For the past couple of months, I've been making bite-sized horror text games at BiteSizedHorror.com. I love making short, scary text games. It's a real challenge to create an atmosphere with just a few words. And I wanted to challenge other people to do it, too.

The jam starts on Monday at midnight (Pacific Time). At that moment, a word will be posted/tweeted/emailed. That word has to be included in your game at some point.

It ends the Sunday before Halloween at midnight. So, it starts Sunday night, and it ends Sunday night. During the week, you should make your game, tweet about it using #BiteSizedHorrorJam, or do whatever you want.

So, here are the rules:

1. You have to make the game during this week until Sunday at midnight, the 25th of October.
2. It must be a horror game!
3. It must be a text game!
4. It must have less than 666 words.
5. It has to include the special word: MONSTER

HOW DO I MAKE A TEXT GAME?

Use Twine! It's a wonderful tool. It's a lot easier than you think, and there's a bunch of guides to help you online. (Here's a great one!)

You can also use any other tools, code, libraries, etc. that you like. Twine is a great tool for beginners, but anything and everything is encouraged.

DO YOU HAVE ANY EXAMPLES?

I really love two games by Liz England: growth and itch. There's also this one by Rachel Ponce called Tiny Lights. The reason I started making tiny text games in the first place was Porpentine's Twiny Jam, where all three of those were posted. You should check that out for inspiration (even though not all the games are horror).

PRIZES!

The jam is scored on three qualities: Scariness, Uniqueness, and Overall Quality. So, the rubric is biased toward unique games and scary games. Keep that in mind!

Everyone who enters gets the prize of having made a game. The person with the highest average score above gets bragging rights. In addition to bragging rights, they will receive a prize pack containing Stephen King's Danse Macabre and an Amazon Gift Card of $25.

Nathan Meunier has donated 3 Steam keys to his newly released game, This Book is a Dungeon. It was made in Twine! They'll be given to the people who win in each of the three categories.

David Szymanski has donated a Steam key to his game, The Music Machine, to the highest overall scorer.

And Brandon Li has donated 5 copies of the iOS version of Indefinite to the Top 5 overall scorers.

Other prizes may be announced during the jam! If you would like to contribute a prize, please send me an email at g karber @ gmail (dot) com.