Try out a brand-new multiplayer modding-friendly game engine!

We've built a combined multiplayer game engine, web deploy and server hosting solution. We love collaboration and modding, so we set out and built a game engine that lets communities build moddable games together; we wanted to bring the magic of open-source development to the game development process. This is our humble reveal of it to the world, so come try out our experiment!

In this jam you will:

• Mod a game we've prepared. Mods can be anything: maps, gameplay, mechanics, 3D models, characters, creation tools.
• Deploy your remix of our game, so that anyone can try it out easily.
• Get a URL link to the game that you can share to play instantly with anyone.

The engine's Ambient, and it's a free and open-source engine powered by Rust, WebAssembly, and WebGPU. This is an early version, so expect some rough edges.

When?
Thursday 19th to Thursday 26th, plus a playthrough party on Sunday 29th.

The game we’ll remix together

You'll be modding Tangent Rider, a variant of our internal game, Tangent. It takes the hovercars from Tangent, and builds a multiplayer Ultimate Chicken Horse/Line Rider-style game with them.

In Ambient, everything - including games, mods, assets and more - is a package. When you’ve created and deployed a package, it will be available for anyone to view on the website.

Mods in Ambient are all isolated WebAssembly modules, functioning as their own small applications. That's what enables everyone to make their own mod and add them to the game.

Getting started

Check out the readme for Tangent Rider, which should cover the details of development. You don't need to clone the Tangent Rider repository - you can create your package and depend on Tangent Rider through our hosted ecosystem.

Deploying your remix

With Ambient, deploying your remix is as simple as running a command from your terminal:

ambient deploy

The published URL of your remix will be in the output, but it can also be found on the games list on the Ambient website:

You can then play the game in the browser (if your browser supports WebGPU) and share the link with your friends so that you can all hop in together and play your remix.

A jam for programmers and tech-savvy game makers.

• You should know at least a bit about programming games so you can remix existing code. If you’re an experienced programmer, you will be able to make packages from scratch.
• If you're’re an artist, we’ve got a working asset pipeline. However, some technical savvy is still required.
• Find a team on our Discord.

🎉 Playthrough party on Sunday the 29th of October.

We’ll do a live-stream on our Discord where we play through all mods. If you’re in Europe, we start at 18.00 (CEST) In the US, 09 AM (PDT) and 12 AM (EDT).

Sign-up to the event on Discord.

🎨 Get started.

Documentation, Tutorial, and Free Assets:

• Check out learn page here: https://ambient.run/docs/introduction
• A step-by-step tutorial to learn the engine: https://ambientrun.github.io/Ambient/tutorials/game/0_intro.html
• Ask us in the Ambient team on Discord and we’ll help you get started.
• List of free assets here: Get Assets For Your Game - Github.

FAQ

• Who can join?
  • Anyone or any team! Rust coding skills are required, so if you’re not a programmer then pair up with one.
  • Find a team on our Discord.
• Limitations?
  • Rust Programming Language 🦀. Frontend and backend code is 100% Rust for now.
  • Web + Chrome. Ambient is built with WebGPU, currently only supported by Chrome on desktop. In beta on Firefox.
  • Audio only works on native, soon also in browser.
• How do I submit a package?
  • You need to create an account and deploy your package to our website, ambient.run
  • How? See: https://ambientrun.github.io/Ambient/reference/distributing.html
• Can I submit multiple entries?
  • Yes!
• Can I submit unfinished entries?
  • Yes, but we encourage you to finish them or at least make them somewhat playable.
• What happens with my submission?
  • Your submitted packages will be discoverable on our website Ambient.run for others to get inspired by and to reuse.
• Is there any prize?
  • No, the main purpose is to have fun and build a game together as a community.

About Ambient

We’re nine people and our engineers come from Epic, Lionhead, Polystream, Avalanche, Snap and Spotify. We've worked on engines like Unreal Engine 5 and Apex Engine, and infrastructure like Polystream’s command streaming and Snap’s calling.

Our runtime and creation tools are free and open-source. All the games and assets we make are Creative Commons Zero or MIT/Apache2 licensed. You own what you create. You decide where you want to publish your game. You own the relationship with your players. You will always be able to fully decouple from Ambient.

Read more about us on Ambient.run or come talk to us on our Discord to learn more.