IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!

BARA JAM is back for its 6th year, once again as a 2 month long game jam. It is dedicated to creating male and/or male-relationship focused games that feature the Bara influence.

So what is Bara ? Here are the most informative snippets as taken from Wikipedia:

"Bara" is a Japanese technical term for a genre of art and fictional media that focuses on male same-sex love usually created by gay men for a gay male audience. Bara can vary in visual style and plot, but typically features masculine men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair, akin to bear culture in gay culture.

* Commentators sometimes refer to bara as "yaoi", but yaoi is largely created by and for women and features idealized bishōnen. - In contrast, bara is considered a subgenre - for gay males - rather than ones for female readers.

While this jam is, of course, open to all participants/audiences of any gender, please be mindful that your submissions have the characterizations of Bara: containing characters who are muscular, have a bear-like build,  and are possibly hairy or rugged. So although Bara can mean different things to different people, a good summary of this jam is a focus on non-bishounen characters, a reflection of varied body shapes, and comfortable masculinity.

Also, to be clear, Bara need not have NSFW content and submissions can simply discuss themes related to the essence of Bara to qualify. For example, a story centering around a non-Bara character's love of Bara manga would be acceptable. 

This jam encourages creation of all genres of games and not just visual novels.

Rules

1. Your game must focus on queer relationships between men OR the queer male experience. This includes: gay, bi, trans, non-binary, aro, ace, pan, or other male-identified LGBTQ+ characters. 

2. At least 1 of the main characters should have the essence of Bara associated with them.

3. Your game must have been primarily developed during the jam period (October 1 through November 30). The purpose of the jam is to encourage creation of new Bara-themed games. Demos are acceptable. Existing games must have significant enough changes that they would be considered a new game experience. Planning or doing light preliminary work before the jam period is allowed.

4. This is an inclusive jam and anyone can join. Although uncomfortable subjects can be explored, please be considerate of the themes/material used, and fellow creators/players. Entries that promote bigotry (i.e transphobic/racism) are not allowed.

5. NSFW entries are allowed, but please indicate and flag them as such.

6. Submission of the same game to other jams is allowed as long as the game obeys the above rules for submission to BARA JAM.

7. Jam hosts reserve the right to remove any submission for any reason, although they will try to reach out to creators first, such as by posting a comment on the jam submission page or on the primary game page. Removal will primarily occur for games that do not prominently feature the essence of Bara, or that appear to be submissions of existing games that were not primarily developed or significantly changed during the jam period.

Rewards

This is not a competitive jam, and the primary reward is the satisfaction of a job well done. Plus you'll have contributed a game to the (limited) pool of bara-focused games, and hopefully met some other bara enthusiasts along the way.

Further Links

For general advice or questions you can also reach out to others here in the Bara Jam itch community, or in the Bara Jam Discord.

You can also find Bara Jam on Twitter.

To find a team or teammates, try the Bara Jam Discord's #barajam2023-recruitment channel.

You can also check out entries from the previous years' jams: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

(2023 BJ Logo by Wolfscade)