If it’s OK for all of you, I can announce a new theme when the jam starts with the latest rules. What do you say to that?
Count me in any way it goes, I’ll give it a shot. I like the idea of having a theme released just before the jam starts. Personally I’d like to try using some of the numerous plugins I’ve purchased over the past months to speed up development.
My wife and I host “Moth” inspired storytelling nights in our home and we give themes that can be broadly interpreted like:
treasure, mystery, discovery, disguise, mischief, elegance, invention, escape, release, demons
I think a broad theme released just before the start of the event would be a good way to go.
OK, I’m back! This time with the Corona Blitz page on itch.io. Here it is: https://itch.io/jam/corona-blitz-2017-01
I may still change some stuff on the page until the jam week so if you something that’s missing, please let me know.
I just joined even though I’m not sure I’ll be up for the challenge by the time already - but we’ll see 
@Michael, I’m glad you’re on! I’m pretty sure you’ll create something nice.
So far, 7 people(including me) has joined from the jam page. We’re waiting for you!
Since we’re way past the theme selection, here is the new topic for the “Corona Blitz 2017.01”
https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/68166-corona-blitz-201701-april-1-8-2017/
no specific vote, but i might join in if the chosen theme seems “clever” enough.
fe “build it up” seems a good start, but still too specific i think - unless you read it VERY liberally, it seems to require some literal form of “building” and the specific direction “up” – the only thing really left to the imagination is what “it” might be. what about those who’d rather “tear ‘it’ down” or “climb ‘it’ up”? (or even “push ‘it’ right” or “chase ‘it’ left”?) btw, i’m just using that one as an example, no intent to pick on it. i think it would invite more interpretation if it were worded fe “one direction” - sure, you might a boy band app :D, but there could be MANY other potential readings of it. i’d prefer something more open-ended like that.
Actually, I’m not very good at coming up with themes. If you have an alternative, I can add it up to the list if you want so others can vote on it, too. No need to have one alternative by the way, submit as many as you want.
I probably should not comment as I have no experience with game-jams and have no idea how these things are scored, graded, or judged, so please take my input as just ‘spitballing’.
If the theme is to broad I would guess that would make it hard to judge… to difficult to judge a first-person-shooter to a word puzzle, I think. But then again I have no idea how these things are judged.
I was going to suggest maybe making the theme … ‘classic arcade style game’ (for example clone or hybrid like pac man, donkey kong, space invaders) … I doubt that I could in 4 hours make a really good clone. I think that I may have seen that as a theme in another game-jam sometime ago. It may have been a them like ‘80’s arcade game’; . but I have no idea when or where I may have seen that.
But, if I were to vote from the list thus far, I would vote for ‘they are taking over’
This might be the ‘most’ difficult part of the jam; coming up with a good theme. Then again, I may be overthinking it; I tend to do that.
Come on folks! Vote for a theme and participate in the Jam!
@cyber me neither… I thought they started and finished 4 hours later. After all 4 hrs coding in one week could easily be just 1 week coding. I guess time zones would be an issue?
I think the main goal of this Jam is to get people to participate and feel OK with submitting something that isn’t super polished or perhaps even complete. i.e. “Participation outweighs all other factors”
I’m not averse to the idea of community judging. If folks want to submit Android APKs, Windows EXEs, and/or OSX binaries I would be glad to host them temporarily (or longer) so that they can be downloaded and judged by the community.
Alternately, if this is done on itch.io, I’m pretty sure the binaries can be uploaded there for everyone/community to download and judge.
I’m happy to help research this and even help set it up and manage it.
There are other options too.
-Ed
One more note.
My personal interest is not in winning, but participating.
Winning is subjective surely… I thought is was about joining in?
@cyberparkstudios, you should comment Seriously, every single opinion counts and that’s what makes a game jam great (Make game jams great again?). About the theme, there are many different approaches. Some are like what you mentioned and some like Global Game Jam are like the approach I take here. As always, if you have something in mind please let me know so I can add it to the poll. In the end, it all comes down to participation and having fun.
@adrianm, you can always say “I got this in 4 hours” and submit a game you made in 1 week. All we can do is apply an honor code to prevent this. By the way, I’m thinking of making this 4 hours code-only so you can design your game and create assets for it as long as you want.
@roaminggamer, itch.io hosts screenshots, binaries(.apk, .exe, .zip) etc. so it won’t be much of a problem. Also, I’m thinking of opening the game jam to everyone for voting so more people can play the games we bring to life.
>> 4 hours code-only
+1 for this. (with “assets” still limited to the encompassing week) (and still allowing repurposed “framework”/“engine” code)
@cyberparkstudios - ppl will have their own motivations on themes and that’s ok. :) for me, i’d hope for a theme flexible enough to let me come up with an idea that i might later develop further, treating this as a prototype. otherwise it’d be hard to justify the “throw-away” effort. fe, say it were “pacman clone”, then i’d pass, as there’s just no reason for me to do that. that’s not to say that it’s a “bad” theme, or that others wouldn’t enjoy it, just that it’d be a bit too “limiting” for me personally.
@davebollinger - I do agree with you ‘pac man clone’ would be too restrictive… just thought ’ any arcade style game from the 70s 80s’ would have lots of options and choices and still not be ‘to broad’. But, as a new comer to these things, I am okay with any of the themes. I do not personally have a motivation on a theme… I think there was a request for suggestions… and I held off with my suggestion as I wasn’t that strong on the idea. I, like everyone else commenting on the game jam, I am just interested in participating.
I actually have a ‘remake-clone’ of a 80s arcade game that I have coded maybe 2 yrs ago… it is maybe 80% done; it is a nearly an identical clone, so I can’t publish it, and thus the reason it is 80% done. But if ‘arcade style games’ were a choice and selected as the theme, I was leaning toward a ‘dig-dug’ clone and would not do the other one I have already 80% done. But, I voted for the ‘they are taking over’ choice. I am envisioning some type of zombie or bug infestation shot-em-up… just thinking something like that would be fun to do.
@roaminggamer - I am not interested in winning either (well, that is unless there is $1,000,000 prize!) then I will cheat and put in more then 4 hours … let’s be honest … million bucks changes everything. But, seriously, I had no idea what a game-jam was, I thought it was a competition… but I am good and probably prefer it just be a deadline to put together something to show-off … which apparently it seems to be. Actually, it takes me 4 hours to sometimes put together a workable function, not sure how well I will do anyway with a 4 hour limit, as I may be the slowest programmer on the face of the planet.
Since this is a community run event I’m not wanting to steer it in any way. That said in Jams that I’m familiar with the theme usually isn’t announced until right before the event to help level the playing field. Not stockpiling assets or concepts. you may want to consider soliciting ideas but it will be more fun to not announce this until right before it starts. It’s your jam do what you like I’m just pointing out what other Jams typically do.
I remember one jam that had a theme of “heart beat”. It’s an open topic with plenty of room for interpretation but narrow enough to make people think out of the box.
Rob
Jam/Jam session in general, afaik, has its origin in music/bands and it usually means some musicians, often times from different bands, to just play together whatever songs they like just to have fun and sometimes even improvise.
And I guess quite a few popular songs had their origins in jam sessions as it is with games - iirc World of Goo was originally developed in a game jam.
That said, the typical game jam seems also to be a competition but there’s no reason it has to be.
Haven’t done any game jam myself and only a few hours experience with Corona (though I’m not new to game coding) I’m not sure I’ll be able to give it a serious try with a time limit of 4 hours but on the other side, I’m low on time, so 4 hours is probably better than 48
I’ve only done a few, but one game that came out of a Jam ended up (bizarrely) getting some major traction in Saudi Arabia and made a good few thousand in ad revenue. Not bad for a weekend’s work! 
I for one cannot devote an entire week to this… I have a job and a game to run (oh and a family too).
So how about this as an idea… No pre-made assets, libraries or frameworks. IMHO, the Jam should be only what you can create in 4 hours, not about what you’ve already created.
Anyone up for this idea?