Welcome to the IGU Winter Jam!

This is the second Indie Game Utopia game jam, and the goal is simple. You will have from Nov. 15 at 12:00 PM CEST to Nov. 29 at 12:00 PM CEST to create a game. After that, all participants will be able to vote on each other's entries, and the winner will be announced on Dec. 6.

The theme of the jam is "coldness". Both literally and in a more metaphorical sense. In other words, you can make a game about snow, ice and winter, but you can also (for example) make a game about cool people, cold-hearted people or architecture that feels cold and dark, like brutalist architecture. Use your imagination!

Use the #IGUWinterJam hashtag on Twitter and we will retweet your stuff.

Joining the jam:

To join, first join the Discord server, if you're not already a server member. After joining, you can start working on your submission on your own or find people in the server to form a team. 

Prizes:

1. A special "Game Jam Winner" role in the Discord server to let everyone know that you won the jam.
2. An itch.io key for a game of the winner's choosing.
3. The winner will have their game covered by Indie Hive.

Rules:

1. Respect each other.
2. No harassing, trolling or instigating fights with other participants.
3. No hate speech (incl. but not limited to sexist, racist, homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, ableist, antisemitic or classist language or calling for violence against a person or group of people). Respect each other as human beings, it's not difficult.
4. No NSFW submissions.
5. Each participant or group of participants only gets one submission.
6. No troll submissions.
7. No submissions that contain illegal material.
8. No submissions that require additional hardware, like VR games or games that can only be played with a controller, because not everyone has those devices and all participants should be able to play each game that gets submitted.
9. No submissions that require you to download additional files that don't come with the game.
10. All game assets must either be your own work, other people's work that you have been given permission to use, or work that is in the public domain/falls under a license that allows you to use it. The original creator(s) must be properly credited. If you are found to be using stolen content in your submission, your submission will be disqualified and the Discord server mods might take further action against you if the situation calls for it.
11. The main point here is to have fun. It's fine to have a bit of fun competition, but keep it friendly, don't let it get to the point where it gets toxic.
12. For team projects, we have a 1-signup-per-team rule. Also, all team members should be clearly specified.

The four criteria that the game will be rated on:

1. Fun: How fun is the game to play and does it have replay value?
2. Graphics: How good does it look?
3. Music / Sound Design: How good is the music and the sound effects?
4. Concept: How interesting is the concept?

Link to the Indie Game Utopia Discord server

Link to the IGU Twitter account

Legal notes:

After the jam is over, all participants retain ownership of their work. Feel free to keep working on your game after the jam is over. By signing up, you are giving Indie Hive permission to cover your submission and use visual material (incl. but not limited to: videos, gifs and screenshots) that you have shared as part of their coverage, but you will retain ownership of all that visual material.