Game jams have many useful purposes, they’re a great way to jump into a small project, meet people to collaborate with, work with a time limit, get out of your comfort zone, experiment, and hopefully commit to finishing something. However they tend to have a lot of expectations of what a “finished” game actually is. And most of the time there isn’t really a chance to experiment. There's also a push in the culture to really go ham on polishing and making something “impressive” within the time limit…

In this particular jam though we want to encourage zero polish and minimal art Instead this jam will focus on design and experimentation. Meaning you don’t bother with making your game presentable or super refined. Rely on placeholders, existing plugins and assets so you can get to playing around with ideas. Use greyboxes for levels, basic cubes for powerups, basic arial font UI, the more essential to the idea the better! Do you really need a walk cycle for your character? Does the grass really need to move when you go through it? Ditch whatever to get to the actual prototyping process. Flex your design muscles!

Prototyping is industry standard for seeing a potential in an idea through before getting an entire team on board, but as an indie dev it can get easy to meander and get lost in the discovery process. The jam part of this is to enforce a deadline to get some kind of game loop or goal implemented to realize an idea you might be kicking around. If you already have started in a prototype but nothing concrete enough, feel free to use this jam to finally get it to a testable state. This might be all vague, but we’re really trying to change the expectation of a typical jam rather than insisting on limitations. This is really like any other game jam except with a major emphasis on giving yourself time to play around and experiment. Hopefully this provides a practical use but just try to have fun!

Prototypes typically look like this:

Rules:

-No polish or juice, the more placeholders the better
-Don’t crunch, this isn’t a competition (take it easy)
-Use any engine or existing game template
-Use whatever pre-existing/free-to-use assets/plugins you like
-You may revive an existing prototype or game idea for the jam, you can also start way before the jam even starts.
-Try to play and discuss each other's projects!

FAQ

Discord?

https://discord.gg/5JcdnQbp

What do you consider finished?

Basically anything that makes the game in such a state that someone else can pick up and let you know what they think. You might make a combat system prototype with only one fight, or an open world game with multiple mechanics and things to do. but ultimately try to be definitive of what you’re making. It’s hard to argue what counts as “finished” but we’ll leave that up to you. One example is comparing a finished sketch to a complete drawing. Think of this as a sketch of a game.

What exactly counts as polish?

Only make what’s necessary for the core game concept you’re thinking of. If you say you’re making a grappling hook game, you can put effort in making a nice bouncy rope especially if it contributes to the gameplay and physics. But don’t spend all day texturing a detailed ruined column that you happen to grapple on, just make a grey cylinder and be done with it.  Any task you're doing ask yourself: "Am I making the actual game?"

What’s the theme?

The theme is baked into the concept of the jam. We feel having an actual theme/prompt might dissuade people from going into many possible directions. You are welcome to bring in a half baked prototype you were kicking around before as your launching point.

Can I form a team?

There’s no rule against this but since you don’t need artists/composers/writers it’s unlikely you need a team. This is essentially a designer only jam with some mandatory coding if your engine/idea requires it. However if you have someone to collaborate designs with that’s all good, as long as the joint effort is design related.

What if I don’t want an embarrassing greybox project on my itch profile?

Personally I hide my game jam games and put them on a posted playlist labelled “game jam games” as a way to distinguish serious projects and fun one offs on my profile. Otherwise making a sock puppet account for this is an option. Though I say embrace your whacky ideas and potential failures.