# Judges & Voting

### Voting Process

Once all submissions are gathered, all entries are verified to ensure that all necessary information is provided and that the rules stated in [**Rules & Guidelines**](/en/creator/creators-program/game-jams/rules-and-guidelines.md) and in the Medium article for the specific Game Jam are followed.\
\
The judges will then play through and rate the games over the course of 3 weeks.

Each game is played by all judges and scored the voting criteria below. The game's accumulated score allows judges to determine the top 10.

Each judge can also select up to 15 **Honorable Mentions**. Up to 10 experiences that are not part of the top 10 and were designated as Honorable Mention by the most of the judges will be then awarded an Honorable Mention prize.

### Voting Criteria

Games are judged based on five categories, amounting to a maximum of 22 points per judge. The following voting categories are scored based on the following criteria:

<details>

<summary><strong>Overall Creative Idea</strong></summary>

This category is rated from a scale of 1-5 by each judge.

* Originality / uniqueness of idea
* Theme adherence

</details>

<details>

<summary><strong>Level Design</strong></summary>

This category is rated from a scale of 1-5 by each judge.

* Game flow
* Ensuring that areas cannot be accessed or skipped past unless intentional
* Terraforming
* Immersion (visual design & coherence)

</details>

<details>

<summary>Game Design</summary>

This category is rated from a scale of 1-5 by each judge.

* Quality of logic design / mechanics
* Fun and well balanced mechanics
* Immersion (based on mechanics)
* Narrative (applicable based on narrative’s importance in your game)
* Level of replayability

</details>

<details>

<summary><strong>Playability</strong></summary>

This category is rated from a scale of 1-5 by each judge.

* Intuitive gameplay
* Severity of issues / bugs disrupting player experience

</details>

<details>

<summary>BONUS: <strong>Wow Factor</strong></summary>

This category is a bonus point category rated from a scale of 0-2 by each judge.

* Outstanding assets and artistic direction
* Unique / innovative features
* Outstanding atmosphere / immersion
* Exceptional player experience

</details>

***

## Judges

{% hint style="info" %}
Game Jams have a total of 4 judges:

* 1 from The Council
* 3 from Trusted Partners

Judges will also prepare some feedback on the experiences they grade that will be sent by the Game Jam team afte the results are out.&#x20;

Guest Judges from IPs may select an Experience for a special prize.
{% endhint %}

{% tabs %}
{% tab title="Trusted Partners" %}
For each Game Jam, 3 external Trusted Partner judges will vote on the experiences submitted.&#x20;

Trusted partners are creators that are selected for their skills with the Game Maker and have already published several experiences. Most of them have also already participated in Game Jams. Trusted Partners will rotate from one Game Jam to another.

Trusted Partners acting as judges, as well as directly related persons, **cannot participate** in the Game Jam they are judging.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="The Council" %}
The Council is an independent entity working closely with The Sandbox on tasks such as Quality Assessment of games published in our ecosystem.\
\
All judges from The Council thus have extensive experience in evaluating games and determining their strengths and weaknesses.<br>
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="Guest Judges" %}
Guest IP's judges might select one experience for a special IP prize based on an IP fit. However, they do not influence the global ranking.
{% endtab %}
{% endtabs %}


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