I wont join the contest but I’ll play some of the hacks on there.
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Can you give us more than a week to enter? Cheaters are going to figure out ways to cheat (eg. having various materials prepared beforehand) regardless, so you might as well get more people involved by having less of a strict time frame to participate.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that some people will spend longer on the hack than others. I personally hosted as a 1 hour / 2 hour blitz and really didn’t care if people spent longer, but a 2 days or 1 week thing sounds fun, too.
I worry that if you limit the participation timeframe so strictly and if users feel like there are high expectations for the hours put in / requirements to meet, that not as many people will be inclined to participate. I want your jam to be successful, so I would recommend you rethink some of these things. You might find something useful from looking at the community events I’ve hosted - I think the most important aspect is inclusion if you want a good turnout.
Best of luck! I’m rooting for you.
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I think to Vesly’s point, it may make more sense to make the “keyword” more descriptive as well so folks aren’t able to do as much prep ahead of time. It really depends on the level of quality you’re looking for and what you’re envisioning as the prompt for this.
Good luck hosting!
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You definitely make a good point. Though I’m wondering if two weeks would still be too strict then. Four weeks maybe?
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I will cautiously raise the time to work on your submissions from one week to two.
That means the new deadline will be on May 23rd 2022.
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Can you believe it guys? Hack Jam, just a week away. Hack Jam is in a week! Woohoo! I am so happy about this information. Hack Jam! Just a week away, oh wow. Can you believe it? Hack Jam! Just in a week! It got here so fast! Hack Jam! Just a week away!
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As Sme has pointed out the Hack Jam is just a week away!
I beelieve it’s time for an FAQ before we start:
Q: Do I need to make a new title screen/menu?
A: Most hackers can’t even do that in more than two weeks, so no. The only things that need to be changed are portraits, since they are undeniably tied to the characters of FE8.
Q: Can I use FE7 as a base?
A: Sure! Your submission will fall out of the ranking, though.
Q: Do I win anything if my submission ranks highly?
A: Shout-outs. I don’t want anyone to feel too bad about losing, or left out of something. This is a challenge before it is a contest.
Q: You can’t check if people work on their submission for more than 48 hours, can you?
A: Nope! If you don’t follow the rules you would be making me very sad. Just follow the rules, there aren’t that many.
Q: Can I set up my work environment beforehand? (i.e. installing Builder patches, setting up Buildfiles)
A: Yep! I encourage you to do that, so you can spend more time on the hacking.
I think that should be it for now. PM me for any additional questions.
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Reminder: the Hack Jam will begin 25 hours from the making of this post.
If you haven’t done this yet, I strongly encourage you to get all the resources you think you might need and set up a ROM in Builder or your Buildfiles.
Remember, coming up with ideas and making a lil’ design doc won’t bee counted towards your time, only the part where you’re implementing your ideas.
And you don’t have to work those 48 hours over two days. You can spread them out if you think you’re not up to the task.
Get a friend or two to help you as well! It’s always more fun to work with a team, especially with rather tight time frames. Really gets yer brain moving.
That’s all for now! I’m going to reveal the keyword tomorrow.
See ya soon, everyone!
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The time to work on your submission has now been raised to three weeks, making the new deadline May 30th 2022.
Two weeks seems a bit tense in hindsight, doesn’t it?
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I feel this kind of defeats the purpose: 48 hours of development time is a lot more lenient than 48 hours of real time. Limiting yourself to 48 hours of real time would be a disadvantage if some hackers spread 48 hours across three weeks: two hours of hacking every day for three weeks isn’t really all that much of a jam. Of course, it’s all a matter of honour at the end of the day, but I had imagined cramming as much effort as possible into two days of work, with the inevitable eating and sleeping that would be required.
I also am a bit concerned about these rolling deadline extensions before the event even starts; I’d prefer it a little tense for fear I’d completely forget. This is more of a pet peeve from me, though.
Because of the large variety in timezones and the fact that coordinating a single 48-hour period that works reasonably well for everyone is almost impossible and considering that expecting people to be able to dedicate the entirety of a 48-hour period to The Hack or be at a disadvantage is quite unreasonable, 48 hours of dev time over a longer period makes sense as a way to do it; I probably wouldn’t have it longer than a week, but the rules here are what they are
At the end of the day, tracking dev time precisely is not a particularly easy thing to do so it’s very likely that people will go over 48 hours without realizing in a setup like this; it’s all for fun, so I don’t really see why it would be a problem really, and you could still elect to do your 48 hours consecutively if you wanted to
So long as the deadline doesn’t extend after it starts then it should be fine
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The Keyword is: Nightfall!
As said before, what you do with this knowledge is up to you, as long as you do something with it.
I wish everyone who wants to participate good luck! ^^
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Chiasa…
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haha kitozawa go nothing personnel kid
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hack jam hack jam hack jam
3 chapters
Download
still a bit over a week left if anyone else hasn’t started and wants to participate!!!
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EVENING TRAIN CRASH
Mario wanted to go on a railway journey from the city of Cork across all of Ireland to the city of Derry. However, somebody diverted the train onto the Ballybrophy line, the shakiest line on the network, and crashed it! How is Mario going to get to safety before nightfall? Other important people are here too. Perhaps Mario wasn’t the actual target. Someone else was. But who?
Join Mario Mario, Sigurd of Chalphy, Cecil Harvey, and Yugi Muto in a dangerous, ballista-filled adventure.
Download
Get Evening Train Crash today!
Credits are in the readme. I am not responsible for any trains that may crash during the playing of this game.
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And with that, the first 48-Hour Hack Jam has ended!
Who will win this hack jam?
We have two entrants: Sme and Darrman. In order to help me with deciding the winner I have a small jury with me. Whichever of the two hacks gets more votes wins.
While I would have loved to leave it up to a community vote, I think the amount of downloads tells me that would go nowhere.
What now?
With a staggeringly low participation rate of just two users, I would still consider this contest a success. I can take something away from this and make sure more people want to contribute to future jams. And yes, there will be more. I will probably change the way the format works so it looks less challenging for entrants.
Either way I thank everyone who contributed and everyone who has helped me with getting this off the ground.
See you soon, everyone!
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Don’t feel too bad about the low number of entries. The first installment of any event of this sort is going to have a low turnout, and this goes doubly so if you don’t have any personal brand name power.
To give some examples:
Ragefest 1, hosted by Markyjoe, at the time one of the biggest names in the community, got… six entries.
MAFC1, hosted by Ghast, a major FE fangame tuber, got… seven entries.
There are other examples I could pull up, but the big takeaway here is that brand power is way more important than operational mistakes. Keep at it!
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Well, well, well gamers. Looks like it’s been a hot minute.
I have not forgotten about this thread, don’t you worry. But more importantly I believe it’s time for the big announcement:
Congratulations to Sme for winning the first 48-Hour Hack Jam!! 
So now you might be wondering when the next Hack Jam will happen. Good question, I can’t actually tell you that. We’ll just have to wait and see.
(oh yeah mods can you guys lock the thread thx)
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