You lovely, lovely people. Congratulations to you all.
If my SQL-fu is correct, there were 102 of you who contributed to this beautiful thing. That's nearly as many people as the last Pirate Kart had games. 50 of you contributors signed up for the site less than a day before it started. That's amazing. I can't thank everyone enough. Some of your work is astonishing, some of your work is terrible, and all of your work is appreciated. Be proud.
If you haven't already, please post a bio for inclusion in the Pirate Kart compilation. You don't have to give your real name, or a real picture of yourself, or anything -- though you can, if you like. It's simply what will show up as an "about the author" when the player clicks on your game(s) in the menu. Feel free to have fun with it. Have a peek at the existing bios for inspiration, if you like.
I've heard a lot of people asking when the compilation will be ready. The answer is, probably within a couple of weeks. The menu rewrite is going smoothly; I'm hoping to go from "ugly and unusable" to "thematically-appropriately ugly and borderline usable". Those of you who have ever booted up a Windows 95 shareware CD-ROM will understand what I'm going for.
A few people have asked how they can help. The best way to help, in general, is to play some games, comment on them, and mark your favourites. You may have noticed an "Add to favorites" link at the bottom of each game; when you like a game a lot, click it! Not only can people see which games you like by clicking on your user name, but I'll be able to incorporate this information into the compilation menu, providing a roadmap to the unmissable gems scattered within the daunting truckload of games that is the Pirate Kart.
Once again: Thank you all for making games and being a part of this remarkable event! I hope many of the newcomers stick around and make some more games with us for the March Klik of the Month Klub.
Q: What is a Klik & Play Pirate Kart?
A Klik & Play Pirate Kart is a staggering collection of awesome and/or terrible games. All of the games are made in a single 48-hour period. No game is allowed to take more than two hours to make. Contributors continuously churn out games, non-stop, all weekend. When the weekend is over, the result is pure glory. It is an experience unlike anything else that has ever occurred on earth.
In 2009, the Global Game Jam brought together more than 1600 people for a single 48 hour period, and the result was a measly 370 games. What a joke! If we had had 1600 people working on the first Pirate Kart, why, we could have easily produced 10,000 games! Glorious Trainwrecks Dot Com is hereby declaring QUANTITY WAR on the Global Game Jam.
Play, and thus anyone can make games with us.
Q: How do I participate?
Step 1: Get set up and comfortable with a rapid game creation environment. I recommend Klik & Play, but if you've got a 64-bit machine, you might be better of with, say, Construct. Check out our Tools thread for suggestions.
Remember: you want to make games at an impossible rate, spending no more than two hours apiece on them. Getting some practice in during the Klik of the Month Klub would be a good idea.
Step 2: When the weekend has begun, join us on IRC. Everyone who's participating should be in the #glorioustrainwrecks channel on irc.freenode.net. Chatting with us on IRC gets you speedy Klik & Play advice, insights into the creative process, and new friends to make games with.
If you're not comfortable with IRC, we've set up a handy-dandy IRC Java applet that automatically connects you to your game-making brethren.
Step 3: MAKE GAMES LIKE A MAD(WO)MAN.
Q: How do I see the games people have made for the Pirate Kart?
An automatically generated list of games will be available at this link.
IT IS TIME ONCE AGAIN TO TAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE PLUNGE INTO GLORY!