An open weekend challenge to produce tilemap art!

All skill levels are welcome (nay, encouraged!) to participate. Even if you've never made art before, you should take a crack at it! It's not as scary as it looks.

Looking for a longer jam to join? Check out Grid Jam starting July 12.

Join us on Discord to share your progress in the challenge and talk all things game dev.

Challenge: Create tile art!

Create tiling art that would work in a video game.

This should be designed for use in a game, whether it's for backgrounds, foregrounds, or a handful of items and characters, or some combination.

Include a sample image of your tiles in action to help judge the quality of your art.

See the Rules section below for more details.

Theme: SPARK

Unlike our regular jams, the theme is required for the challenge. But don't sweat it too much. The theme is meant to be an inspiration and will be fully open to your interpretation.

Choose a Tier

When submitting, you will select a tier to describe where you are on your personal artistic journey:

• Newcomer: You are either completely new, or have only tinkered with art software but never made art for a game.
• Beginner: You've made some art, but are still learning the basics.
• Intermediate+: You're comfortable in art software and becoming confident in your art-making skills. You might even be a pro!

Rules

1. Submissions must be made as an itch.io page. You can include the art as an embedded image, download, or both.
2. One entry per person. We encourage the production of multiple pieces for experimentation, but please only include one piece in the submitted page, and don't link to other new art on the submitted page.
3. The art must contain at least 8 tiles with a size of at least 8x8 pixels each.
4. The tiles must connect naturally to form a map, such as a game environment or background.
   1. We strongly recommend including an example map show off your tilemap in action.
5. This is a solo challenge, so collaboration and teams are not allowed.
6. The work must be entirely new with all of it made during the challenge. This includes planning, sketching, coloring, and so on. You should be working from "nothing."
7. The work must be "original" in the sense that it isn't a remix or arrangement of preexisting work.
8. You can continue editing the submission page after submitted, but uploads will be locked, so you cannot replace the music or upload new files until judging is completed

Prizes

Each tier with at least 3 entries will have one winner announced. In addition, these entries (with artist permission) will appear on the 8 Bits to Infinity Challenge Winners page with a link of their choice.

Schedule

June 21, 1pm ET: The challenge starts. Make some art!

June 23, 1pm ET: Submissions are due, and voting begins.

June 30, 1pm ET: Voting closes and the winners are announced.

About Us

Hosted by 8 Bits to Infinity: a game development community dedicated to improving creative and technical skills through rapid iteration and honest, critical feedback. Join us on Discord, check out our website, and take a look at our past jams and challenges.

The man behind 8 Bits to Infinity is Retro Indie Josh (aka Joshua McLean): gaming content creator and music producer. Check out his game music (free for you to use in jams and commercial projects!) and YouTube.