Join the Defold and Yandex.Games Jam 2021

Announcements
#61

Good questions! One of the rules of the jam is that submitted games must pass moderation. We recommend that you send a version of your game for moderation ahead of time to give you an idea of what kind of issues you may have with the integration and how your game behaves when played on Yandex platform.

Yandex have promised to give priority to games with the “game jam 21” tag, so moderation should be quick. You can keep working on your game while it is being moderated and if issues are found during moderation you hopefully have time to fix them and resubmit.

We have been debating wether to accept updates to submissions after November 30th, but that might just result in a situation where developers hold off on sending their games to moderation or wait to address issues with moderation to the last day.

We may make exceptions if you’re close to passing moderation, but it will be done on a case by case basis.

Once the jam is over and the winners have been announced we encourage everyone to keep working on their games.

4 Likes
#62

If you haven’t already, we also strongly recommend that you verify your Yandex.Games SDK integration and test that ads and any other APIs that you use are working as expected. Verification with the Yandex Ad Network may take some time and if you haven’t completed this process yet it is time to do so now!

4 Likes
#63

Moderation took nearly 2 days for me and my game was rejected for a couple of reasons - make sure you provide screenshots for both desktop and mobile in every language you support. Additionally a horizontal and vertical video of under 30 seconds is required (also for each language).

7 Likes
#64

I can also assume that they will not check games for moderation during the weekend?

1 Like
#65

I would assume so. From the Yandex help page:

It takes moderators up to three business days to check whether your game meets the requirements. Moderation is not performed at night.

More information here

2 Likes
#66

I am now preparing all those screenshots and videos to upload the game, keep your fingers crossed! :smiley:

The game will be called Gumobalka (just a (gummy) ball in Polish slang :D) - I think the name could be pleasant for both Russian and English speakers, is it? :sweat_smile:

gumobalka
gumobalka833×952 4 MB

17 Likes
#67

Anyone had problems with uploading videos (even if it meets the described requirements)?

image

Also I can’t pass SEO description verifiaction (Error: No seo-description (tr) when I click Save) - how should it look like?

(without spaces around < > )
< meta name=“description” content=“Gumobalka is a pixelart puzzle platformer game with cute ball physics, tight, mobile touch screen or PC mouse controls , indiegame easy to learn, hard to master.”/ >

1 Like
#68

You don’t need to put all the HTML guff in there, just your text.

2 Likes
#69

Make sure that the horizontal video has a ratio of 16:9 (that applies for the GIF, too).

2 Likes
#70

Tried without any tags, just text, but the same error appears :frowning:

image
image913×233 11.7 KB

image

1 Like
#71

Every language has it’s own seo-desctription. Turn off tr (Turkish?) language or add seo-description there as well.

2 Likes
#72

Aaaa! (tr) might actually means Turkish in this case, thank you! :wink:

2 Likes
#73

Gumobalka sent for moderation :wink: I added gamejam21 tag as suggested. Is there something else we should remember? Also, I only added getting name of the player via Yandex SDK for test (also planning to add leaderboards) - but is it enough for the jam requirement for now?

EDIT: I saw a tweet about prolonged period for Jam entries! I guess I will make it with leaderboards then :smiley:

4 Likes
#74

Main priority is that the game passes moderation. Yandex will check all general requirements and Yandex.Games SDK integration. If the moderation comes back ok then it’s enough!

3 Likes
#75

I didn’t pass it yet, some vital points:

  1. The leaderboard button does not work - I am aware of this, I will try to get to work this in the extended period.
  2. iOS environment: the game does not respond to pressing - I don’t have any iOS devices, so I won’t be able to debug it. The script uses Defold-Input, specifically onscreen module.
  3. We were unable to find ads during the game, can you please tell me if you have implemented the integration of ads in the game? - This looks like a question, because I actually didn’t add any. I hope it will pass without ads, ortherwise I will also try to add them.
  4. Environment Windows 10: the ball jumps very low, on mobile devices completely different behavior - any ideas why this could happen? (applying force via a message)
  5. Progress in the game is not saved, after refreshing the page, previously opened levels are blocked
  6. It is forbidden to use a screenshot directly from the game instead of the cover. The cover should have a meaningful and specially drawn illustration (optionally the title of the game). - OK
  7. The promo video has black stripes (top and bottom or on the sides), it doesn’t look very good. You can use a colored backing that suits the game, for example purple. - OK
  8. If you switch to another tab at the beginning of the level, the ball will fall through the textures (see attachment 3). - how could I prevent it? The object is falling below tilemaps collision shape whenever I change focus from the game window or tab

Meanwhile I submitted the alternative version of the game, suited for Github Game Off 2021 theme - bug, so you can check it out (it has only few different assets, mechanics are the same) Ladybug Ball - Github Game Off 2021 by paweljarosz, project is obviously open source, the code is here: https://github.com/paweljarosz/ball-game :wink:

#76

Looking at points 4,5,8 it looks like they actually played it. It’s a little bit schoking for me, as Apple and Google are usually just running technical tests, not playing games itself.

1 Like
#77

Yes, the quality of playtesting is astonishingly high and surely they played it and tried different things. I’m resectful :wink: This is great, because the portal could have a quality games, unlike other competitors, but for a game jam it is my first time I had so many pointed out issues, generally jam games have even less quality, not to say, that some are totally unplayable :smiley:

#78

plus

I think you have to enable Vsync like that to temporarily fix the problems:
image

Beware: in this mode, your game will be slower on devices <60 fps (iOS in an energy-safe mode) and faster on devices >60 fps (desktop players with 75hz or more monitors).

1 Like
#79

Regarding the game itself. Some feedback:

  1. After applying force to the bug and while it is moving, i can use control to set new trajectory. When doing so, the bug will move like 1-2 FPS, if I release control or not use it after all, the bug will move good.
  2. For me this behavior was counter intuitive:
    image
    image1754×1107 63.2 KB

I thought that red trajectory will be applied, as force will be added from the left side, but opposite happened)

1 Like
#80

It’s a slow-motion I needed to add in order to make this playable (so I could beat the levels myself :smiley: ) Do you think it should be disabled at all?

Thank you for the feedback on controls! :wink:

1 Like