Game in a Day has been scheduled to begin on October 22nd 12:01 AM, and end on October 28th at 11:59 AM (give or take a minute for clarity. All times are in EST). This post is a brief overview of the major changes coming to the contest this year, and a full detailed post will be made on October 16th. Much like the Game in a Day contest hosted in 2015, the contest will be held over a course of a week, and developers will choose a single 24 hour period during that week to create a game, influenced by at least one topic, and will be given a 6 hour period afterwards to submit their game. However, not everything has stayed the same. I picked up a few tips and received detailed feedback that prompted some of the following changes.

1. I won’t be choosing the topics. You will!: By far the largest dislike of last years GIAD was the topics. Concluding I’m a terrible topic picker, and it’s an election year, democracy must prevail. First, each registered participant will be given the ability to nominate (read: submit) seven topics. Then, each registered participant will be given the ability to upvote fifteen different topics. The ballad is secret, and the most popular picks won’t be displayed during the voting session. Then when the voting phase has completed, the 15 most popular topics will become the topics for this year’s GIAD (Unacceptable topics will be cut prior to voting.). Ties will be broken at the will of the computer.
   
   
2. Phases have been renamed to help prevent confusion: This year there will be the following sections and phases, in the following order:
   
   
   1. I) The preregistration section (October 16th to October 22nd 11:59 PM)
      1. a) The topic nomination phase (October 16th to October 19th 11:59 PM)
      2. b) The topic polling phase (October 20th 12:01 AM to October 22th 11:59 PM)
      
      
   2. II) The game creation section (October 22nd 12:01 AM to October 28st 11:59 PM)
      1. a) The development phase
         1. i) Fixed development (Daily at 12:01 AM, ends at 11:59 PM daily)
         2. ii) Flexible development (Begins at contestant's choice, ends 24 hours later.)
         
         
      2. b) The submission phase (Begins after the contestant’s development phase, ends 6 hours later.)
      
      
   3. III) The judging section (Begins at the end of the last submission phase, ends 7 days later, reserving 1 extra day for every two entries received past 14.).
      
      
   4. IV) Results (Will be posted at the end of the Judging section).
   
   
3. Flexible or fixed?: Those who participated in last years GIAD will notice that there are two different types of development phase. Flexible development is what happened last year. The contestant choose when to begin, was assigned three random topics, and had 24 hours to create a GIAD from that point. This year, I’m introducing a fixed development phase as well. Fixed development begins at 12:01 AM and ends at 11:59 PM every day, for any developer who chooses the fixed phase, at any time during the day, two publicly known topics will be displayed (allowing the contestant to know what topics they are getting themselves into), with the trade off being that the fixed time slot may not fit perfectly into their schedule. Note both development phases receive the six hour submission phase after completion. Each developer may only submit one submission and the choice between fixed or flexible can not be reversed once made. Teams are still permitted to partake in GIAD as well, without restriction on members.
   
   
4. Feedback from all: Feedback is a gift, and what was received last year prompted many of these changes. However, an oversight was that only those who successfully submitted a project on time were able to submit anonymous feedback. This has been corrected, and any registered participant can submit feedback after their submission phase ends, even if they don’t upload a submission, or when the contest concludes, whichever comes first.
   
   
5. Filtered lists (maybe...): Instead of a random mess of jumbled names in the contestants column, this year they will be alphabetized, and filterable (by submission status).
   
   
6. Scoring rubric changes: These haven’t been finalized, but there are a number of small oversights in the rubric I used last year that I intend to reprimand this year. Additionally, I’m looking into dropping the category for theme usage, and instead integrating theme usage as a requirement for a top score in categories where theme would be relevant.
   
   
7. Prize structure revamp: Last year I used a balanced approach to prizes, but this year, prizes will be tiered, with higher positions gaining more worthwhile prizes. As last year, all valid submissions will received a technical summary with write-up. Just as last year, anyone interested in pledging a prize may do so by specifying their criteria and reward.

And that sums up the major changes. We’ll still be using the GIAD Headquarters to manage all of the above, Judge’s entries are still disqualified, and more awesome titles will be made! See you next week!