ah, i just found this. This was helpful for me to see. Sadly it does ruin a lot of horror content. Doki Doki would not be allowed here, nor fnaf, Spooky's House of Jump Scares, Voices of the void, Mandela Catalogue, nana825763, David FIrth, Film Cow, adventure time, Dragon Age Blood Magic or well... pretty much any long form media I can think of. Even MLP had Trixie try to off herself on camera. It also seems to prevent the ability to tell traditional eldritch horror, or stories about recovery after a suicide attempt and learning to find purpose in life again.
for some of us, we've been there. We've been in those darkest of moments and attempted to take our own lives. Horror is a great place for us to express how we felt, to show others through art and to have them understand us a little more. It can be a real good therapeutic method for healing and bonding.
I was really hoping to hear it would be allowed again next year, but I guess from what I can tell this jam is trying to become increasingly more soft and increasingly less horror focused.
I am glad to see an explanation and can understand why one would be cautious, there are a few creators, usually edgy teens, or Visual Novels that don't know how to end a story properly that will go overboard. Those are not great. However, the way this rule works for this year's jam is way too strict and a bit silly if I'm being totally honest, a few bad apples does not spoil the bunch. However, even though I respect the decision to go more safe it does mean it will limit some of the creators that have truly personal stories to share.
I do hope that next year they lessen the rule, not saying to remove it entirely, but to make it more open for those of us that have those personal stories to share. Youtube's done enough to damage and condemn horror as a genre already, we need more freedom not less. Oh well, we'll see what happens.
Glad to see the explanation at least. I couldn't seem to find it anywhere else.
another update on this. I was watching Superman and Louis, a wholesome superhero show about superman and his family. The kid's friend had tried to kill themselves a year before the story starts, and the family is dealing with the fallout and recovery of that. Including therapy, and trying to find purpose again... I guess we can add superman to the list of 'you can't write a story like it for spooktober jam'