Thanks again to everyone who participated in the Micro-RPG Jam! Whether you helped to select a theme, submitted an entry, or gave really good feedback, you made this Jam a ton of fun to run!

The results are in and you can now view the rankings for all of the entries!

The Top 5 entries were:

Congratulations to the Top 5 and to everyone who submitted an entry!

Every entry was rated and ranked so (even if you didn’t make this list) you likely still got decent feedback about your submission. Hopefully, this Jam gave you the spark to start or continue writing RPG-related content!

Below you can find the results of the feedback survey and some information concerning what my plans are for the next Jam.

But first, I’d likely to quickly extend an extra-special thanks to those who helped to make this event what it was:

David Schirduan and Marshall Miller, whose 200 Word RPG Challenge was the direct inspiration for this jam. They were super cool about the whole thing (especially since this event sprang up out of nowhere). You should absolutely participate in the Challenge when it starts again next year!

Itch.io’s amazing website, jam tools, and staff who made hosting this whole thing possible! Their blog post advertising the site’s jam tracker is what drove me to start a jam in the first place!

Scott Tolksdorf, who went above and beyond by creating the word-counting tool we used for the Jam! (And did so in only a matter of days!)

All the users who took the time to leave comments and feedback on entries or helped to troubleshoot issues on the community page. You rock!

And, of course, everyone who took time out of their schedules to participate in the Jam. Thanks for taking a chance on this thing!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Feedback Survey Results

The survey itself was designed to help me understand how people felt about the Jam, what aspects they liked, what aspects they thought should change, and how things could be improved in the future.

Now that the survey has closed, if there is any additional feedback that you would like to leave, feel free to do so below in the comments!

Please note: The survey allowed room for custom answers to each question. Google Forms had trouble formatting these responses alongside the stock responses.

Without further ado, here are the results:





Question: What are your overall feelings about the Jam?

Results:

My Response: Overall, it looks like things went pretty well! There were about as many people who thought it was perfect as there were those that would have changed a few things. Most importantly, that means that this whole thing wasn’t a total failure!

Things that will be changing: As you’ll see below, I plan on making a few changes to the Jam. I mainly just wanted to see what people’s gut-check reaction to the Jam was.





Question: How did you hear about the Jam?

Results:

My Response: I was worried that all of my Reddit posting might have been too much, but it seems like it was actually a major driver in getting people to sign up! We also were on the front page of itch.io for quite some time, so I'm glad that brought in some people as well.

Things that will be changing: I'll continue to post on Reddit, Twitter, and Itch, but also try to reach out to RPG communities on social media sites. I know that G+ is going under, but I'll be sure to keep an eye out for where the community ends up!





Question: What did you think about the 48-hour time limit?

Results:

My Response: This one is pretty clear! People liked the 48-hour time limit so it’s here to stay!

Things that will be changing: Nothing. The 48-hour time limit will return in the next Jam.





Question: What did you think about the 200 word size restriction?

Results:

My Response: While many people voted to keep the 200 word limit, the majority of people voted for either a word or page-based increase in the size limit. Based on other feedback I received, it seems like people also struggled to fit the 3 requirements (a story, setting, and rule-set) into that 200 word space. I think a balanced solution would be to increase the max word count, but only by a small amount. We can see how this change affects things in the next Jam and go from there.

Things that will be changing: The next Jam will have a 300 word limit.





Question: What did you think about theme suggestions and theme voting?

Results:

My Response: This one is mostly clear. People seemed to enjoy the theme voting, so we'll be using a similar system next time. Some people brought up that they would rather have had multiple themes to work with or had the theme decided by a single person. But, I think the Ludum-Dare-style voting system and singular theme help to give the Jam a more community-focused vibe while uniting everyone around a central idea. The real question is, if the Jam grows in size, how do we handle a larger pool of theme suggestions? I'll likely be reaching out to the itch staff about their lack of voting/polling tools for jams. Hopefully, the voting process will be a bit smoother next time around.

Things that will be changing: Hopefully, we'll be able to implement better voting tools and be able to make it clearer when voting is taking place.





Question: What did you think of the overall rules for the Jam?

Results:

My Response: Boy, the formatting on this one is ROUGH! Since I'm able to see things a bit more clearly on my end, I'll just say that this one went well! Most people seemed to enjoy the rule-set that was provided. That being said, I did receive a lot of feedback about certain guidelines and limitations. A lot of people seemed to enjoy the 3 core rules of the jam (that each entry must include a rule-set, story, and setting) but felt restricted in other areas. Ultimately, the goal is to challenge people creatively while giving them a certain level of freedom to submit the kind of entry they would want to.

Things that will be changing: I'll be keeping the core 3 rules (and rules concerning time limit, word count, and submission format) but will be removing some guidelines from the "Players Guide" section. Certain restrictions like "No Live Action Role Playing (LARP) games" will also be removed. We'll see how this goes during the next Jam. If people feel like this doesn't give them enough challenge, we can always go back again and add some.





Question: What did you think of the submission format (.txt files)?

Results:

My Response: .txt files ended up working out pretty well! Which is good, because I honestly didn't know if that was the right choice, given itch.io's upload structure. That being said, a lot of people mentioned how they would have preferred to have read entries in their web browser, rather than downloading a file. I think a good compromise might be to allow participants to post their entry to their jam page, provided that they don't apply any formatting.

Things that will be changing: We'll likely still keep the .txt format, but may allow the plain text to be posted to the jam page as well (without any formatting).





Question: What did you think of itch.io, the site the Jam was hosted on?

Results:

My Response: I'm glad people like itch because they're the whole reason I was able to host this Jam in the first place! I thought their Jam tools were fairly comprehensive and easy to use! I would agree that they are missing some key features that Jams usually need (like voting tools) but I have no plans of moving the Jam elsewhere (at least for the time being).

Things that will be changing: Nothing. See you next time, here on itch.io!





Closing Thoughts

I'm pooped! This time of year is already fairly busy for me and running a Jam turned out to be a lot more work than I had anticipated! I'm so glad everything turned out the way it did, but I can't say I'm in a rush to run this again soon. I think this will likely be a yearly thing. Which makes the Jam a good complement to the 200 Word RPG Challenge (which also takes place yearly in the Spring/Summer). This is usually the part where people would plug their own projects, but most of the stuff I work on is usually half-baked or scattered around. Feel free to follow me on Twitter. I usually post updates on whatever project I'm working on there (including updates about the Micro-RPG Jam). Anyways, if you've made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read this behemoth of a post! And thanks for all of your interest in the Jam! I hope to see you again next time!