Learn about the voting process, voting criteria, and the judges that rate your games.
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 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 4 weeks. Voting is divided into two phases followed by results processing.
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:
Overall Creative Idea
This category is rated from a scale of 1-5 by each judge.
Originality / uniqueness of idea
Theme adherence
Level Design
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)
Game Design
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)
Playability
This category is rated from a scale of 1-5 by each judge.
Intuitive gameplay
Severity of issues / bugs disrupting player experience
Level of replayability
Some games and genres are naturally more replayable than others. The impact of replayability varies based on the type of game that is being evaluated.
BONUS: Wow Factor
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
Judges
The Game Jams Program Managers will vote with a panel of select The Sandbox staff judges on the top 15 entries. All judges involved have extensive knowledge of the Game Maker and Game Jams.
They are furthermore aware of all aspects that go into creating successful games and will take a professional approach when evaluating the entries.
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.
When you submit a Game Jam entry, you may opt for feedback by The Council who will send an e-mail once the final results are announced to those who wanted feedback.
In the event that guest judges from partner IPs are included, these will be carefully briefed on the voting criteria and process to ensure that they are capable of informed ratings of the entries.
#123: GM 0.11 update - do not publish until public release
Change request updated
Voting Phase 1
Entries are played and voted for by The Council.
The judges appoint games that stood out to them to be nominated for additional awards[?].
Once voting is complete, points are tallied.
Voting Phase 2
A shortlist of the 15 top scoring entries is sent to a team of experienced The Sandbox staff judges.
The judges rate the entries from the shortlist, and the points are tallied.
Results Processing
A list of the Top 10 scoring entries is finalised.
Any entries in the Top 10 that were appointed for additional awards are removed from the list of nominations for those awards.
A final list of Honorable Mentions is completed containing up to 10 games.