>>> ✨ 🚨 Discord 🚨 ✨ <<<

Welcome to GAMES MADE QUICK??? FOUR, the seventh installment in the GAMES MADE QUICK??? series!  The numbering was messed up when translating from the original Japanese.

The Deal

Make a game during AGDQ!  You have from the moment it starts until 24 hours after it ends, according to the final state of the GDQ schedule.  (It gets updated over the course of the week, and always ends up running late by a few hours.)

This jam was originally created in response to a need: my need to not spend 168 consecutive hours staring at a Twitch stream and doing literally nothing else.  So it's pretty casual — just do literally anything and it's served its purpose!

• Rules: Make a game!  That's it!  Work alone, in a team; on a new thing, on an old thing.  Even "game" is flexible — make a game, make a level for an existing game, mod a game, hex edit some abandonware, flesh out a design doc, or just try out a new tool/engine.  Hell, write a story or compose some music.  Anything is better than nothing.
• Judging: None of it!  Everyone who does something wins!
• Prizes: You will receive 1 (one) thing you made that you would not have otherwise made!
• Theme: Nada!  But if you really want one, I always appreciate an ironic theme like "the faster you go, the longer it takes" or "impossible to speedrun because it can be beaten instantly" or "perfectly optimal strategies make you lose".  Or try this theme generator.  Or the 12th is my birthday, just saying.

FAQ

Q: Can I—
A: Yes!

Q: But I don't know how to make video games!
A: This is an excellent time to learn!

How to make video games

If you've never made a game, this is an excellent time to start!  There's only a week and everyone will be spending most of their time watching Mario traverse parallel universes, so most of the entries will be half-finished prototypes.

Some hints off the top of my head:

• Make garbage.  Doing this for the first time under a tight time limit is not the best setting for worrying about polish.  Embrace the inevitable crappiness and worry about making something that functions.  It'll blend in perfectly with everyone else's garbage.
• Stick to what you know.  If you don't know anything about programming, don't start the week by busting out Unity.  If you're not an artist, stick to rectangles or stock sprites.  Again, make garbage.

Speaking of which, here are some things that are relatively quick and easy to get into and also don't require a lot of art or programming investment:

bitsy is a microscopic game engine for making little worlds where you can walk around and talk to people.  It's actually hard to do much more than that (though a few people have managed).  I made Roguelike Simulator in a day with bitsy!

Twine is a system for writing nonlinear stories.  Doesn't sound game-ish enough?  With some clever use of the Harlowe 2 story format, you can track progress and add an inventory and probably even rig up combat or something.

PuzzleScript has its own custom programming language for describing grid-based puzzle games (e.g., Sokoban) surprisingly easily.  It's fairly sensible even if you have no idea what "custom programming language" means.  And if you are a programmer, you can do all kinds of stupid unreadable hacks!

Inform 7 is an entire programming language designed specifically for writing old-school text adventures — the ones with no pictures where you have to type GET YE FLASK and whatever.  It gets pretty deep, but since half the fun is in the writing, a week is plenty of time to make a charming little world with a few rooms and a few things you can interact with.  I made Star Anise Chronicles: Escape from the Chamber of Despair in a week with Inform!

Doom is, you know, Doom???  The first video game ever made?????  It turns out you can make your own maps for Doom, and walking around a world that you built from scratch as Commander John Keen III-2 is pretty rewarding!  I wrote a whole series on how to do this a couple years ago.

MegaZeux is, I admit, getting kind of obscure, but I will give you a thousand bonus points if you actually make something with it.  It's a DOS-era tile-based game engine with a bunch of built-in stuff, so you can treat it like a level editor if you want — but it's also pretty easy to dip your toes into adding custom behavior.

Godot is a pretty solid game-engine-in-a-box, if that's something you're really interested in diving into in only a week!  If you're a quick learner, you can probably crank out at least a little demo.

There are plenty more depending on what you're after; maybe ask in the Discord?  I'm sure folks can point you towards some stock assets if you're in need of those, too.