The theme will be announced on this page at or slightly before the official jam start time. You may start as soon as the theme is announced.

The theme is: It’s a weapon now. 

What is “it”? And what was it before? It certainly wasn’t a weapon, but it is now. How and/or why it was repurposed is up to you to explore, along with any other questions you wish to answer in the next 48 + 8 hours!

Rules during the jam:

• Anyone may enter
• You must spend at least 8 hours sleeping
• Teams are allowed, as large or small as you wish
• You may use any engine, tool, asset, code, and/or past creation you have the legal rights to
• Your game must be easily discernable from any past project (if you make a Tetris clone, it must have some unique mechanic that demonstrates some original creativity)
• You may target any platform
• You may interpret the theme creatively
• You may submit at any time
• You may make multiple submissions
• The last 45 minutes of the jam is for submissions only and development must be completed before then (on the hour)
• If something goes terribly wrong during submission, ask for a late submission link
• Have fun (or at least try to)

Rules for voting:

• You must vote on at least 5 submissions that you are capable of playtesting
• If there are less than 5 submissions you can playtest, vote on as many as you can
• Try to leave comments on every game you vote for so that the creator(s) know(s) a real human being played it
• There are no prizes for winning other than bragging rights against you family, friends, acquaintances, and/or us
• Criteria
  • Theme - Does the game match the theme?
  • Creativity - Does the game introduce a creative mechanic, story, or art style?
  • Technical Achievement - Is the game technically impressive? Does it make one wonder how it was made?
  • Polish - Does the game go the extra mile to feel clean? Does it have those extra details that make it shine?
  • Entertainment - Was the game entertaining to play?
  • Bonus Points - For the little things that matter!

About the 48 + 8 Jam:

This jam is a spiritual successor to the jam we hosted as a student organization back in college and is actually our 10th annual game jam we have done together. This year our group will be split up into multiple different teams spanning wildly different time zones. Our jam period aims to accommodate the variety as best as possible.

Regardless of what is going on in the world, whether or not you consider game dev your life, your hobby, or something that only mildly interests you, sometimes you just need to set aside a weekend to do something crazy. Then, when you look back, there will be a little bright highlight of an interesting crazy adventure to remember. That's why we require 8 hours of sleep, so you can actually remember it!

Wherever you are in life, we hope you can take advantage of this opportunity and have some fun!