Do you love the Magical Girl genre? Or do you simply want to make a game about cute girls using magical powers to fight evil? Or maybe you are just looking for a cute game jam?

Well in any case, welcome to the Magical Girl Game Jam #2!!

After seeing the monumental success I had for the previous Magical Girl Game Jam, and the fact that this depressing pandemic lasted waaay longer than what I previously thought back then, I have decided to host another Magical Girl Game Jam, in the hope of collecting submissions that can cheer people up in this depressing coronavirus pandemic.

Note: this jam is much, much longer than the previous Magical Girl Game Jam. Part of the reason is so that it has more flexibility. Feel free to join and participate even if you can only participate for a week to submit a simple game.

The jam has started since Aug 10. So, IT'S LUNATIC TIME!!!

Discord Server

*the Discord link here was broken before with the text displaying the proper link but the URL itself does not; it's now fixed for real

Rules:

I want this jam to be as free and unrestricted as possible... but from the experience of the previous jam I have decided to stricten the rules slightly

• Put at least one magical girl character in your game -- it can be your main character, the enemy, anything. Creating an original character is strongly encouraged. This rule will be enforced slightly more strictly than last time. Your game must have a proper magical girl - at the bare minimum it needs to fulfill "girls with magical powers"
• Properly pick a theme and follow it -- I have decided to make following the theme mandatory this time from the experience of the previous jam.
• Keep the NSFW materials away from your game. I will be lax on this rule however so please don't worry too much about this rule.
  • If you are still worried though, use the girl in the cover as a benchmark. As you can see she's not really a good example of what can be considered modest. If your girl's clothes has more fabric than the one in the cover you are definitely fine; and I will still even tolerate some more revealing clothing (although the more revealing your character's clothes is the deeper you are in the grey area). Don't put pornographic materials tho
• The game has to be free to play upon submission
• Unfinished games are OK
• You are free to use any assets you want, provided you own/purchased those assets or you are free to use those assets for non-commercial use -- you may make it in the jam, make it before the jam, or take free assets. However, I will prefer you make all assets during the jam
• Your game should speak either English or Japanese so that I can understand your game -- though preferably English so that most players would understand -- your game will be played and rated publicly after all. You can submit the versions for other languages, an English version (or Japanese, just my personal request since I'm learning the language --") should be available. I won't remove non-English submissions though.
• Respect the unwritten rules for game jams in general:
  • Submit games that are made for the sake of this jam
    • In the last jam there was a submission of a game made before the jam even existed -- something like that will obviously be removed
  • Be respectful to the jam
    • Do not use this jam simply to advertise your game for example. Game jams are not places for advertising
  • Keep toxicity away from this jam... or any jam for that matter
  • etc. (might specify if I see a submission that is obviously not okay but does not technically break the other rules)
• Have fun! :)
• Also, if you tweet about this jam, do use these hash tags:
• #MagicalGirlGameJam
• #MagicalGirlGameJam2
• #MGGJ
• #MGGJ2

Themes:

The 11 themes have finally been revealed on Aug 3. You can take one or more themes and interpret them however you want as inspiration for your game ^^

How to follow the themes:

To fulfill any of the theme, it is sufficient to fulfill just one of the phrases/words that are inside the square brackets. So the theme "10. [Mountain] of [Faith]" can be fulfilled simply by fulfilling the word "Mountain" (e.g. takes place in a mountain) or the word "Faith" (e.g. the story goes that Magical Girls need to take a leap of faith)

(Please notice that the words "Object" and "Character" are not inside square brackets for obvious reasons... they are too easy to abuse. The phrase [Four Seasons] are also in a bracket as a phrase -- so "four" is not a theme by itself)

Some of you probably know where the themes are taken from. To you who are in that category; first of all high five! ^^. However, there is also a warning: making a reference to [that video game series] these themes are taken from is not sufficient to fulfill the themes. So these are bad examples of fulfilling the themes:

• Making a bullet hell game and saying that the game fulfills all the themes
• Putting a maid that stops time and throws knives and saying that the game fulfills the theme Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
• Putting a half-ghost-half-human gardener and saying that the game fulfills the theme Perfect Cherry Blossom
• Putting a lunatic lunar rabbit and saying the game fulfills the theme Imperishable Night
• Putting a kappa inventor that makes weird gadgets and saying the game fulfills the theme Mountain of Faith
• Putting a raven that has got power over nuclear fusion and saying the game fulfills the theme Subterranean Animism
• Putting a clown hell fairy wearing US flag as clothes and saying the game fulfills the theme Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom

You get the point. They'll definitely make me smile, but please think about the players that do not know the series. Your games will be rated publicly, and everyone needs to see how your game fits the theme even if they don't play the series.

One last note: the characters of the game the themes are taken from are not Magical Girls. If you do want to put them do try to modify them to fit the Magical Girl genre (something along the line of our fav Shrine Maidens or that Blonde Magician that shoot giant lasers are still going to be tolerated, but they are in the gray area -- I suggest you avoid them).

Rating:

Your submissions will be rated publicly like last time. The criteria however, will be radically different based on my experience from the previous jam, and I also took some inspirations from GMTK2020's rating criteria:

• Magical Girl Design
  • How cute/elegant and creative are the magical girls in the game?
• Engagement/Fun
  • Duh. How fun the gameplay/story is
• Originality/Creativity
  • The creativity of the gameplay mechanics primarily
• Graphics, Audio, and Polish
  • How polished the game is. Does it have good graphic? Does the game give good feedback to the player? Aim for quality over quantity
• Overall

What is a Magical Girl?

Some people unexpectedly joined the jam without knowing what the Magical Girl genre is last time, so this time I decided to explain a bit about what the Magical Girl genre is.

To put it simply, the Magical Girl genre, or Mahō Shōjo (魔法少女) in Japanese, is a genre about cute girls having cute magical powers -- often associated with anime, manga, and other Japanese works. In my own personal opinions, some primary characteristics of the Magical Girl genre are:

1. Cute girl with magical powers.
2. Cute dresses -- not always though... some Magical Girls go the elegant route while others go the wild route
3. Transformation sequence -- not always but I think most do have it
4. Fighting against evil powers -- be it witches, aliens, or whatever

If I need to emphasize this more, this is just my own opinion, not strict guidelines. Feel free to subvert or deviate from my expectations, but make a Magical Girl.

In the loosest sense though, your game should fulfill at least this to prevent your submission from getting removed: Girl(s) with Magical Powers

That definition is where I have finally decided to draw the line.

Some examples of Magical Girl works:

• Puella Magi Madoka Magica
  • A veeery cute one. The cutest, most cheerful of all Magical Girl shows.  A complete masterpiece. I recommend this one very strongly

• Sailor Moon

• Pretty Cure

• Minky Momo

If you are previously not familiar with the Magical Girl genre, I hope this explanation at least gives you a vague idea of what you should be aiming for.

For more information, you can check the TV Tropes page for it. While to avoid removal it is enough to fulfill the definition "girls with magical powers", I want you to aim for TV Tropes's Magical Girls