Welcome to the first ever student game jam. This is intended to give students (studying game development or any other subject) a small project to work on over the UK summer holidays. The aim of the jam is to encourage those who are currently studying Game design/Game Art/development to practice their skills and for those who aren’t currently studying a games related course to learn new skills. For those of you who some how don’t know what a game jam is, it’s a short game development marathon where anyone who is taking part can make whatever game they want as long as it matches the jam’s theme. 

The theme is You Are Not The Main Character. 

The Rules:
1) Your submission must be executable app or Web game.

Basically what this means is that your submission must be an executable app (a file that can be opened and played on a computer) or a game that is playable on Itch.io. Additionally one of your builds must be a Windows build.

2) Your game must follow the theme.

You can make whatever game you want whether it be a 2D platformer or an open world sandbox however it must follow the theme of the jam which will be announced the week before the jam starts.

3) Your game must be your own idea.

Whilst specific styles of games like a Metroid-vania for example is allowed, you must not outright steal other people’s ideas or copy entire games.

4) Your game must have at least one accessibility feature.

It is important that everyone is allowed to play games (not just from this jam but in general) so all submissions must have at least one accessibility feature whether it be subtitles or a colourblind filter. Your submission will be ranked on its accessibility.  I would recommend watching the “designing for disability” series by Game Maker’s toolkit, which can be found here, in order to find out more about this.

5) Have fun

Remember the main aim is to have fun and learn new skills.

Important information 

• You can use whatever engine you want to, you can even make your own if you wish, it just has to be capable of creating Windows executables.

• You will not be able to update your game after the submission end date.  
  
  You are able to make whatever game you want.
• You must credit the creators of any assets that you use but didn’t create. 
  
  You are more than welcome to work in teams. 
  
  The theme will be announced a week before the jam starts. Once the jam starts you’ll have until the end of August to get your submission in.
• If you wish you can stream the development of your game on Twitch using the #StudentGameJam21 or tweet about it using the same hashtag. If you are streaming between 10 am and 2 pm then you could be featured on the TinyPizza twitch channel. 
  

The winner will be announced on the 5th September 2021.