@FairyGodFeather
You didn’t speak to your testers through pm or email? Or you did just not hear back from them?
@FairyGodfeather I do not see this a failure at all. I am thrilled that four made it. I was just rooting for you all to make it. 
Dang, that close. If only I had time to put in what I have.
EDIT:Nudge,nudge,wink,wink,shuffle,shuffle,yeah,yeah
@TIYF I truly wish I could allow the submission. However this would be unfair to the other writer’s that did make the deadline. I even extended the time to cover for the confusion of when it ended. It gives me no pleasure in saying no but I most. I hope you understand.
Congratulations to the four who submitted. I look forward to seeing all the entries on the Hosted Games page of the website soon. Congratulations also to @Lordirishdas for running this competition and giving contestants the motivation to create their new games. That’s a great achievement and can’t be stated enough!
@lordirishdas Oh good! I was worried that you might be disheartened by the small number of completed entries when it is such a huge achievement. Four people finished! WOOOHOO!! And next year it shall be more.
I hope you weren’t offended by my comments on the contest. I typed that up at 6am I think when I was just utterly exhausted after spending the entire day working on my game. It was mostly random thoughts.
As a writer who did make the deadline I do not have a problem with late submissions (as long as they’re within 24 hours of the deadline) since there’s always a number of timezone issues and there was that initial confusion about when the contest finished. Deduct points for being late if you must. However I am just one person and the other entrants and judges should be taken into consideration.
@WolfieGrey I had two absolutely amazing testers who went out of their way to help me. I just didn’t have time to implement everything that they suggested. I could not have finished the game without them. But realistically, I asked for testers with just days before the deadline, on a game that I was still busy frantically editing. It’s far from ideal for either me or for them. Their support got me through to the finish line, because here were two people willing to take time out of their lives to help me and pull apart my game and suggest changes.
I would have loved to have been able to post the game publicly while I was working on it for the contest. I think community support could have been utterly invaluable. I could have also posted to ask for help with the code issues I was having. My code is horrifically ugly and I’m hoping after everything is judged to be able to ask “how do I do this more elegantly.”
I also had something break in my brain in regards to If statements. For some reason the logic is just not making sense in my head.
That said if I’d been able to post publicly I would have ended up with something entirely different. I’d have posted my other game project, (the one I realised wasn’t working on the 16th of March) and I would have felt obliged to continue with it because I’d posted it and asked for help. So for me things did work out.
I’m not sure how well public posting during the competition would work out. It does allow an opportunity for detailed feedback, but that’s what a few good, dedicated beta-testers should be able to do anyway.
Plus, I think it’s important for an author to have their own freedom of interpreting a task, rather than be tempted to peak at and try to compete with what others are doing. The entries in this competition have been all over the place as far as various factors are concerned, but that makes their strong points really stand out and adds a certain uniqueness that I don’t think we could’ve ended up with otherwise.
Anyways, congrats to all who entered! And congrats to everyone who even started a game because of this contest. The beginning is always one of the biggest challenges to overcome. Figurative momentum, and all that. 
I really hope that everyone who started a game (or three) can eventually get a smooth, finished work out into the world.
@FairyGodfeather Believe me I wrestled with allowing late submissions. I have missed a deadline before, and know how frustrating it can be. Yet, I just do not feel it is fair to allow late submission. I know everyone has worked hard and deserves props for attempting this. As far as your comments, I have no problem with them. I am looking for honest feedback to help improve the contest for next year. So I appreciate anything you have to say. I agree with @CS_Closet, cutting you all off from public access will cause the writer to reach deep to create. It is a big challenge, and that is why it is a contest. lol.
I agree, the isolation adds to the secrecy and specialness of the contest, as well as prevents early fan support which may sway judges.
The ten beta testers was interesting, although I found that only a few helped (and thanks again!) but many didn’t even respond a single time. So, perhaps more than ten to allow for the chance factor of good testers?
I would strongly discourage a theme. Not only does it limit the writers, but it would also cause artificial over saturation of themes when they release.
Just my thoughts. The timing was nice for me. I had time to write and I was due to start a new story. I’m looking forward to hearing more about the other entrants.
@Lucid I was toying with the idea of a theme, but agree with your sentiment. I am thinking maybe just throwing out a few elements that have to be embeded into the story. The beta tester rule, was a soft rule I will work on improving or removing the rule for next year.
@lordirishdas
If a theme ever comes into being, I’d hope it was a loose one that could be interpreted many different ways. Or, how about specifying a thematic setting, or genre? Otherwise, I don’t think a theme is necessary, unless you really want to be sure that no one starts before the beginning of the contest. I’m more inclined to work on the honor system with that, but it’s your contest.
As for beta-testers… It’s hard to find very good ones, and it isn’t easy providing the kind of feedback that authors need in such a short amount of time. I’d love if we had a list of dedicated volunteers for closed testing on the forums so that people know who they can ask for some seriou, but I think our community is still a little small for that. 
@CS_Closet I am still tinkering with the idea so nothing set in stone at this point.
Perhaps if when we start fleshing out the Choicebox we can add a beta tester score card system.
I think a theme (or themes) has merit. Intelligent constraints drive creativity. As mentioned, seeing how the themes for the JayIsGames.com contests have been variously interpreted is always interesting. They usually pick something broad, like “Escape,” “Grow,” or “Explore.” An “escape” game could be your usual escape-the-room game, or about escaping your inner demons, or escapism into video games, etc.
I would avoid limiting people to a genre or setting. That seems too specific, and people are very divided on genres they’ll play or write.
@horacetorys Yeah the JayisGames themes are what I was thinking of. Where there’s one word which can be interpretted in so many different ways. And for me I like a challenge, I find themes spark my imagination. I’ve almost entered the JayIsGames contests when the themes have particularly interested me. (Only almost since I’ve never quite had the incentive or confidence to do so until this contest).
Unfortunately, I didn’t finish my game. At least not to a point where I would be happy to turn it in for judging. My ideas grew too much and it took on a life of its own so I’m no where close to done.
Having some dedicated beta testers would be great imo, so you’ll know that feedback is guaranteed. I think there are actually a lot of people in this community, but most of them are ghost readers.
I wouldn’t mind have themes challenges. It’d be interesting to see how everyone interprets it. Problem is what if the judges feel as though the theme wasn’t present in the game (like someone got too creative or something?)
I think if I did a theme it would be very simple and very open to how it was written. I do not feel there would be an issue with the judges. As they would not be scoring on the theme it’s self.
I like the open theme idea, although I can see it as kind of restricting as well. I’m sure that some of the entries and attempted entries this year were from people who wanted to make a specific game but just needed that push to get started on it.
Or I could be wrong. Either way, I think it would really be up to the contest organizer to decide if something is in-theme or not.
@CS_Closet. Will wait and see what kind of feedback I get. There is no rush as I have a year to decide.