My name is Josh Bycer and I run the site and channel Game-Wisdom. I specialize in talking about game design and covering varieties of games, especially indie titles. Over the past 7 years of running things, I have played and covered thousands of games. With the channel now over 10,000 subscribers, I wanted to start doing something special to raise awareness for it and to give more indie developers a chance to create something and get their own name out there.

Theme: Might as well, jump!... or whatever.

Your challenge is to recontextualize the act of jumping in a way that hasn't been seen before and build a game around it. You are allowed to have a normal way of jumping and your "jam entry" way of jumping.

Here are some tips:

• Jumping is built on three distinct portions -- how the character leaves the ground, what they can do in the air, and how they land. You should look at one, two, or all three of those areas when trying to come up with inspiration.
• This challenge is to redesign the act of jumping, I didn't say redesign platforming ;)
• Games like VVVVVV, Bionic Commando, and others were built on a unique form of moving the player across the screen. While Super Mario World is one of the only platformers of all time to create two entirely different jump commands -- the normal one and the spin jump.

Rules  

• teams should be no more than five people and you are free to organize on the Game-Wisdom discord.
• The game jam period will run for no more than 10 days, entries not in by midnight will be disqualified.
• All game jam games must be submitted via Itch, I will not accept email links to Google Drive or dropbox.
• Prototypes can be as short as you want, but a prototype should require no more than 30 minutes of playtime. While judging, if a game does exceed the 30-minute time limit, nothing past that mark will count for the game's rating.
• For the sake of showing these off on stream, please keep things SFW.
• You are free to use premade or store assets provided you have the license for them. 
• All prototypes must be made during the jam itself, you are not allowed to turn in an already-created game/prototype.
• If a game cannot be played at all due to browser issues, or files are being flagged by basic antivirus software before running, those entries will be disqualified. If your game has a problem during judging, you will be given a chance to fix it.

Grading

Games will be graded in the following categories and what they mean score-wise:

The Theme-- Does the game meet the theme of the jam and how clear was it?

• 1 - No idea how this game meets the theme
• 5 - The theme is front and centered and easily seen

Originality -- How original was the gameplay

• 1 - The game played like everything we've seen before 
• 5 - completely new gameplay for the respective genre

Gameplay -- How good was the overall experience to play?

• 1 - not enjoyable to play
• 5 - smiling ear-to-ear while playing

Performance-- Options menu, controls, UI/UX etc.

• 1 - The game is barely functional, if at all
• 5 - has full options, no bugs, slowdown, etc.

Aesthetics -- The look and feel of the game.

• 1 - It looks like someone just pasted asset packs into an engine and called it a day
• 5 - The art goes with the theme and gameplay perfectly

Completion -- Is there a full concept and beginning, middle, and end to the demo?

• 1 - The submission is over before it starts showing any real gameplay
• 5 - The demo shows off the theme, explores gameplay with it, and has a conclusion

All game jam concepts and game designs submitted will be owned by the respective designers, and any coverage done on Game-Wisdom will be owned by myself. All games played and judged by me will be archived on a showcase video on the channel with links to the respective games listed. 

Judging Details:

Judging will be done by me along with several judges. The judges will play the games on their own, and grade the games on the metrics I have listed above. Whichever game has the highest overall score from the judges will be considered the winner. After the jam period is over, I will give judges 14 days to play through the submissions (subject to change based on the number of submissions.)