Hello!

Welcome to the itch page for the 1st OPE game jam!

This 48 hour game jam is founded by developers who grew up in the Midwest all their lives and want to give a platform for independent and professional Midwest game developers to express their creativity and passion for making games. Hence the name.

Original thinkers and ideas.

Purposeful creation and community.

Exciting opportunities.

OPE!

Who Can Participate?

You!

Whether you’re living in the Midwest, from the Midwest, in a mansion on the east coast, the other side of the world or are from another planet (we just want to cover all possibilities), you are free to participate alone, with friends or a giant game development crew.

If you’re a programmer, artist, music creator, team cheerleader, spreadsheet wizard, we want you to finally try to make a game that speaks to you. You might not have a clue how to make a game, or an experienced veteran but the point of the jam is to encourage one another and pursue what you are passionate about.

When and where is it?

When: The game jam will take place between:  November 15th @ 4:30 PM (16:30:00) CST  - November 17th @ 4:30 PM (16:30:00) CST

Where: You can participate anywhere in the world!

We would love to have a venue for people around the country and world to gather and network! However, at this moment we do not have a venue for  developers to collaborate with their peers. But in this age of technology we hope you can communicate with your teams from wherever you may be. Or Get together with your friends for a weekend, catch up and make something awesome!

What can I make?

Video games! Well more specifically your video game should be available to play through the itch.io platform, whether it’s a website or a downloadable executable that is able to run on Windows machines.

Unfortunately no board games, card games or levels made within a game. We’ll consider the idea if there’s enough demand!

Rules

• You may use a game engine (Unity, Unreal, Godot, etc) or a website or create your own!
• Harassment of any can will not be tolerated.
• Keep your games clean. Please do not include:
  • NSFW or Offensive content
  • Excessive gore/violence

• You may use assets that were not made for this jam. This may include
  • Asset packs from various stores/content providers (As long as they are credited and you have permission to use it)
  • Assets made from your past projects
  • Code
  • Music
• Read and follow the rules.
• Have fun!

Theme

This year’s theme is: POP

Surprise Element: Goose/Geese

Submission

All submissions are required to have a list of collaborators! However, if you have none then you can list yourself.

Please attach everything relevant to playing your game. If your game is meant to be played through an application (Like a .exe) please submit the file via zip so people can download it to play it. If your game is based in a web browser, please submit the relevant URL to navigate users to your game. A good rule of thumb is if you're able to download it/navigate to it by yourself with little difficulty, then it should be easy for others.

Also, if you used any music or assets that you did not make then these need to be credited in your submission as well.

If you have a late submission, dm us on Twitter or through Discord and we will be happy to help!

Voting

We were torn when it came to voting. We believe everyone’s submission is equally powerful and its meaningful to you, the creators. That being said, we decided we want to include voting because it allows you the creators and the public to play through the games, provide feedback and encourage people to rank their peers when they’ve done something great. But we also don’t want there to be a single vote either for “Best Game” that’s why we’ve decided to make categories to include more submissions. Here are the categories we want to include:

Paul Bunyan Most-Midwestern Award - Based off of the game itself, encompasses Midwestern ideals and practices that might be funny or good of heart.

Great Implementation of Theme - Based off of the theme, what game stands out as a good implementation, combining art, design and gameplay to tie it all together

Unexpected Implementation of the Theme - Based off of the theme, what is an idea that stands out as something unexpected (different, unusual, unique, etc) that not many people would normally consider when thinking about this theme. This might be the same idea as “Great Implementation” but we wanted to create a separate category to have more games take a category and also challenge out of the box thinking.

Best Implementation of the Surprise Element - Based off of the surprise element, did the game do this element justice?

Fun Gameplay - Did you have fun playing the game? Regardless of its fit of the theme

Impressive Art - Was this game beautiful? Regardless of its fit of the theme

We do want to note that if you were not first in any of the categories it does not mean you’re game wasn’t good enough. This game jam is meant to be a positive experience.

What Can I Do Right Now?

Feel free to share the jam with your game developer friends! You can also join the community forum here on itch! Also you can absolutely join our discord using the link below.

Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/cQ4WSCP

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpeJam

Other Things

This jam is very much in its infancy, and we'll be working on adding more information in the coming months to the jam. If there isn't something that hasn't been answered on this game jam page, please let us know!