Chicaghoul is a Chicago community game jam with an emphasis on horror and Halloween related games! For this jam, participants are asked to create a horror, horror themed, or Halloween related game as their entry.  The theme for this year is Found Footage, but this is entirely optional and more meant to help inspire ideas for entrants!

At the conclusion of the jam, Night City will host an in-person community reception and showcase (RSVP required) of all of the officially selected games submitted to the jam. 

• Entries should be within the horror genre or Halloween related.
• Gore and other more graphic content are acceptable, we just ask that any entries containing particularly sensitive elements be flagged accordingly. 
• Participants are encouraged (but not required) to create a movie style poster for their submission’s cover art! Posters should be included as a downloadable file on the submission’s Itch.io page, sized 11 x 17 inches (about 3300 px by 5100 px), at 300 DPI and as a PDF. We will print these for accepted games and showcase them at the reception.
• All entries should be tagged with #chicaghoul2024
• Only games officially selected will be showcased at the in-person reception.
• Games are required to submit the jam entry form to qualify for official selection, and must be available for the live showcase to qualify for prizes.

Schedule

• September 28 - 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Kickoff at Logan Square Public Library with speed meet.
• September 28 - 12:30 PM: Theme announced, jam begins!
• October 18 - 11:59 PM Central Time: Submissions due
• October 19 - Community Voting opens!
• October 21 - Community Voting closes at Midnight.
• Saturday, October 26 | 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM: Community reception and game showcase (RSVP required!) held at Night City 

Theme

The optional theme for Chicaghoul is Found Footage. Optional modifiers voted on by our ko-fi members are:

• Mysterious Goo
• Strange Devices
• Rat Hole

Suggestions for Found Footage movies as influence include the V/H/S/ series, The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, and As Above So Below.

Quick Links

• Indie City Games Discord
• Game Jam entry form
• RSVP for community reception / game showcase

PRIZES

Our primary sponsor this year is GX Games and GameMaker! Games made in GameMaker, Godot, or Unity are eligible for the GX Games Award; the chosen game will be featured on GX Games front page! To enter your game for consideration, upload your game to GX Games and tag it with Chicaghoul 2024. 

More info can be found at create.gx.games/help

This year is also once again sponsored by DreadXP! 

This year we are also sponsored by MDEV, the Midwest's game industry conference! MDEV is generously supplying free passes for the top winners, selected via voting at the Night City showcase.

You can also use our unique promo code mdevindiecitygames2024 at checkout to get 25% off your pass- works with the MDEV 2024 Virtual Pass as well!

Official Selection

All entries will be reviewed by community vote and additionally by an impartial selection committee. Entries will be evaluated based on presentation values, engagement, playability, and cohesion with the jam theme and suitability for an in-person event. 

We want to minimize gatekeeping and encourage community participation across all skill levels.  All games that comply with the rules below will be included in the jam page on Itch.io. However, due to limited space at the in-person reception and limited availability of prizes, a maximum of 10 games will be officially selected.

Rules for Official Selection

To be officially selected, submissions must fulfill the following criteria:

• Game must be submitted to the game jam on Itch.io.
• Jam entries should be original and created during the jam period.
• One contact person on the team must submit an entry form.
• Games must be within the horror genre, horror themed, or Halloween related.
• Teams are limited to four members or fewer. Participants may be members of multiple teams but may only be the contact person for a single game. Team members (usernames or real names) must be credited on the game’s Itch page.
• At least one team member must be present and able to display the created game for the duration of the showcase reception (we will have at least 30" x 30" of table space for you and outlets, you're on the hook for the rest!).
• Any externally created assets must be credited with links on the game’s Itch page.
• The game must be reasonably functional as determined by Night City and Indie City Games.
• If a game is submitted as playable in-browser, it should also include a downloadable version.
• Game size should not exceed 2 GB.
• The game must be playable without a third-party installer.
• Tag your game with chicaghoul2024.

Selection Committee

Edgar Espino - Columbia College graduate, co-founder and Lead Game Designer at Little Tlaloc Interactive.

Emmeline Meyers - Freelance artist, educator, and developer currently working as a programmer for “The Coldest Winter”, an unconventional take on a point and click horror game.

Eva Khoury - NY-based artist who has worked on independent games, run educational simulations, and taught classes on 3D animation and puppeteering.

Jude Pinto - Multidisciplinary game designer and professor with a passion for the freaky, unconventional, and unexpected!

Justin Wood - DreadXP marketer by day, game journalist by night who is obsessed with RPGs and horror.

Lillyan Ling - NY-based game designer and musician working with game development trio Common Opera and others to create elaborate and nonsense with a DIY sensibility.

Samuel Guglielmo - Writer and editor on games such as Hand of Doom, Sucker for Love: Date to Die For, Red Tape, and more.

Susie Buchan (she/her) -  Performance artist and creative producer for experimental games stuff and things based in Dundee, Scotland.

Legal / IP Rules

• Developers hold all rights to the games they make.
• Developers grant Night City and Indie City Games the permission to use their game's name, screenshots, and video footage in promotional materials for Night City, Indie City Games, and future events.
• Night City and Indie City Games are not responsible for any games submitted. 
• Games featuring text in languages besides English must provide a translation of all submitted materials not in English.
• Night City and Indie City Games reserve the right to not display and / or remove any uploaded games if the game content is broken, offensive or unsuitable as determined by Night City and Indie City Games’ sole discretion. This includes but is not limited to: games with harmful or prejudicial themes related to gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, appearance, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship, socioeconomic status, or religion.

About Night City

Night City is a Chicago studio focused on curating community-oriented video game development, festivals, exhibitions, and educational resources.

Night City’s mission is to strengthen community by:

• Reconceptualizing video games as participatory community art.
• Affording diverse, local creators an equitable space to share their work with in-person audiences beyond traditional commercial channels.

More info at nightcity.games

About Indie City Games

Indie City Games is a Chicago-based non-profit working to provide local independent game developers and artists with space to create, share, meet, collaborate, and showcase their work. Our mission is to foster an intentional, mutually supportive community around multimedia, interactive art.

If you want to support us in bringing more jams, events, and resources to Chicago and midwestern indie developers, consider supporting us on ko-fi! You'll get access to our extremely rad zine we publish monthly as part of it! Your dollars goes to help us bring you events like this.

For info on Indie City Games, check out our Discord!