Hello, and welcome to Devtober 2024!

PSA: like usual, I've extended the deadline by a few days for people to be able to comfortably write their postmortems. Thanks for participating!

What is Devtober

It's pretty simple - it's a personal challenge where the focus is finding your own pace, building good habits and work routine.
There's no real rules - it's a commitment to yourself more than a game jam, but if you feel the need for some direction, we've been following these extremely basic rules for the past few years:

• Work on a game a little every day
• Post your progress on social media
• On the very last day, write a post mortem

That's it!

Most people - probably including you! - want to make games, but struggle to find the time to get started, let alone stay motivated for long periods of time.  So, this challenge focuses on not only honing your skills, but most importantly getting in the routine of working on your game every day. You basically want to avoid relying on motivation, and instead develop good habits and discipline!

You're absolutely free to tweak or ignore the rules. Maybe every day is not healthy for you, or maybe working toward daily goals to share is counter-productive to your project. Just do you! No one is gonna judge you but yourself. So long as you're working at a steady pace, and learning how to keep that rhythm going after October ends, you're definitely winning.

And please, don't skip on the post mortem. It's important, not only so you know what you've learned, but also and mainly so that other people can learn from you, too!

Theme

Devtober doesn't really have a theme! This is definitely not a contest, and instead of trying to come up with a new game idea, consider instead starting that game you've always wanted to make, pick up that project you put on hiatus months ago, or just make something small. What matters is only making something!

If you really want a theme, consider this: make something small - even smaller than you'd think - and focus instead on releasing it by the end of the month. Make something, polish it, debug it, test it, and push it to market. Make it your objective to make at least one dollar by selling whatever you've made, by the end of october. How does that sound?

F.A.Q.

• Ok so, when is it?

All of october! Hence the name, dev-(oc)tober. Start working on october 1st, you complete the challenge if you work a little every day until october 31st.

• Why not another month? I think Devuary sounds better. Or Devember. Or even Devarch.

Devarch? Really?  Look, it's arbitrary. October is actually a pretty quiet month - not a lot of game releases, away from both summer and winter vacations... and besides, you're absolutely free to take on the challenge at any time that works best for you. 

• So, it's not a contest?

Nope! It's a personal challenge. No one is judging you and there is no participation prizes, but the satisfaction of improving yourself and/or achieving whatever goals you set.  I actually highly recommend that you set your own goals.

• Well, then, what should I do?

Again, it's your choice. I suggest making a very small game from start to finish, so you have something to show for it. But maybe just prototyping something you want to try would be a better fit for you! Or maybe make a vertical slice of that game you really want to make, so maybe you can pitch it to publishers or investors. Or maybe go back to a game you've already released, but fix some bugs, or add content? You set your own goals within your own schedule and free time. Just make sure you set realistic objectives, you don't want it to end up being demoralizing! 

• But... so it shouldn't be a new game?

Well, it doesn't have to be!  You can definitely keep working on whatever you're doing right now, if you have something. All that matters is being consistent about progress.

• What happens if I fail?

I'm going to assume that you're gonna be sad about it. And honestly, that's it. Failure is a very subjective thing. Your goal should just be to work a little every day, it's all about developing good working habits.  For my first devtober, what I wanted was to make a game from start to finish. And boy, did I overscope and went way over my head! In that regard, I totally failed... but at the same time, I worked a little on my game every day. 
Last year, I straight up gave up midway through, due to a lot of personal reasons.

Did I fail? I dunno. I don't feel like I did, even when I gave up. Because either way, I still improved a lot, and learned about myself and how I should approach things. I genuinely believe that's all that matters!

• Alright, I get it! But I could use some help to make my game...

I know, right? It's so hard to make things by yourself. 
First of all, don't hesitate to team up! Finding likeminded people can do wonders to fill in blank spots or help with motivation, and will definitely be a learning experience. You can pop on our Discord to find a team, or try itch.io's own Community section.

Alternatively, you can (and probably should!) use existing assets! By that I mean, there's a variety of free and paid asset libraries on the internet that probably fill most of your needs, be it visuals, music, sounds, or even helpful code, scripts and whatnot. There's no shame on using these!

• You said to post on social media, do I have to? Where?

The point of posting on social media - daily or not - is not visibility or anything; it's because it's a passive peer pressure. You don't have to know if people care or not, or have any engagement target or even playing the social media game, but it's like, a way to pressure yourself.
You don't want to disappoint people by stopping half way, do you?
Again - that's not a strict rule,  do whatever you feel comfortable with, but if you feel it's an incentive that works for you, go for it! If not, you can just do it on a smaller scale, maybe just share with a group of friends, something like that?

As to where, it's your call - wherever you feel comfortable using. Personally I'll be heading towards Bluesky, and private Discord servers where I have friends!

• I'd like to know more, how was Devtober last year? 

You can check it out here (2023), here (2022), here (2021), or here (2020)! 
Lots of people shared their progress on twitter or the Discord, and you should be able to see people's Post Mortem on last year's itch page, along with the in built community forums that some of us used as a devlog. 

• So... I need to write a post mortem, right? How do I even do that?

Here's some guidelines- you don't have to stick to them, but they should be pretty relevant!

• Anything else? Some ground rules?

Rules are pretty simple: don't be a jerk, and be respectful to everyone. Don't spread any content that incites hate.
So long as people behave, outside of that the whole point of this thing, as you might have gathered, is to set your own rules so you get the best out of yourself!