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Welcome to the exciting ninth installment of GAMES MADE QUICK???, which I have helpfully numbered with a 5.

GMQ??? is my bold attempt to avoid spending 168 consecutive hours watching a Twitch stream and doing literally nothing else, by giving me something vague to do and also a time limit.  If that sounds appealing to you, you might want to see a doctor about an ADHD diagnosis, but also: welcome to the jam!

The Deal

Make a game during AGDQ!  You have—  no, wait, wait, hang on.  We've done this eight times already.  It's high time we try something else.

Do NOT make a game during AGDQ!  You've made a lot of games.  I've made a lot of games.  We've all made a lot of games.  There are so many games.  2020 was a rough ride and making games is hard and we could use a break.

Instead, let's make something for a game.  Design some levels.  Draw a new tileset.  Translate dialogue.  Extend it with a mod.  Build an asset viewer or level editor.  Make a cool visualization thing that's not technically a game because it's not interactive.  Go hog wild and remix an existing game into something utterly baffling like DooD (which is vanilla Doom with everything made symmetrical).  The sky's the limit!  And also, games are the limit.  Don't make games.  Unless you really wanna.

That's right: we're finally doing something kinda like a theme!

The jam runs from the moment AGDQ 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.)

There are no rules!  There is no judging!  There are no prizes!  And for the first time, there are no games! I mean, unless you make one anyway.

FAQ

Q: Can I—
A: Yes!

Q: But I was going to ask if I can make a game anyway??
A: Do whatever you want!  I literally cannot stop you!

Q: What if I made a game like three months ago and submit it to this jam for the exposure?
A: That's quite annoying and I will stop you!  Also like 20 people enter this jam each time and they tend towards the internet-savvy so you are probably barking up the wrong tree there.

Q: Is your birthday a theme again?
A: I am so glad you asked, completely unprompted!  Yes, my birthday is Jan 12, and my favorite thing to receive is not games, followed in a close second by games if you must.

Q: But I don't know how to not make not video games!
A: That's not a question!

Some suggestions

If you've never made a game, this is the perfect game jam for you, since it's about not making games!  Also, making not games is a great first step towards making games, if that's a thing you want to do later.  Here is some stuff you might try.

• I happen to have been working on a Chip's Challenge emulator for the last few months, and it has a built-in level editor!  How about that!  It's still a work in progress and I'm very sorry for several things about it, but please do feel free to give it a whirl.  Or use one of the other fine CC level editors, knowing that people will be able to play your level online for free, thanks to me, Eevee, who is very cool.
• DID YOU KNOW THERE IS A BETA LEVEL EDITOR FOR BABA IS YOU HOT DAMN
• As always, I am begging someone to make some Doom levels for this thing.  I even wrote a whole series on how to do that a couple years ago, and ZDoom has only gotten more ridiculous in the interim.
• If you tried really hard, you could argue that MegaZeux is a level editor rather than a game creation whatsit, and make something with mostly its vanilla elements.
• Some people argue that visual novels are not "real" games, and they could not be more wrong, but you could totally latch onto that and try cranking out a Ren'Py game.  I mean, um, story.
• PuzzleScript is straight up about making games, but its capabilities are limited and it's much more about making levels for the handful of rules you come up with.  Honestly, if you're interested in the nuts and bolts of game development but don't want to try to learn programming in a week, this is a pretty good way to dip your toes in.

Dang!  All that stuff is about level editing!  I guess I have level editing on the brain.  If you need some other ideas for kinds of not games you could not not make, you'll just have to ask around in the Discord!