It's time for another Sekret Santa gift exchange.... in Spring?!
Yes, the last Sekret Santa in December 2019 didn't seem to generate as much enthusiasm as previous ones (with only around 50% of participants actually finishing their gift), so we got together as a community on the Altgamez Discord (https://discord.gg/vfZHZ2n) to discuss possible future changes to the event. This Springtime Santa Shindig is meant to be a "trial run" for new ideas!
Click here to jump down to the important dates and deadlines.
Sekret Santa is an event where the Glorious Trainwrecks community gets together to make gifts for each other! The gifts are usually video games, but you can also make other types of game, or drawings, or music, or any other gift-like object you can imagine. Here's how it works:
Yes! Plenty of people who are new to the site or who only post occasionally join these events, and you can too.
If you've participated in previous Sekret Santa events, you're probably curious what's different about this one. Here's the rundown:
There are three roles you can sign up for: Springtime Santa, Backup Santa, and Santa's Fairey. To sign up, make a comment below with which role you want, and for the Springtime Santa role, include a wishlist (as described in the Wishlist section below).
Here's how each role works:
We're trying out a limited wishlist format for this event. Each participant is limited to up to three phrases, each with up to five words. You can make multiple wishlists if you want to give your Santa more options, but the expectation is that your Santa will only choose one of the lists.
In your wishlists, avoid restrictions on format ("video game", "board game", "3D game", "music album"). Also, be careful about asking for specific game genres ("platformer", "first person shooter") or game mechanics closely tied to a genre ("double jump"). If your Santa doesn't know how to do a particular genre, or wants to make a non-game gift, they may just ignore that part of your request!
Here is an example of a wishlist:
If you're assigned a wishlist you find too difficult, you are allowed to trade wishlists with someone else on your team! Ideally this should be done as soon as possible after wishlists are assigned, before people get too deep into their gifts.
If you are struggling with certain aspects of your wishlist, and you can't find anyone to trade with, it's okay to leave some parts of the wishlist out of your gift, but do your best to meet the request!
Once you're assigned a wishlist, you can start making your gift! You will have three weeks to do most of the making, and one extra week to wrap it up nicely. The three week period is called "Gift Making" and the one week period is called "Final Touches".
Ideally, by the end of the "Gift Making" period, your gift should be in a state where it would be ready to give to the recipient, if you had to. For example, if it's a game, it should be playable from start to finish, but maybe missing stuff like a title screen and ending. If it's a music album, maybe all the songs are recorded but you don't have album art.
The "Final Touches" period is where you prepare your gift for release. Take whatever you got done in the "Gift Making" period and wrap it up nicely - add that title screen, make that album art, whatever you need to do to be comfortable with giving it out.
A recommendation: just because you have 3+1 weeks doesn't mean you need to go all out and make a mega-gift. Small gifts will be appreciated too, and are more likely to be finished! Instead of planning to use the whole three weeks, try to find a shorter amount of time within the Gift Making period (say one week, or even a weekend) where you will make your gift.
After the Final Touches period is over, you should give your gift to its recipient! You can send them a private message on Glorious Trainwrecks, or ping them on the Altgamez Discord if they use it. You can also post it in this event if you want to make it public and let other people check it out!
If your gift ended up unfinished and you don't feel comfortable sharing it publicly, that's okay. Let your giftee know and send them whatever you can - unfinished work, development screenshots, future plans. They'll appreciate knowing!
If you aren't already on the Altgamez Discord, come check it out!
Lots of people from the Glorious Trainwrecks community hang out there, and there's a #sekret-santa channel to talk about the more public aspects of the event (anything about specific wishlists or gifts should go in the private team Discords until Gift Sharing Day has come).
Signup: Now until Thursday, April 16 Gift Making: Thursday, April 16 until Thursday, May 7 (Three weeks) Final Touches: Thursday, May 7 until Thursday, May 14 (One week) Gift Sharing Day: Friday, May 15 (Don't pay attention to the specific hours I set for the event, I'm not sure exactly what hour of the day Signup will end or Gift Sharing Day will start or whatever, but I'll try to be lenient about it!)
GIF from presentermedia.com
That's all I have.... go forth and Sant!
Name | Created | By | Screenshot | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|
You Are Soft | 05/16/2020 - 00:09 | Personman | 2 | |
The glass tunnel (for Kate B) | 05/15/2020 - 03:06 | patrickgh3 | 3 | |
VVORLAAK (for patrickgh3) | 05/14/2020 - 10:08 | wendywildshape | 3 | |
CATZONE (for fotocopiadora) | 05/14/2020 - 18:18 | DPS2004 | 3 | |
True Love Wades (For Danni) | 06/20/2020 - 12:56 | gisbrecht | 3 | |
INVISIBLE MEGAN for let-off-studios | 05/15/2020 - 01:02 | quasiotter | 3 | |
Fun Jet | 07/07/2020 - 02:13 | jakeclover2432222 | 4 | |
Land Speculation (for Personman) | 05/13/2020 - 10:10 | pikachu | 6 | |
Forbidden Pleasure's of Atlantis (for gisbrecht) | 05/15/2020 - 09:44 | Kate B | 6 | |
Assault on Hamburger Tower: For wendywildshape | 05/14/2020 - 09:55 | mkapolk | 7 | |
QUAD DEATH: Core Meltdown EX (for marbles-box) | 05/13/2020 - 03:29 | fotocopiadora | 7 | |
Frog Frictions (for everythingstaken) | 05/17/2020 - 18:30 | Danni | 9 | |
Hoppin' Tom (for mkapolk) | 05/13/2020 - 18:34 | hubol | 10 | |
WizBoing (for DPS2004) | 05/15/2020 - 22:43 | everythingstaken | 12 |