Update: the theme is....

POWER 

Your goal for this jam is to fulfill as many of the classic jam game tropes as humanly possible, and to do it with style! We're talking Kenney assets, Comic Sans, comedic crashes, and more. Don't feel obliged to work through the entire jam period, all games are welcome, big or small :)

The Challenge

Make a game during the submission period, and include as many of these tropes in it as you dare~

1. Game name is a pun, alliteration, wordplay, or includes the theme or jam name
2. Provide extensive lore/backstory on the itch page
   
3. Do not include a main menu
4. Use Kevin McLeod music (be sure to give credit, as specified on the website)
5. Use Kenney assets
   
6. Make home-recorded sounds (don't even worry about the quality)
7. Use disjointed art asset styles
   
8. Use the default Unity skybox somehow
   
9. Make a janky player character animation
10. Font is Comic Sans (free lookalike), and/or Arial (Unity default), other meme-y fonts will be accepted.
11. Include a box/rock pushing puzzle
12. Post WIP images/gifs in the Discord
    
13. Hide an easter egg (relating to the jam name, theme, previous Jammy Wednesdays, Darz, whatever as long as it's recognizable)
14. Give the exe/zip and the game different names
15. Hint at a feature, but apologize in-game for running out of time
    
16. Esc button quits the game 
    
17. No failure/death screen, game just restarts
18. Player can fall out of the world, especially when they don't expect it
    
19. Game crashes (ideally not in a way that prevents winning)
20. Post the final game submission in the Discord
21. Include a sweet gameplay gif on the itch page
22. Upload an untested build for a system mentioning that you don't have access to it (i.e. Mac users post a PC build, and vice versa)
23. Submit the game within 1 hour or less of the deadline
24. Include a cat in the game (this isn't quite a trope, I just want to see some cats)
    FREE SPACE - Submit to the jam

Feel free to indicate your project's Bingo Score on the project's page. This is the number of tropes built into your game out of 24, as specified above. This score is not explicitly used for ranking so don't feel pressured to use every single trope if they don't fit your style or goals. The Bingo Score is essentially for bragging rights and honorable mention on stream.

Theme

The theme will be announced at the beginning of the jam!

Ranking

Participants will rank submissions based on Originality, Fun, Style, Use of Theme, and General Bingo Enthusiasm. Ideally General Bingo Enthusiasm isn't simply the project's Bingo Score, it's more a question of how much you feel the dev(s) embraced the tropes regardless of how many they used.

Stream

The results of the rankings, as well as honorable mentions for highest bingo scores, will be given on stream by the jam host on Wednesday July 7th 2021, at 3:30pm EST. As host, my goal will be to stream the submissions and offer feedback once ranking is complete, while filling out bingo cards for each game. Since I have no clue how many submissions there will be I can't promise that I'll cover them all, but I'll certainly give it a try!

Communication

Keep up to date with the jam news, find team mates, encourage each other, and show off your work in progress at our Discord server. 

But why "Bingo"?

The inspiration for the jam came from a bingo card I made to play while streaming jam submissions:

 
These are classic and wonderful features which give jam games their special style, and we want to embrace that in the Bingo Jam. 

Good luck, everyone!