Game Jolt is a platform where indie authors can offer their games to the public so they can test them, detect bugs or suggest enhancements. The platform has its own client that allows you not only search, download and install games, but also write reviews and rate those games regarding their graphics, playability, and more.
You can download the client for free from the developer's website. In order to have access to the featured games, you need to create a Game Jolt account, or enter using your Facebook, Twitter or Google+ account. Once you have done that, you can search for games by name, theme or keyword. Each game can have different options. For example, you can download some of them, while others allow you to play them online. As I said earlier, you can post your opinion about a game, as well as suggest any change or improvement. In this sense, the platform is a true game-related social network.
The main disadvantage I found does not have to do with the client itself, but with the games it offers. Some of them are very basic with poor graphics and weak stories. Others can't be played at all. This is understandable, since most of the games presented are from independent authors or small companies. Nevertheless, you may find some hidden gems.
In sum, if you love video games and want to look at what's new in the field, you may want to try this program.
v0.1 [Dec 26, 2015]
Every game on the site now has its own devlog feed that people can view no matter the current stage of the game (i.e. Early Access, Complete).
If you’re a developer, you should consider adding a devlog as soon as you have interesting things to show for any game you’re creating. Don’t wait until your game is playable, start showing content beforehand so you can grow a follower base that will be ready to play your game when you release it.
Text posts are the closest thing to the previous Game News feature. Create a text post in markdown and make it as long and detailed or as short and sweet as you’d like. You can now upload images directly into your post’s content, so you no longer have to host the images somewhere else. You can also use widget embeds to pull in SoundCloud songs, YouTube videos, etc. Devlog text posts look way sharper than game news did. Seriously, check ‘em out!
Media posts are when you’d like to quickly put out some visual goodness for people to see without having to explain much. You only have a "title" field for media posts, so they behave more like tweets with images. You can include as many images as you’d like, and also animated GIFs. The limit for GIF filesize is currently 20MB, so feel free to upload some beefy animations!
Video posts are for the times when you already have a YouTube video and just want to quickly embed it into your feed. You have a title field and a video URL field. This should be for short-form tweet-like posts for videos.
You should not treat devlog posts the same as game news in the past. Consider posting more frequently, and don’t feel the need to make your posts long and explanatory. View it more as a microblog for your game. You want to make your feeds easily digestible to get your audienced hooked on it!
Users can now "like" any post. So many warm and fuzzies to go around! We also use it to discover interesting posts, enabling us to highlight them in the Devlogs section. So be sure to slap a like on posts you find interesting! Give us the data. *nom nom*
We’ve removed the notifications drop-down in the top nav. Instead, we have simplified all notifications and activity into a single page shown in a feed.
Your Feed contains posts from everything you follow on the site. Think of it as your one stop shop to view what’s going on with the stuff you follow.
Notifications show alerts directed at you, such as friendship requests, comments, replies, likes and follows on your games or forum threads.
We now categorize development into 3 stages on Game Jolt: Devlog-only, Early Access, and Complete.
Devlog-only game pages are styled slightly different from normal game pages to feature the devlog feed more prominently. These should be used by those whose projects don’t yet have playable builds, but want to share what they’re working on with the community to build a follower base from the start. If your game page didn’t have any builds and was marked as in-development before, we now have set it as a devlog-only game page.
Early Access game pages are for in-development games that have publicly playable builds. Their devlog feed is still very important for showing off progress and is accessible as a tab on the game page, replacing news. If you had an in-development game with builds, it is now an Early Access game.
Complete game pages are for stable and complete games that are released for the public to enjoy.
We no longer show unplayable games in the main listings. They can only be found in the Devlogs section now since that’s what they are.
Canceled games are no longer a development stage. You can mark your game as canceled at any point on Game Jolt and it will continue to retain the development stage it had reached. This way, you can have a canceled Devlog-only game, or a canceled Early Access game.
If you cancel your game, the game page will still be viewable for anyone with the link, but it will no longer show on the main listings (such as hot and best games). It effectively archives it.
There’s no longer any reason to complain about the ability to rate games that aren’t yet playable. From now on, only playable games can be rated. Rejoice with me!
Because of this change, we had to remove all ratings for games that aren’t playable. In the future, when you add builds and transition your game into Early Access or Complete, the ability to rate your game will be enabled again.
We’ve split ratings between Early Access and Complete as well. When your game is in Early Access it maintains an Early Access rating. When you publish your game into the Complete stage, the old Early Access ratings will be archived and it will start to accrue new ratings. This allows you to have a clean slate to start from when fully releasing your game.
Your games will now get more visibility if you use Game Jolt at the very beginning of the development process!
Great platform for gamers who want to have access to all their favorite Electronic Arts games in one place
