work, but I managed to get the long weekend off and the theme was one that was easy enough to approach. The game was mostly done in two days.
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Re: LibreJam, a monthly game jam for open source games

Postby Technopeasant » 07 Dec 2021, 05:32

An arcade game of fast reflexes created for the December 2021 LibreJam.

"You are a female prehistoric giant mosquito, preserved pregnant in amber and inadvertently re-awoken. Time to feed and resurrect the species. Avoid getting squished and returning to extinction!"

Image

http://icculus.org/piga/Files/LibreJam/Mosquito-1.0.tar.gz

It is not very complicated because I only had a limited time to produce it, but I think it is still fun. And I tried to make people relate to a mosquito, so that is something.
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