Welcome to the IGU Winter Jam!

This is the ninth Indie Game Utopia game jam, and the goal is simple. You will have from Jan. 13 at 12:00 PM CEST to Jan. 27 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 Feb. 3.

The theme of the jam is "candy". Many different kinds of candy exist, like chocolate, candy canes and gummy worms. And, of course, it has a rich history, and it's associated with various holidays across different cultures. As usual, use your imagination!

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.

Rules:

1. Respect each other.
2. No harassment. This includes, but is not limited to: stalking, sending death threats, unwanted sexual advances, doxxing, baiting or personal attacks.
3. No hate speech. This includes, but is not limited to: sexist, racist, homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, ableist, antisemitic or classist language or calling for violence against a person or group of people. When these behaviors are targeted at another person who's taking part in the game jam, it also counts as harassment.
4. No NSFW submissions.
5. Each participant or group of participants only gets one submission.
6. No low-effort content. This includes spam, asset flips and "troll" submissions that have no real substance other than an attempt to be offensive or shocking.
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. No NFT or crypto stuff. This includes submissions that promote NFTs or links to sites where you can buy or sell them.
11. All submissions can only be submitted to this game jam.
12. All game assets must either be your own work, other people's work that you have been given permission to use (in which case, evidence of the creator granting permission has to be provided) 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 assets 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. This includes assets in the game itself as well as the game's Itch.io page and all other promotional materials.
13. 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.
14. For team projects, we have a 1-submission-per-team rule. Also, all team members should be clearly specified.
15. As stated at the top of the page, all submissions must be games created after the game jam starts.

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

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.