This jam is now over. It ran from 2024-11-28 17:00:00 to 2024-12-15 16:24:27. View 4 entries

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Schedule
  3. Theme and Deliverables
  4. Participation and Submission
  5. Rules
  6. FAQ
  7. Appendix: Scoping and Project Management
  8. Appendix: Quickstart, Sort of
  9. Appendix: Engines and Tools
  10. Appendix: Resources
  11. Appendix: Sample Games

Overview

The Mojo Dojo Casa de Crackhouse Jam is a chill, no-stake creative jam meant for MCU members to have fun in and perhaps take a taste of casual game development. It will run for three days, during which everyone is welcome to submit (almost) anything. Wait, I thought you said chill, no-stake jam? Why is my scrollbar smaller than the rice portion I got from the takeout today!? What is all this nonsense about quality? Do I really have to read all of this?

No. Not really. If you're a jam veteran, almost everything you need is on top. See? Deadline, theme, ready, set, go. I make this because a lot of people joining are new, and I know some people are more reassured if everything is thoroughly explained and accounted for. If you're a veteran though, I hope there might be something interesting to see if you decide to stick around.

IMPORTANT: If you're going to tag me to ask something, do me a favor and please run a search for a hot second on this document to make sure your question is not already answered here. This is an explicit request for the love of everything holy, or holy will come knocking on your doors and windows by midnight.

Some people join the jam for the fun of it, some people want a portfolio piece they can include in their future endeavors, and this document largely caters to people who need their piece sufficiently done or need extra advice to ensure they submit something. People joining in for fun usually already have a pretty solid idea on what they want or don't want to do for a jam (especially ones this short).

This primer is also available as a .pdf or an .epub file to read and reference on the go. This is not meant to read in one sitting. There might be slight formatting issues in the epub version.

Schedule

  • Before November 29th - pre-jam. Feel free to talk about team formation and what you might do. You may discuss resources, tools, and plans to help you in the jam.
  • November 29th-December 8th - the jam period. During the jam period, I may hold a #TodayIDid session every other night on 20.00-21.00 for everyone who wants to share about their progress, rants of the day, etc. Participation is optional. No progress report is needed. This is an accountability buddy feature for those who need it.
  • December 10th - 19.00-done I will stream and showcase the entries on Discord. May or may not include snarky comments. May have pt.2 if we have deluge of entries. I accept anyone who wants to help me setup this segment or maybe appear in their vtuber designs. May be moved to weekends if people seem to be busy on Monday.

Themes and Deliverables


While the jam is primarily aimed for video games, as that is what I see people are interested in, I have decided to open this as a creative jam, meaning that you may also submit individual artworks, musical pieces, movie shorts, text scripts, TTRPG modules, card games, etc.

  • You may use one theme or both
  • Theme interpretation is up to you. Subversion/twist/deconstruction/etc is welcome.
  • Write down your chosen theme in your submission
  • Blame the prompt generator

Feeling lost? New at this? This post touch on several ways to translate jam themes into a game

Participation and Submission

You may join from itch.io or, if you do not wish to make an itch.io account, tag me in this channel and declare your participation. Likewise, you can submit your entry from itch.io (and it will automatically generate a nice gallery), but you can also tag me on Discord with link(s) to your creation(s). The submission page is set to open from 29th 00.00 until 9th 04.25, because I am not a monster and I like my sleep.

You may submit more than one entry.

Rules

  • You may interpret the theme(s) however you wish
  • You may submit any creative works you think is fitting for the theme(s)
  • You may use this jam to complete unfinished projects
  • You may submit unfinished projects/WIPs, but it is encouraged to scope small and turn in a finished (not necessarily polished) entry
  • You may work alone or in groups
  • No limit in the amount of groups you can join, but be mindful of your own limits!
  • You may create threads in Discord/forum entry in itch.io/anything else to communicate with your teammates. Please add me when you do so.
  • You may submit more than one entry
  • You may use premade assets (pay attention to licensing and attribution)
  • You may submit fanworks
  • Your submitted game must be available for free for the duration of the jam (what you do afterwards is up to you)
  • If your works contain NSFW elements (explicit nudity, gore, or any other materials that might be disturbing or inappropriate to view publicly), please do mention it.
  • I reserve the right to reject or remove NSFW works submitted without label
  • As long as you label your submissions... do whatever, I'm not gonna judge you...or am I
  • There are no "winners". Anyone who submits has completed the jam, congratulations
  • You may polish your submissions after the showcase

FAQ

  • Why itch.io? Why not dump everything on Discord?

I don't want to wade through chats, and this will automatically give you a portfolio page if you need one. Itch.io is the largest place for indie developers today, easy to set up, has tons of jam hosting capabilities, and generally will make my life easier than setting this up somewhere else. Itch's jam page has a forum section, which you can use if you think your question will benefit other people (so they don't have to wade through Discord chats, as we cannot make threads here)

  • Do I have to make an account? Eww.

You don't have to. I have included another way to join and submit.

  • Do I have to clear my whole weekend for this?

That would be nice, but be realistic. Participate however you want, how relaxed or how intense that might be.

  • Why aren't you being more restrictive?

Because I don't want to. This is meant to be a friendly, dip-your-toe-in-the-water jam.

  • But that means I can just start making whatever I want today and use the three days as my polish time against those puny little mortals who decide to treat this like Ludum Dare and start on the day!

By all means do so. This is not a competition. I will ask about it when you submit. The idea is to help people get things done, or to motivate people into trying to make things.

  • Can I opt-out from the showcase?

I respect your wishes, so you can opt out when you submit. Please do consider joining in, though.

  • Why should you be in our private team chats?

To make sure no one is spinning their heads in circles owing to ruling misunderstandings that would take three seconds to clarify. I promise I will not appear unless explicitly called for.

  • Can I really join all group there is? Like no one ever was?

Yes! Go wild. i will not stop you from making your own game while painting, singing, or testing for other people. However, be mindful of yourself. It is generally not a good idea to push yourself too far and end up in a situation where you promise not one, not two, not three, but four+ groups of a contribution you find yourself unable to fulfill out of real life obligations.

  • This is all so... so... so overwhelming. Can't I just...try to make whatever and submit it? Be done with it?

Sure. Close this document now and breathe. Have fun. What matters is for you enjoy the event however you'd like.

  • Are you really that bored? Don't you have anything else to do?

Thanks for asking, you can donate to my ko-fi if you want-- Serious answer is I will probably reuse some of the materials here again somewhere, so compiling this now makes sense. This is not done in a day.

  • Is there any reward?

No? Getting to get things done is your reward. Unless you're keen on sponsoring the event, in which case I will only do participation-based reward. There will be no rating or voting of any sort in this event.

  • You've listed a bunch of free engines and assets. Can I use paid ones instead?

Sure. I just don't find it terribly useful to list here. If you already paid for engines or assets, you already know where to look for them.

🌸---Official Parts End Here---🌸

Extras, Extras!

Scoping and Project Management

You only have three days. No matter how small you think your project scope is, it's still probably not small enough. Here's the thing. Adding is easy. Removing is not. Life happens, we're all adults. I can obviously do three sprites in three days, nuh-uh! What, you're telling me I cannot make a one-minute track in three days? It's just a one-room platformer, how bad can it be? Starting small and going strong will usually give you ample energy for extra embellishments when you've finished the cores, while missing out on targets usually produce feel-bads. Some bad enough to cause people to drop the jam, and if you're in a team, that can trigger a chain of morale drop -- a true death knell for the team. Remember: in a game jam like this, you are your own enemy.

When working in teams, it is not mandatory but very recommended to have a project leader/manager. The project leader will be responsible to make sure everyone is on the same page, communicate efficiently, and deliver their parts in a timely manner. It feels bad if a person draw sprites and find out the game doesn't need it. It feels bad when two people make the same thing out of miscommunication. The project leader is the arbiter, but also a cheerleader. In a larger project, the project leader may also be handling a game design document, but in a 3-day jam, expect this 'document' to be mostly rudimentary, cobbled-together with a duct tape. It can do more harm than good trying to hammer out a 'proper', 'complete' GDD within three days.

  • What kind of game are we trying to make?
  • What is our target platform?
  • What assets do we need? How many?
  • Who is doing what?
  • How does our rough schedule look like?

Having them set before the first day ends is usually good enough. However, if you want more structure, try this one-page GDD template. Here's a more detailed template. Here's an example of a reasonably practical GDD: Grand Theft Auto. Do note that even for a game as big as GTA, the GDD is only 12 pages. Do not bog yourself down with unnecessary complexity.

It is wise to have pre-jam communication where each member gives honest estimation on their outputs. Be reasonable with yourself and with others. Shelve your grand vision for later, maybe outside the jam. Remember, you can always continue and polish a jam piece after the jam is over. Generally, if you've never done a game jam before, or even never participate in game development before, you might want to take a look at sample jam games. I have linked some examples below, but you may also look for jam games of your genre of choice. Ludum Dare is full of sample games made within 1-3 days. You should also talk about how you're going to communicate and share resources with each other. With a Google Drive folder? mIRC? (Good god, I hope your backbones are alright). People going MIA in a jam is an unfortunately common occurrence for a variety of reason. Remember, the level of commitment between members of a team might be different, and you cannot reasonably expect everyone to treat this at the same level of attention you do. Plan accordingly, have a backup plan (e.g if the sprite is not ready on time, we will use this premade asset), and manage exoectations.

To set yourself up for success, here's a framework I find useful.

The basic/common roles in a jam game development team are: game designer, artist (sprites, environment, GUI), sound man (BGM, sound effects), programmer/event scripter, writer. A comprehensive list of roles you may encounter in a full-fledged company with sample job descriptions and scope of work can be found here. Not every game needs all of them. One person usually wear multiple hats in a small team.

First, identify:

  • What you are able and willing to do
  • What you are able and willing to do, if you really must
  • What you are unable to do but willing to learn
  • What you are unable to do and unwilling/have no time to learn

For whatever you are unable to do and can't learn, you have to find someone or get premade assets, allocate extra time and resource to acquire. For things you have to learn, allocate extra time in the schedule. To build momentum, start from what you are able and willing to do. Usually it will be easier to gear yourself up for things you are able to do but less inclined to once you feel like you get the progress rolling, and hopefully it will provide a boost of motivation when you go over to things you have to learn.

Try to be realistic about asset production. You may have to ship your game without the requisite asset. It's perfectly acceptable to have your core game loop be text-based if you don't think you have time to procure or code in visual assets. There is an example down below for a management sim entirely in text.

🌸Some extra reading/watching materials:

🍀Tip: search for 'Devlog' or 'Development Logs' or 'Postmortem' for more resources like this! Seeing how people do things and how they fail (or succeed) is very useful! There are a bunch of them on Youtube. If you're like me and you like text, go to 'Development Logs' section on itch.io.

🍀Tip: more people =/= better. For a 3-day jam, try not forming any team larger than four people, or it'll be too large to manage!

Quickstart, Sort of

How to go about making your first game? Here's a simplified guide you can follow:

  • Decide to go solo or with team If you want to go the team route, start small
  • Initiate team discussion See the section above for details.
  • Brainstorm idea and pick an engine Overwhelmed by the choices? I recommend starting with one of the scripting/text-adventure engines (ink, Twine) if you don't want to deal with assets and Godot for general "let's see where it goes".
  • Check the formats and specs required by the engines You don't want to spend 10 hours creating assets in formats the engine does not support. Downscaling 32px sprite to 16px is easy, upscaling is not.
  • Read the basic tutorial/quickstart for the engine Even the non-coder team member is advised to do so. This will give them fuller idea on what the engine may be able or unable to do and craft the assets with that in mind.
  • Create a schedule A rough schedule is fine as long as you can see who is doing what when. Remember, all the assets have to be coded into the game, so don't cut it too close to the deadline. You would also need ample time for testing.
  • Communicate with each other Submit your work piecemeal to the person assigned to compile everything together. Do not wait until you have everything done because this would cause a heavy workload at the end.
  • Test, Code, Test! Go at it. Don't lose heart. You will encounter errors, you will fix it and you will encounter more unless you're a prodigious lucky bastard. Breathe. Ask around. Submit. You have done what you can.
  • Reconvene and adjust the scope if needed It's a good idea to take a moment at the start of each day and see if something has to be cut. Be clear and realistic. This is not a failure.
  • Take a breather Sometimes you really need the sleep.
  • Submit and rejoice!

Engines and Tools

I have curated a selection of tools that are free (not necessarily open source), relevant, up to date, and has substantial community/thorough documentation, annotated with my impression of them plus official docs and choice references. When you're just beginning to jam, it's important to choose an engine you can rely on. Small hipster probably forgotten engine is interesting, but having to figure out how to do an undocumented thing in a forum last active five years ago usually is a recipe for frustration and dropping out. Once you have a few jams under your belt and know how to pace yourself, you just like challenges, or your goal is to practice said tools instead of shipping a game, then all bets are off. Feel free to use that tiny engine someone in Alaska developed during a bout of boredom and has a grand total of two users in the world! If that's your jam, I have a list below too.

Goes without saying but the list isn't exhaustive because in a gold rush the best thing to do is to sell shovels. Anything with (+) means I can (and willing to) probably personally help you with. Categories and tags are meant to help you choose at a glance, so please don't split hairs here. These categories are rather arbitrary. Some things tagged 2D might be technically capable of simulating 3D if you put in enough effort in your sprites. Some things tagged text-based might actually be capable of multimedia presentation. Some things tagged GUI-based might have scripting capabilities and vice versa. I put in notes where I can, but too many caveats are going to be unhelpful. Multiplatform refers to the output the engine can export to, not the platforms the engine is available in.

🍀Tip: Do not obsess on tools! It's a waste of time to flip-flop between tools in a jam. When in doubt, pick one and run with it. In general, limited tools are more user-friendly. Some engines trade off user friendliness with rigid structures, dictating your game to have a very specific look and feel. It might be good, it might be bad depending on what you want to make. When in doubt, a general game engine is best. Pushing a specialized engine to go where they aren't supposed to go can be fun, but it can also be a one-way trip to the Realm of Regret.

🍀Bonus Tip: You can generally learn as you go, but spending a bit of time on the basic tutorials or quickstarts will often pay back big time.

🌸General Game Engines

These are the titans. Sky's the limit. General engines catering for just about any kind of games you want to make. They are generally also one-stop shop offering every features under the sun. Might be overwhelming, and you might be better served by specialized engines if you have a specific genre in mind. In return, mastering these engines allow you some serious power. The two behemoth, Unity and Unreal Engine, are available for free, and they're the industry standard for AAA games (some companies prefer building their own custom engines).

(GUI-based) (2D) (3D) (Multiplatform) (C#-based)

I don't want to mention Unity, but I'd be remiss if I do. Plentiful documentations. Plentiful tutorials. If you don't spend much time in the hipster side of game development, a quarter of the things you play are probably made in Unity.

Tutorial Playlist

(GUI-based) (2D) (3D) (Multiplatform) (C++-based)

Unreal is... unreal. It has real-time renders, it handles animations, it does everything for game development and then some. Unfortunately, it is incapable of doing your dishes, but if you ask nicely you'll get the entire kitchen sink too This thing is massive, and not for the faint of heart. A registration to Unreal comes with the access to a vast library of high quality visual assets. I hardly recommend Unity and Unreal for beginner development even if the drag and drop tools are arguably not exceedingly difficult, as the sheer scale will give you too much things to think about before you even have time to say "ooh, shiny".

Tutorial

Tutorial

[GUI-based] (2D) (3D) (Multiplatform)

Godot is my general game engine of choice. It's feature-complete but not as imposing as the two entries above, and the interface is spiffier than GameMaker's. The node system takes some time to get used to, but in general it strikes the balance between friendly and powerful. Don't compare it to Unity or Unreal, but Godot's plugin library is nothing to laugh at.

Interactive Tutorial

Tutorial

(GUI-based) (2D) (Multiplatform)

Has been around since Atari was still a concept. Used to be very popular several years ago, but it fell by the wayside with the rise of other game creation tools. It's still a good choice especially if the scale of Unity and Unreal overwhelm you. You can easily find tons and tons and tons of tutorials out there. Kinda shows its age.

Tutorial

Tutorial Playlist

🌸Small Game Engines

These are engines designed for making small games with various deliberate limitations. Popular for jam games and perfect for casual gamemaking. The inherent restriction makes the task less daunting, and for some people is seen as a more interesting challenge than an unbridled playground. Despite the seemingly small scope, these are not merely toys, they're stable and powerful in their own right. This might be my favorite category.

(GUI-based) (2D) (Visual Scripting) (HTML5) (Beginner-friendly) (C-based)

Making a gameboy game in 2024? For real? Yeah. It's small, it's cute, it's hecking powerful. It's limited by Gameboy's specification, but this is technically a generalized game engine capable of realizing just about anything. The drag and drop interface is intuitive for newcomers, but don't scoff at its scripting capability. It's a retro handheld, so if you relish in optimization or extension, you have the chance to...write assembly! The community is vibrant, the docs helpful, tutorials aplenty, many sample games... There's a lot to like here.

Docs

(Adventure/Visual Novel/Point-and-Click/RPG) (HTML5) (GUI-based) (Beginner-friendly) (Browser-based) (2D) Bitsy is a tool to make rooms you can populate with characters and objects you can interact with. It has three color palettes and supports 1-bit sprites animated in two frames. It comes with everything you need including a sound-making module. You don't have to know how to code. Bitsy is popular for jam games and poetry games with how simple and restrictive it is. However, if bitsy is too limited for you, try one of the endless variants (bipsi, bitsy3d, bitsy color,flicksy, binks). Bitsy is still under active development and has a big, passionate community around it.

Docs

A friendly tutorial

Another friendly tutorial

Sample game

🌸 I'm cheating quite a bit here because the next two entries are actually scripting languages. They are designed to be user-friendly authoring tools that can be plugged to different engines so writers can focus on the narrative flow without dealing with mix of code and dialogues and...everything a full engine has. However, they also work standalone to produce HTML5 text-based games! If you want to go for something no-frills, easy to get into but still powerful, showcasing the strength of your text, consider giving them a look. If you use big-name generalized game engines like Unity, Unreal, or Godot, consider giving these a look too so your writer and coder can work independently of each other.

(Adventure/Visual Novel/Point-and-Click) (HTML5) (GUI-based) (Beginner-friendly) (Browser-based)

Twine is when PowerPoint and flowcharts get married and have a child. It works by linking scenes in a node-based system. Don't underestimate pure Twine. Even without plugging it to any bigger engines, it has been used for anything from game design class in college campuses to creating an award-winning interactive fiction piece. Many excellent tutorials exist to cover anything from making a one-page game to extending your game with custom scripts, as it's sitting on top of the HTML5/JavaScript stack. If you, like me, hate online, browser-based engines, you can get the offline version from the homepage. Twine users usually won't have hard time transitioning to other narrative-based engines if they want more pizzazz. In fact, there's a tool to convert Twine stories to Ren'py here.

Reference

Reference

Reference

Tutorial

Sample game

(Adventure/Point-and-Click) (HTML5) (Script-based) (Beginner-friendly)

Ink is the language. Inky is the editor. Create very readable interactive fiction scripts with the ease of markdown-like syntax. Inky has a built-in web export option that looks good right off the bat, but can be stylized further with CSS. You can also use this tool to try and test the flow of any branching narratives, even if the final implementation will be in another engine. Ink can handle many narrative functions incredibly well, having inline random, shuffle, and other such features out of the box. Inky will allow you to test the game right in the editor software. It updates on real time as you edit your code.

There's an easier, GUI-based, no-code web version named Inklewriter that perhaps should warrant its own entry, but this list is long enough. Tl;dr: want more control? Use ink. Want fast and easy? Go for Inklewriter.

Docs

Tutorial

Sample game - a small part of this is done using a variant of ink, but still using the default template of an ink export.

🌸Specialized Engines

These engines are geared to create a specific type of game, and do it well. It usually means you won't get a smorgasbord of options offered by generalized game engines, but you will find support for the genre you are aiming for with many typical functionalities already available out of the box, saving development time and cutting down on overhead. On the other hand, this usually limits your options to blend different styles of gameplays (e.g a fighting game with an RPG overworld, a platformer with VN-like cutscenes). It may be difficult (or impossible) to extend.

(Adventure/Visual Novel/Point-and-Click) (Script-based) (Python-based)(Beginner-friendly with caveat) (Multiplatform) (2D) (3D)

The Doki-Doki Literature Club engine. Ren'py is catered towards CYOA-style games like that, but don't let it fool you because it actually runs on pygame and has the full functionalities of python under the hood. It has been used to create practically everything from puzzle games to RPGs, though I advise not pushing it for anything requiring extensive redrawing. Herein lies the conundrum. Ren'py has a layer of abstraction above Python, so if you just want to create a simple game, you can get started in minutes. Ren'py draws non-coder artists looking for something more flexible than other VN makers out there (which usually don't let you cram in a full suite of minigames on top of your dating sim and let you access local data the way DDLC does). And then they...stare in horror when facing the fact that doing everything else would have you learn three scripting languages (The Ren'py Script, Python, and Ren'py Screen Language). The non-coders get vexed on the Python side, the coders get vexed on the simplified Ren'py script side.This might be the most powerful specialized engine listed here, but not the easiest. Ample community, active development and support, and 20 years of resources. It currently powers about 20% of games in VNDB. Tutorial is plentiful, but the official documentation can often be cryptic for non-coders. There are many plugins offering you some semblance of visual support, but this is a script-based engine, so no dragging pictures across the screen to position them. You have to supply coordinates. If the notion of no GUI scares you, one such tool (out of many) to make writing in Ren'py easier to visualize can be found here.

Docs

Tutorial

Tutorial

(Parser Adventure) (Script-based) (HTML5)

The holy grail of Western interactive fiction community, inform7 allows you to write parser-based games hailing from the days before GUI. Dungeon crawling, adventure games, you name it. Take lamp, drop lamp, I do not recognize that command.There is no pictorial asset to speak of. The word is forefront, the word is the world. It comes with some amount of world-modelling integral in parser-based games, so you don't have to manually define synonyms for many words in common English. The scripting language is a mix of "naturally sounding English" and arcane wizardry. Still in active development. If you have no fondness of this style of scripting, check out TADS3.

The engine comes with two books, one of which is a cookbook with thousands of examples.

Reference

Sample game

(Platformer) (HTML5) (Browser-based) (GUI-based) (2D)

Create small platformer games without worrying about collision detection and physics! The interface is reminiscent of bitsy and Mario Maker/any Mario level editor. Drag-and-drop to create your levels, draw sprites directly in the browser. Comes with dozens of premade tiles. It is easy enough to not require much documentation, but the lack of one when you need it is rather discomforting.

Tutorial

Sample game

(Fighting) (GUI-based) (2D) (LUA-based) (Multiplatform)

Built on top of the legendary and discontinued Japanese fighting game engine MUGEN, Ikemen GO offers robust feature set for a typical fighting game that you can jump in with just your assets. And that's probably your largest hurdle, because a fighting game is a resource-intensive genre. Generally, everything that can be accomplished in Mugen can also be accomplished in Ikemen.

[Docs]https://github.com/ikemen-engine/Ikemen-GO/wiki

Tutorial

(Side-scrolling) (2D) (Script-based) (C-Based) (Multiplatform) (Has partial GUI)

This engine specializes in creating multiple kinds of games... as long as they are side-scrolling. It is script based, but it also has a preview panel for you to check how your game is going. It also has support for multiplayer. OpenBOR has a long history and lots of resources, though the community is forum based and a lot of things are locked behind registration.

Docs

Tutorial Playlist

(2D) (Browser-based) (HTML5) (Puzzle Games) (Script-based) (Has partial GUI)

Allows you to create a retro-style turn-based puzzle game in the style of Chip's Challenge. Rudimentary graphical level editor is available along with a limited selection of sound effects. You can download an offline version from GitHub, but the export function is not recommended to be run offline.

Docs

(Adventure/Point-and-Click/Parser) (Has GUI) (Script-based)

It's old and the interface shows how dated it is, but still actively receiving updates from the developer. It comes with an in-engine animation module and multiple templates including Sierra-style and Beneath a Steel Sky, even a parser support if you want it. However, unlike inform, you would have to supply your own vocabulary from scratch Plenty of plugins and resources available.

Docs

Tutorial Playlist

(Text Adventure) (HTML5) (Script-based) (Beginner-friendly)

ChoiceScript is Choice of Games' scripting language. Unlike ink and Twine, it doesn't plug into any other engines. Text adventure is your final destination. It's simple, minimal, with syntax you can learn very quickly. If you have played any Choice of Games, you will find the same stat-based approach here. The language has neat support for percentile stats and what they have termed as 'fairmath'. Essentially, the higher your stat is, the more difficult it is to increase it further. This provides a nice texture to what is usually coded as flat variable increase (unless the author wants to implement their own fairmath function). Has rudiimentary support for images.

Tutorial

🌸Alternative, Less Used, Hipster, Niche, Probably Interesting Engines

These are by no means bad, but you may have less resources to refer to and rely on. Some of them are not actively developed anymore. If shipping is not your main concern, take a look at these.

(Adventure/Visual Novel/Point-and-Click) (GUI-based) (Beginner-friendly) (Multiplatform) (2D) (3D)

A Japanese VN engine with visual interface. The company also creates and maintains Suika2/Polaris Engine, which is a script-based modern Kirikiri successor if you want more control. Hot reload and 3D support. Still under active development and you can contact the creator directly. Both Light.vn and Suika2 are quite widely-used in Japan, but it's down here because most of the community resources are in Japanese even if the tools had been translated into English (they have some readable official tutorials and references in Japlish though).

  • Kirikiri

(Japanese-only) (Adventure/Visual Novel/Point-and-Click) (Script-based) (Windows Executable Output) (Intermediate) (2D)

One of the behemoth in the Japanese VN industry. If you know what this is, you're an old weebs, and you have no need of my introduction. It has been obsolete for a long time, but still has diehard fans. This is the engine of Mahotsukai no Yoru and Fate/Stay Night. It has powerful macro system and relatively simple syntax. Why is this not beginner-friendly, then? As an engine, its biggest strength is being mostly unopinionated save for asset structures. It will not tell you how you would have to build your game. Which means you can do absolutely anything, if you know how to code it. It also means you can be absolutely lost very fast, especially since documentation is practically nonexistent this s ide of the planet. Code samples? Probably already wiped off the earth. If you like being the robot scavenger trawling for fragments of memories at the end of the world, then this is for you. KirikiriZ does not support Emofuri, so if you want to use it, you have to go back to Kirikiri2.

Revived Version

Revived KAG3

Tutorial

(Adventure/Visual Novel) (Script-based) (Has partial GUI) (HTML5 Output) (Beginner-friendly) (2D)

Not to be confused with Yarnspinner, which is an Unity plugin. An engine to make retro-style adventure games and VNs. It comes with retro-style shaders, image editor, and character portrait library (this part has GUI, the rest is script-based), though you can also use your own images. It is very limited in the sense of you're going to make an adventure/visual novel. There's no way to extend your game's scope. This is not for your minigame-galore dating sim. The syntax is reminiscent to ink. The creator is friendly, the project is still active, and the Discord server is so small that anything you ask will probably be answered by the creator himself.

Docs

Sample game

(Adventure/Visual Novel/Point-and-Click) (HTML5 Output) (Intermediate) (Script-based) (2D) (Javascript-based)

Do you want Ren'py but would like it to run natively on your browser, taking advantage of modern web technology? Are you willing to sell your soul to node.js and jumping straight to the intermediate level of Ren'py? Monogatari tries to give you both Ren'py-like syntax and the whole HTML5/CSS/JS stack, which means that whatever HTML5/CSS/JS can do, you can do. That also means you have to deal with Javascript, so I hope that is your cup of tea. Highly flexible, can easily do more than text-based games, especially considering that you can basically leverage whatever documentation is out there for the infamous trio rather than relying on the engine's own documentation. Not recommended if you have no experience with front-end development.

The homepage goes dead the third day I write this document so I cannot show you sample games, but the project still lives in Github.

Docs

(2D) (GUI-based) (Javascript-based) (Beginner-friendly)

It's kinda cute, it's somewhat friendly, but this tool has very small userbase. The documentation is readable, if sparse, and js is... I'm sorry, Javascript sucks and you won't change my mind. It might be your cup of coffee though.

Sample game

Docs

(Adventure/Visual Novel/Point-and-Click) (Multiplatform) (Script-based) (Beginner-friendly)

This is an engine made for Disco Elysium-style games: mainly text-based with visual interface, plus built-in RPG elements like skill checks and inventoris. It uses CSS for styling and has simple (Renpy-like) scripting language. The documentation is readable and quite comprehensive, but there's barely any sample games to study since this is so new and so niche. You can theoretically expand it, but if you're not looking for a Disco Elysium clone, I'd say better pick an engine with more established resources. On the bright side, the developer is still actively working on this and usually willing to answer questions.

Docs

(Has GUI) (HTML5) (2D)

TIC-80 belongs to the class of fantasy consoles popularized by the powerful (but sadly not free) PICO-8. This class of engine is a full fledged system with specs spanning across the spectrum, emulating and filling in gaps between actual physical consoles. They come with full suite of creation tools and boast small footprints, portable outputs, and certain degree of beginner-friendliness (owing to the deliberate limitations). Yet, I cannot recommend this in the main section with clear conscience given that the userbase is so small and the documentation is probably going to make little sense if you aren't at least somewhat versed in reading computer specs. It is still in active development.

Docs

(Visual Novel) (GUI-based) (Mobile) (Beginner-friendly) (2D)

This thing is very friendly. This thing works. Why is it here at the very bottom? I'm presenting it for the sake of novelty because it's a Japanese engine with zero English documentation, but that's not the biggest problem. This thing...is only available on mobile. If you really want to try doing game development on mobile, juggling every asset you have from that tiny screen, then you'll be happy. Personally I think it's meant to be for casual journal-diary share personal stories on the go type of people rather than actual development, which is kinda charming on its own.

🌸More, give me more!

Look, there are literally thousands of engines out there, and I think I have mentioned some of the best with a sprinkle of quirky selections. Personally, I don't think looking at too many options is healthy, but if you really, really, really want more, if nothing on this page attracts you for any reason... yeah, I have a list for you too. Here, feel free to look for The One. The big free ones I haven't mentioned (and may warrant a priority look) include Love (LUA-based), Haxeflixel (Haxe-based).

🍀Tip!: If you have time, energy, and inclination to, feel free to try out an engine or two, see if you like it. An engine's ceiling is of little import in events like this as you're unlikely to be able to use it at 100% anyway, so use something you enjoy!

🌸Useful Tools

These are free tools that might be useful in your gamemaking process.

  • Effekseer A particle effect generator with some really nice built-in effects. Has plugins for Unity, Unreal, and RPGMaker, and anything with WebGL support. You can also export the effects into sprite sheets. This is a Japanese software, so the documentation's translation is...readable, but rather iffy
  • AnimeEffects Too poor for Live2D? This is for you. It's still in development, but a good alternative if you're not into Japanese enough to use EmoFuri. If you want something old, solid, but rather finicky, go for EmoFuri
  • Piskel A browser-based pixel art editor. Pretty solid and feature-packed.
  • Pixelorama Browser tool not your jam? This is a Godot-based tool that's pretty good. If this is still not something you like, check out the old, solid Graphics Gale.
  • Tiled A level editor for any tile-based games
  • Snaptoon The 3D program usually used in webtoons to render backgrounds
  • Audacity Oldie but goodie. The one tool for your music manipulation needs
  • Colors A simple color picker. Pick from anywhere on your screen. Simple, lightweight, practical
  • Color Combos For people who has zero effing idea about how to design color schemes like me
  • Canva You know what this is. If you need something more advanced, go check GIMP and Paint.net (for image manipulation), or Krita and Medibang Paint (for painting/drawing)

Resources

Okay, that's fine and dandy and all, but we've only got three days, innit? I'd like my game have some semblance of quality, can't wake up in the morning working on these fugly placeholder images.

Welcome to the wonderful world of free-to-use resources. Soon you will thank the rando Japanese sprite guy or the American musician in the internet the way you appreciate them Indians doing YouTube tutorials.

But Requ! If they're free, surely they must not be... good? It takes some time trawling and there are low quality offerings out there, but if you're willing to undertake the search you'll see that your options are not that limited. Yes fellas, good grief for uncommoditized hobbysphere. And I have done some of the search for you.

Do read each source's license carefully. They are all fine for noncommercial use with proper attributions (ALWAYS attribute your sources!) but a large number of them are also available for commercial use. For free.

But Requ! That would mean my baby project would use something someone the world over might have already used for their works! Well, yeah. Most free-to-use materials allow modifications, though some stricter (usually Japanese) ones don't. Retouching something to fit your games will go a long way, and I personally know published projects with large amount of free materials as the base. It speeds up development tremendously and allows you to punch above your weight with less people in the team, perfect for a jam.

I'm speshul! Suit yourself.

🌸One Stop Shop

  • OpenGameArt Assets for everything you probably need. Quality varies a lot compared to smaller packs I have below, but easier to find things in one place
  • Kenney One of the most used free assets. It even has starter templates if you use Godot
  • Craftpix Sprites, backgrounds, GUI, tilesets, any visual assets for 2D games
  • Youtube Sozai From frames to stock footages to...a bunch of things. Intended for Vtubers but useful for game devs too

🌸Visual

🌸Audio

  • Kevin Macleod Probably the most widely-used free music source out there
  • Sound Image Also one of the most widely-used music source out there
  • H/Mix If you want RPG-style music, here it is
  • Pocket Sound Music and sound effects for a lot of situation
  • Pixabay Sound effects to your heart's content

🌸Fonts

  • Google Fonts A lot of people make fun of Google Fonts and deride some of the designs, but it has vast selection of generally decently-designed fonts and some very well-made ones in a variety of languages. You don't feel like you're trawling duds and thousands upon thousands of dingbats dan incomplete glyph sets the way you would in sites like Dafont and 1001fonts. It remains one of the best selections save for personally trawling foundry sites and probably the best one if you don't know what kerning and ascenders mean.
  • Pentacom Gallery A nice selection of non-boring but generally readable pixel fonts.

🌸Game Design and Development Reading Material

  • Microsoft UI/UX Accessibility Guidelines Make sure you don't ship games with supersmall fonts on low contrast backgrounds. I like my eyes.
  • GDC Vault A repository of every topics ever hosted on Game Developers Conference, arguably the biggest con in the industry.
  • Game Design Resources Masterlist You will not be able to read/watch everything here in time for the jam (and you don't have to unless you feel like it) and not everything can be accessed for free, but there would be something interesting for you no matter if you're a designer, coder, artist, writer, or just any layperson interested in game development.
  • Jesse Schell's Book of Game Design This is a 500pg book. It covers a lot of things.

Sample Games

I have gathered jam games of various genres that I hope can serve as inspiration and/or example at scoping

  • Ludum Dare Various games made in 24-72 hours
  • Procrabstination A collection of minigames
  • Celeste A jam platformer game made in four days in PICO-8.
  • Tinker and Sprout A Plants Versus Zombies clone
  • The Dragon's Wake Text-based management sim
  • Roguelike Simulator Bitsy parody of Nethack, made under a day
  • Bouquet A platformer made in a few hours
  • Desk Job A clicker game done with very minimal, very homemade assets. Still quite entertaining
  • Rollchemist A resource management game in the style of BigFish era, scaled way way way down
  • Square Go Where A puzzle platformer
  • Traveller's Card A one page TTRPG
  • A Very Very Small Adventure A wordless RPG made in PICO-8 in 20 days. A minimalistic game capturing the essence of 80's era RPG and adventure games
  • Queers in Love at The End of the World Very small in scope, a good lesson in effective storytelling. 15 seconds gameplay. Interactive Fiction
  • One World Warlock A very effective way to utilize the jam's restriction (<500 words). About 3 minutes gameplay. Interactive Fiction.
  • Nothing to Say A very small visual novel with an innovative approach. About 5 minutes gameplay.
  • Dahlia A visual novel made in three days
  • Flotsam A very small adventure game made in bitsy
  • Procrastination A life sim visual novel done in a couple of days. Done because the author is...procrastinating for the jam

🌸More, more, more Itch.io has many, many, many free assets and free jam games for you to try and disassemble. Any search engine can turn up anything you probably want, just read the licenses.

Venture forth and have fun! 

alea iacta jest

Submissions(4)

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Browser playable (2)

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Path of Atonement
Just a music showcase. Attached to a mechanic that inspired from JRPG mechanic that I hate, UNSKIPABLE CUTSCENE.
b4ngnew
Run in browser
A Troubled Case
A 5 second game with the theme of Forgiven/Forgotten
kisui
Action
Stuck Between the Couches
A simple platformer game about finding the small things you think are gone.
Atari Maeda
Platformer
Play in browser
spices, by any other name
(just because you can’t see the spices in your spice cabinet, doesn’t mean they aren’t there anymore.)
koufukuriron
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