DETAILS

Welcome to Game Design and Development at Berkeley's Bear Jams! 

This event is an online game jam, where all submissions will have a live playthrough!

You can participate remotely on our Discord server: https://tinyurl.com/BearJamsDiscord.

There will also be an optional in-person kickoff for brainstorming and theme reveal on the UC Berkeley campus!

And after the main jam is over, we will have a full Stream Week, where you can see your game played live, ending things off with our Finale on Friday.

Participation is open to everyone, not just Berkeley students! There is no difference between teams with and without students, however, there is a team size limit of 5 people! We're so excited to see all your wonderful games!!

IN-PERSON

The jam will start with an in-person kickoff from 8-10 PM PST on Friday, February 23rd, where we will announce the theme and provide a space for people to form teams and work together. We will also stream the beginning of the kickoff on Twitch. The location for the kickoff is WHEELER 120.

TIMELINE

(All times are PST) 

JAM

[2/23] Friday

8 PM: In-person Kickoff + Kickoff Stream on Twitch

~8:30 PM: Theme Announcement 

[2/24] Saturday 

All day: Make your games! If you need help, ask in the "Talk to Staff" category of the discord. Make sure to tag one of the hosts!

[2/25] Sunday

5 PM: ALL SUBMISSIONS DUE 

STREAM WEEK

[2/26-3/1] Monday - Friday

8-9 PM: Streaming playthroughs of submissions on Twitch

[3/2] Saturday4 PM: FINALE - streaming on Twitch

SCORING

Bear Jams scoring is handled by a panel of judges from the GDD Staff. We judge based on the following 5 categories:

• Fun: How enjoyable is the gameplay/game design
• Theme: How unique/creatively the game interprets the theme
• Art: All visuals, color scheme, cohesion
• Sound: Any SFX, music, or other audio
• Judge: A final category for judges to give their overall opinion on the game, considering it as a whole

We only judge based off of assets made by the team. It's okay to use assets from other sources, but they MUST be credited. Any game with uncredited work will be disqualified. 

Heavy reuse of assets made before the event is highly discouraged and may affect judging scores.

We will NOT be releasing our raw scores. However, feel free to ask judges for feedback on your game!

SUBMISSION

Submission Deadline: Sunday, 2/25 @ 5 PM PST

Any ONE of the follow submission formats are acceptable:

1) A WebGL Build (or any build that can be played online on the itch page)

2) A Windows Build

3) A Mac Build

However, while not necessary, we’d appreciate it if you submit WebGL or Windows (for ease of judging).

PRIZES!

1st place: $65 

 2nd place: $50 

3rd place: $35 

RESOURCES

All of the event Rules and Guidelines can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/BearJams-Rules

All participants MUST follow the Code of Conduct: https://tinyurl.com/BearJams-CodeOfConduct