Hi everyone, welcome back to YUdum Dare! This is GDYU's fourth game jam and we're excited to get started!

Theme

The theme for YUdum Dare 4 is Tethered

Thank you for everyone who submitted or voted on a theme! 

Timeline

Theme Submissions: August 21 - 24

Everyone will have the chance to submit some possible themes for the upcoming jam. If you want to submit multiple themes, please write them as a comma-separated list: (theme 1, theme 2, theme 3)

Theme Voting: August 25 - 27

Once the themes are in, you'll be able to vote on which themes you like the best. For each theme, you'll be able to choose how much you support it. Whichever theme has the most support will be announced on August 28th as the official theme of the jam!

Jam Period: August 28 - September 3

At 12:00 pm (EST) on August 28th, we'll announce the jam's theme on Discord and update this page to show it. Submissions open and the jam begins!

Guidelines

Rules

• The jam is open from the 28th at 12:00 pm (noon) until the 3rd at 11:59 pm, giving a week + just under 12 hours
• You may work alone or in a team
• Any tools, engines, or libraries are allowed, as long as you can submit your game as a web build or a standalone executable
• You’re free to start with any base code you may have, but the project should be original, not finishing up an existing project
• You can use any assets/art/sound from other sources, but make sure to credit anything you didn’t make yourself

Submissions

• Please try to make sure your game can run on as many platforms as possible - web builds are the best, followed by Windows, Mac, and Linux
• Submit your game through Itch on the jam's page (right here!)
• By submitting to the jam, you’re giving us permission to use your submission in-club advertising and publication. Please contact us if you have any questions about this
• Please put important information or credits for things you've used in your jam submission or in a README file

Prizes

• There aren't any prizes or judging in this jam
• However if you submit, you'll get a special role in our Discord server!

FAQ

“I don’t know what theme to vote for/suggest!”

A game jam’s theme is to help you have something to base your ideas on. They’re generally vague and are designed to be interpreted by the individual. Try to keep the theme a concept instead of a specific idea. If you’re really stuck and don’t know what to submit, just find a different game jam’s theme and steal it! We won’t know.

“I’ve never made a game before! I can’t make one in 1 week!”

Never underestimate the power of a time limit! You may think you need more practice making games before you’ll be “ready” to participate in a game jam, but I think regardless of your skill level, game jams are very valuable learning experiences and are worth participating in anyways. And if you don’t end up finishing your project, you’ll have learned something, and are in a better position than when you were when you first began.

“Any tips on making a game in a week?”

• Think up as many different ideas as possible. Don’t worry about if they’re good or bad at first, you can edit through them afterward.
• From your ideas, try to design something with a very small scope, something you’re certain you could finish in a time limit half as long. Gamedev has the habit of taking longer than we planned for.
• Separate your game's requirements into “needs” and “nice to have”. Make sure all your needs are met before you start adding nice to haves
• There’s the making of the design of your game (systems and mechanics) and making the content of your game (levels), content is usually simpler to make and you should focus on making sure the design of your game is good before getting too far into the content. Jam games usually don’t have that much content in them due to most of the time being spent on making the design work.
• Don’t forget the audio! Sound can really make your game feel much better :)