So then, just asking out of curiosity, is there a "time/length limit" the gameplay should be under?
There's no limit to the length of the game.
I'm asking because if I were the judge evaluating these games, I wouldn't have the patience to sit trough lengthy submissions
Well, I enjoy reading visual novels, as do most of the judges so it isn't too bad.
It's worth noting that our process for judging comes in two phases. The first being a 'vetting' phase where we quickly go through the submission, which we're expecting to be around 220~260 this year, to determine whether or not it will likely be within the top 10 or be a contender for a special category, then we will moved forward for our second phase, where all of the judges read it in full.
The competition is fierce ever year and it's only gotten more so over the years, so entries that have significant bugs, errors, or obvious place holders will often get put aside.
Winners typically have the following features/strategies:
- A short but complete experience. Most winners are in the ball park of 30 minutes to an hour to conusme. By our usual word to time conversion, that's something around 7000-12,000 words.
- Tightly scoped games. On average, winners have something around 3-5 character sprites at most, a modest sound track and limited game play.
- Cohesive aesthetic. Everything fits together, because it was made to fit together.
I have a collection of past winners you can check out here if you want to get a feel for them here:
https://itch.io/c/4692741/spooktober-visual-novel-jam-winners
is there a theme reveal like in other jams?
The theme is always Halloween, and it doesn't change. It's a loose theme.
If no, how do we prove we didn't start working on our spooky VN before the start of a game jam?
In short: You don't. It's the judges job to evaluate the submissions to determine if a rule was broken.
If that sounds like a lot of work, it is! Not all of the rules get the same level of application due to the scale of the competition vs the quantity of judges we have to work with. Content rules, like the ones about erotic content, are applied universally because of the simplicity of doing so, where more complex to apply rules are applied only when the violation has either been made apparent OR they are likely to rank in the top 10 and get an aggressive and active investigation.