This jam is now over. It ran from 2023-06-30 22:00:00 to 2023-08-13 22:00:00. View 117 entries

make something inspired by famicase


A Game By Its Cover is an annual game jam about turning the fictional cartridge art of the My Famicase Exhibition into the real thing.

How to make a game by its cover in a clown dimension broken world:

  • Step 0: Make sure your mental and physical needs are met to the best of your ability.
  • Step 1: Make whatever you feel like as long as it's loosely inspired by fictional game (cover) art.
  • Step 2: That's it.


(Video by Dyoudi | Audio by Lundra)


Our (entirely optional!) theme for this year:


up and not crying


Browse the exhibition, pick something that inspires you and turn it into a game! Or a piece of art, or music, or a one-page pen&paper thing. Or a poem. Or... anything. Who cares! We won't narc on you.

As always you won't find any prizes, or rankings, voting or scoring here. We pride ourselves on distancing this jam from all forms of competition. Mostly because it's just unnecessarily stressful! Making things is hard, and releasing things into the wild is even harder. We see no reason to up the stakes even further.

Take your time, take care of yourself, try it and maybe something will inspire you. And don't worry too much about the deadline, because we've made it kind of a tradition to extend it a bit every year.


a word from your hosts


Our 9th AGBIC!

The future is bleak and uncertain, but we're Up & Not Crying. Famicase is still around, and it still rules.

What's left to say? Our little game jam won't save the planet, sure, that would be silly, but we still have the power to do something real and meaningful with our lives. Don't make art for your career, or your portfolio, (or prizes, lol) what's up with that? No! Embrace the cringe and make art for your loved ones, for your friends, for the smallest circle of people YOU KNOW will be all over your little in-jokes like a bunch of sickos.

This platform, itch.io, has been good to us. Hundreds of works over the years made possible through a little bit of "hey, wouldn't that be cool" and a pinch of "we have to get this out into the world". But for how long? Recent news made the internet a stressful place to be. It feels like the ongoing enshittification of everything could hit anything next, even this place.

Remember when some corporate clown show made up some bullshit about "unspeakable" things to be found around here? We say let's prove them right while we still can.

Be kind.

Thanks ~ Ludo & Dom


faq

Q: Can I-

A: Yes

Q: OK but are there any rules I should follow?

A: Only one, which we take very seriously: Respect the wishes of the original artists, and don't appropriate their designs without consent. Refer to the submission form on this page (click "Join Jam", then "Submit" while submissions are open) for additional details.


oh also

follow us on fedi

tag your posts with #agbic if you're old enough to know what a hashtag is

interested in our past? -> 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15

find collaborators on our discord

... and maybe open a progress thread for your project in our community forums