When does the jam start?

The Jam will begin on 13 October 2024, Sunday,  8:00 PM.

The duration of the jam is 4 days 4 hours or 100 hours.

Jam will end on 17 October 2024, Thursday at 11:59 PM .

All the times are given in Bangladesh Standard Time (GMT+06).

Who can enter?

Only Registered participants of the Game Jam event of BUET CSE Fest 2024 will be able to participate. All the participants must be from Bangladesh. Participants should be undergraduate/college/school students. Graduated participants will not be allowed.

BUET CSE 19 Batch students cannot participate.

Registration will be open until the end of the online round. Only the submission made by the registered teams will be considered.

Registration link : https://forms.gle/djJ64TDccyF8BuE77 

What is the theme?

"Heroes Never Die"

Which assets can I use?

The only restrictions on the usage of assets are below:

• No NSFW assets (ie. Background/images/musics/SFX/sprites/textures etc)
• No assets that goes against the terms of services of itch.io
• No copyrighted materials

Apart from these, you are free to use any assets.

Which platform do I need to use?

We have no restrictions on game engines or platforms. Use what feels natural to you if you are a beginner, and what you are used to if you are not a beginner. 

There are many good game engines like Unity, Godot, Unreal etc and drawing libraries like p5.js, opengl and pygames. Use whichever you are comfortable with or make something from scratch if you want.

What kind of games can I make?

Make games for PCs that can be played by Keyboard and Mouse. Do not build a game for phones, VR or any console or emulator. Do not build anything that would need additional softwares to be playable. The game must be playable on windows (or web browsers).  

What will be the judging criteria?

The games will be judged based on 4 criteria :

• How well the theme was adopted
• How interesting the gameplay features are
• How fun the gameplay is
• How well the game looks and sounds

All these criteria will carry the same weight in the judgment procedure.

How do I submit my game to the game jam?

In the next few lines we will assume you have an itch.io account. Only one of the members of each team has to have an itch.io account to submit their game. 

First you must join the game jam, and then press “Submit your project”. Then you will be asked to either submit an existing project you have already uploaded to itch.io, or upload a new game.

Either way, you need to provide some additional information regarding your game when you upload. The detailed explanation is in the next section.

Make sure to make the game FREE. We are broke and won’t be able to play games hidden behind a paywall :(

After you have inserted the information about your game, make sure that THE GAME HAS BEEN PROPERLY SUBMITTED  by checking the “Submissions” tab in the game jam page. 

After submitting the game, download it one time yourself to see if it was uploaded properly. Sometimes game files can get corrupted in the upload process. We can’t judge a game that has been corrupted

If you don’t see your game, then the most likely case is that you have not made the game public. You can make your project public by going to “Edit game” and selecting the “public” checkbox under “Visibility and Access”.

Do not add a game that you already published in some other source. (i.e don’t upload a game that you have already published somewhere else, like steam or playstore.)  You can publish the game after the onsite round has been finished. 

A link to a youtube tutorial can be found here 

What additional information do I need to provide?

When editing the details of your game in the game page, make sure to add:

• Your team name (Mandatory)
• The name of the members of the team (Mandatory)
• Engine or Framework used in the game (Mandatory)
• The Github link to your project (The repository should be empty when the game jam starts and should not be changed after the online round has ended) (Mandatory)
• Installation instruction (Mandatory)
• A short written description of the game (Mandatory)
• A how-to-play section
• Any other information vital for playing the game (must not include downloading additional software as mentioned in “What kind of games can I make?” section)

These are the mandatory details you need to provide in your project page.

Fields for the additional information will be available when you will go to upload your submission in itch.io

Do I need to provide the source code?

Yes, you need to provide the Github link of your project repo.

• The repository should be empty when the game jam starts
• No modifications should be made after the online round ends.
• The repository must be public

The code will not carry any weight in the judging process. 

When do I submit my game to the game jam?

Anytime between the start and end time of the game jam. You can update your submitted project in this duration too. The judgment will be carried out on the final submission.

What about the onsite round?

The top 15 teams based on the final ranking of the online round will be eligible to participate in the onsite round at BUET ECE Building. Here they will showcase what game they built. The score they gained during the online round will not be counted in the judgment of the onsite round.

• You don’t have to create a new game for the onsite round. The game you build in the online round will be judged
• With that in mind, make sure to save your project file until the results of the online round have been published.

About the video submission

We want to showcase the submission from our participants. Therefore the participants will need to create a video highlighting the game features and explain how the game aligns with the theme.

You don’t have to give implementation details in the video.

• Create the video
• Upload it on youtube
• Include “BUETCSEFEST2024” on the title of your video
• In the description, add the hashtag #BUETCSEFEST2024_GAMEJAM

The video must be submitted before October 18, 2024, 3:00 PM

(We are giving you some extra time after the online round so that you can focus the full time on making games. Edit your game page and add the video url in the description)

The video is optional. It will only be used for showcasing and helping the judges of the online round to understand the game (just in case if they miss some features). The video will not carry any weight in the scoring process. 

Who are the judges?

For the online round, the organizers of the Game Jam  will play and score all the games.

For the onsite round, we will bring industry professionals and faculty members.

FAQ

Criteria for winning BUET rising team award: All members must be from BUET21,  22 and 23 batch. The top team from BUET that is not 1st, 2nd or 3rd and satisfies the previous criteria will get the prize. If there is no such team, then there will be no winner for this prize.

Are web games allowed?: Yes, but give instructions on how to play.

Is there any registration fee? : No

I already registered my team. Can I add a new member? : Yes, We enabled the edit your response  option of the registration form. You can add additional members if you want.

I registered by did not get any confirmation emai: You should get a automatic response of your google form's submission in your inbox. Treat that as a confirmation email. As we are keeping the registration email throughout the online round too, we are not going to send any additional confirmation email. But we will check your form responses. If any discrepancy is found, we will email you.

I missed the deadline: Late submission is not allowed, and you can't change your submission after the online round has ended. Judgment in onsite round will also be on the version of the game you published on the itch.io

My game exceeds itch.io's size limit: Itch.io has a size limit of 1GB. Usually Gamejam games does not exceed that limit. If however your game is bigger upload it to drive or somewhere else, give it public access and share the link on the itch.io's project that you will submit. Also note that you are not allowed to modify your upload after the submission deadline.

Is parody allowed?: We all love some comedy, but don't do anything that might offend someone or any particular racial group. Also don't hint at sexual or radical ideas in your game.

The online round is over, now what? : After the submission period ends, we will play and score your games. It may take us 3-4 days depending on the number of submissions. The scores and ranks will be visible in itch.io after the judging period is over. We will also announce the top 15 teams and contact them via email with further details. 

Final words

If you encounter any problems during the game jam, let us know about it in the Discord channel (https://discord.gg/wNgfj7hjeJ) or email us at gamejam@buetcsefest2024.com. Also note that the organizers reserve the right to change the event details at any time. 

Happy game making!