Thanks for your questions.
- You can see the "Rules" and "Voting" section on the jam page for more information. The goal is to have no words in the storytelling, and that includes no audio words
- For words outside the story, like instructions, I personally wouldn't take any points off (for either text or audio), but the ratings will be done by other participants (I'll play the games but not rate them) so it's possible that if you were thinking of having a lot of words as instructions, and if you can find a way instead to teach the player without words, some players would prefer that
- Similarly, for sounds like "oof", or "haha", I personally wouldn't take any points off, but it might also depend on the context. For example, if you could convey the same information with a facial expression, some players rating your game might feel those sounds are unnecessary
Basically, I would encourage everyone rating the games to judge the wordless category on the game's ability to tell the story without needing to rely on language. I don't want people worrying much about words in other parts of the game.