You've been egging us on for so long, so here it is: The Pygame Community Easter Jam 2023!

This jam is a seven day event for all pygame users who want to show off or develop their skills, and we encourage anyone interested to participate. Whether you have a week, a weekend or just a half dozen hours, we want to see what you can make. If you haven't already, be sure to join the Pygame Community discord (https://discord.gg/pygame) to brainstorm ideas, there's no time to waste!

Theme:

Due to a tie in the votes, this jam features two themes:
Particle Overdose
and
Silly Music / Pastel Color Palette

Rating Criteria:

• Game Feel: How good does the game feel in each individual moment? This will be based on controls, game balance, framerate, etc

• Immersion: How immersed in the world does the player become? This will generally be based on atmosphere and mood. This is primarily where graphics and sound come into play regarding ratings.

• Polish: How much extra effort has gone in to make the game just that little bit better? This will be based on things such as programmatical detail (e.g. effects or visual feedback), visual detail, level count/size/detail and easter eggs. Bugs or areas of the game which feel rushed will result in a lower score in this category.

• Theme: How accurately and creatively does the game follow the primary themes given for the jam. Average ratings should be given for general adherence to the themes, whereas higher ratings should be given for clever or subversive use of themes. For maximum points, games should try to implement both themes, but this is not a general requirement.

• Innovation: How different is this game to other games that have been developed (especially other games developed for this jam in particular)? This should be based on how unique and creative the ideas in the game are, not how well executed said ideas are (that is rated as part of game feel and polish)

Prizes:

1st Place - 2 Months Discord Nitro

2nd Place - 1 Month Discord Nitro

3rd Place - 1 Month Discord Nitro Basic

(Note that for those working in teams, only a maximum of 2 Nitros will be given out for a given entry)

Rules (Take Note!):

• All submissions must be created between the start and end of the jam. Games that were started before the start of the jam will not be allowed.

• All entrants must primarily use Python and the pygame library to create their submission. Additional libraries (OpenGL, Numpy, etc) and pre-existing generic code/engine (i.e. code that can be used in any game) are allowed, but substantial parts of the game code must be implemented using pygame. If possible, the pygame-ce fork of pygame should be used.

• You MUST create all assets used in your entry during the jam. No premade assets are allowed, even if you have the rights to them. This includes creative commons works (even CC0). The exceptions to this are things in the public domain that are over ~70 years old (e.g. classical music pieces, old paintings, etc) and fonts (which you must of course still have license to use). Asset generators on the other hand, are perfectly fine to use. Edit from April 3, 2023: Premade splash screens or logos are also allowed, as are pygame assets from https://pyga.me/docs/logos.html exclusively.
  

• Please be careful with delicate or controversial subject matter. Do not make games with NSFW/18+ content. If you are unsure whether you can include something in your entry, ask a member of staff on the Discord server.

• Teams of 2+ are allowed for this jam. However no more than 2 Discord Nitro awards will be awarded per team.

• Upon submitting your game you will be required to leave a link to your game's source code as well as the Discord #'s of all team members.

• You are not allowed to have fun throughout the creation process. Any team caught enjoying the jam will be disqualified. /s