Registration Form
REGISTER HERE
In addition to joining the game jam through itch, please fill out the registration form linked above so we can properly award prizes should you or your team win!
About This Jam
The Big Byte Game Jam is an annual game jam where creators make unique interactive experiences using a theme related to cultural ideas, perspectives, issues relevant to members of various Diasporas, over a 1 month (4 week) period.
Meet Your Hosts
Part of the Culture Bytes jam series, this game jam is held in collaboration between the organizations listed below:
Melanated Game Kitchen is a collective of BIPOC game creators focused on the creation and curation of unique interactive experiences revolving around culture while growing in our craft. Their growing collective of artists, designers, programmers, music creators, producers, and more skilled creators can help you take your creative work to the next level.
Black in Gaming is a thriving community committed to fostering, empowering, and amplifying Black professionals within the video game industry. Since 2002, their mission has been to actively create avenues for education, leadership development, and skills enhancement for Black individuals in gaming.
Get the Word Out!
Share on socials with the hashtag #bigbytejam to generate hype and find team members. During the jam, we'll reshare screenshots, video uploads, and blog posts of jam games while you're working on your games.
Jam Cover Art created by: Mister Acxion
Creative Theme (Must Use): Connect The Dots
What happens when we connect the dots between multiple disparate things? Why should we? When should we? and should certain things NOT be connected?
People and things that are connected culturally can be dispersed but that does not mean they have to be disconnected. By connecting people and things that are dispersed, power, knowledge, relationships, and movements can be created.
“Over here, we measure success by how many people successful next to you.” - Jay Z
Theme Ingredients (Optional)
Ingredients are additional ideas related to the Creative Theme to help focus your creativity.
- Coriander: Make a puzzle game or mystery game, exploring how you mentally (or physically) connect things together to find a solution.
- Garlic: Explore a specific time in history and how it relates to the present. Or multiple time periods. Or connecting the future and the present. History can be a great tool.
- Tomato Paste: Explore relationships between people, things, or concepts. Maybe include NPCs in your game and systems to interact with them like in Persona. Or feature multiplayer playable characters in the same narrative.
- Creole Seasoning: Revolve your gameplay around using a system or interface as the main mechanic, instead of playing as a character. Examples like an Evidence board, Card game, match-3, jigsaw puzzle, etc.
Food Dish: Okra Stew
The jam's main food dish is Okra Stew. Okra is a vegetable found throughout dishes all across the African Diaspora and is said to originate in Africa.
For our Culture Bytes jams, we always feature a food dish. The food dish connects to our Creative Theme in a way that directly ties the theme to the diaspora. Food connects us together. Explore details about the dish to get inspired for your game and in you own kitchen.
+ Bonus Points to your game if you feature the food dish in your game in a fun way.
Forming Teams
You do not need to form a team before the jam starts. During the Kickoff event on June 1st, there will be opportunities to mingle with fellow jammers in the Discord server and form teams then. However, if you do have a team in mind already and want to form ahead of time, that's totally fine!
Rules & Key Info
What Platform Can I Use?
This jam is open to both digital and analog interactive experiences – choose the medium that excites you!
Important!
- All games submitted to the jam are required to be made within the time frame of the jam. We will not accept games made prior.
- All participants must follow our Code of Conduct (see below)
Who Can Participate?
This jam is for creators of all relevant skills and experience levels, regardless of whether you have made interactive experiences before or not. Writing, art, design, music/sound design, programming, playtest expertise, etc. There will be mentors in the discord that can help out when you need.
We highly recommend submitting your in-progress game even if you don't finish over the course of the jam, as you can always submit a more complete version later. And we love to learn more about what everyone worked on! We hope to share everyone's progress, regardless of full game completion, during our closing showcase stream.
How to Participate?
- We highly recommend you join our Discord to find team members, work together, share resources, and discuss the theme! Collaboration is a key part of our culture. Most community conversation for this jam will happen via the MGK Discord
- We encourage you to jam with new people or on a team, but it is not required. We will be providing resources for team forming at the jam Kickoff and throughout the jam timeline.
- During the Showcase/Feedback Session, constructive feedback and positive reinforcement will be the focus. Building for the future and collaboration are about lifting everyone up together.
Discord Link: https://discord.gg/cbVpD5mkrd
Code of Conduct
We will not tolerate sexism, racism, or discrimination of any kind. This means, in our community and in the games you create.
Prizes
$1000+ Prize Pool!
- To be distributed among the winners of our three categories (Overall Quality, Relation to Theme, & Creativity/Design).
Interviews with the Jams & Joysticks podcast!
- The three category winners and three runners-up will each receive interviews. That's six interviews in total.
Original piece of music from Cinematic Score!
- More specific details coming soon.
Judging
We will have professional developers play the games and select their favorite games for our prizes and prize pool. Winners will be announced through our social media channels and the discord server.
What will the games be judged on?
Games will be ranked against the following categories:
1. Overall Quality
2. Relation to Theme
3. Creativity/Design
Players Choice Voting
We will also have participant voting to determine Player's Choice winners.
For one week after the jam ends, people will be able to rate your game against the three categories mentioned above.
Everyone is eligible to rate games. Games will be available to play on the itch.io page after the jam ends.
Those who submitted or contributed to a game will be able to judge whichever games they like. Others can vote, but it will be random voting.
Jam Schedule
Jam Kickoff Day! (Sunday, June 1st @ 3pm PST)
Location: YouTube
Jam Kickoff, Theme Reveal & Team Forming
Game Jam (Sunday, June 1st - Sunday, June 29th)
Location: Discord Server
Mid-Jam Mixer and Check-In (Date TBD @ TBD)
Location: Discord Server
Meet-up with jam participants and check-in on your progress in the mid-jam hangout session.
Game Submissions Due (Sunday, June 29th @ 3pm PST)
Location: Itch.io Page
Online Jam Showcase (Sunday, June 29th @ 5pm PST)
Location: Discord Server
Showcase games and live interview sessions with jam teams.
Streamer Game Showcase (Date TBD @ TBD)
Location: TBD
We're playing every game on stream!
Theme Works/Resources
Readings
- High On the Hog Reader - Accompanied details from the High On The Hog show about African Foodways and how the connect to each other - https://www.blackculinaryhistory.com/high-on-the-hog-reader-1
- How Food traveled from Africa to America via the Trans-Atlantic Food Migration - https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/trans-atlantic-food-migration-the-african-culinary-influence-on-the-cuisine-of-the-americas/
- The connection between Blues and Hip-Hop - https://mixdownmag.com.au/features/from-blues-to-hip-hop-the-pursuit-of-freedom-through-music/
- “The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It’s better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American Music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues.”
- Evolution of African American Music Chart - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c2Eu5_qOhhvOKgPCAHys18xIMqZBw_oP/view?usp=sharing
- History of the African Diaspora- https://thediasporacollective.com/blogs/discover/the-african-diaspora
- Chinese Diaspora Migration Map - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7BDkzutWmT3oYGoC3DDlbb9ZSYE_o8v/view?usp=sharing
Videos
- The Rainbow Coalition - a short account of the Black Panther’s Coalition building efforts in 1969- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1cdcNKUuqs
- Asian Diaspora Migrations across the globe - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkWnDUMa6Ps
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
Works (Non-Games)
- The Wisdom and/or Madness of Crowds - https://ncase.me/crowds/
- Map History of Electronic Music - https://music.ishkur.com/
- Older version with diff format here: https://ishkur.kenxaj.cyou/
- Interactive Map of AAPI Migrations in United States - https://depts.washington.edu/moving1/map_asian_migration.shtml
Works (Games)
- Death Stranding
- Kingdom hearts
- Nier Automata
- Blue Prince
- Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
- Harmony: The Fall of Reverie
- Mini Metro / Motorways
- Cocoon
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Nancy Drew Games
General Cultural Works
- https://thewagaduchronicles.com/ - An upcoming Afrofantasy Online RPG & DnD Setting by Twin Drums
- https://motherlandsrpg.com/ - POC focused sci-fi RPG on twitch
- https://www.organizingforpower.org/ - In-Depth site with resources, tools, and readings for anyone that is interested in creation positive social change.
- https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics - The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s site detailing in-depth learning resources related to the history of race in America and how that affects our society now.
- www.knarrative.com - Web platform for the largest African Studies courses in the world. A great resource for learning history through an Pan-African lens.
Recommended Tools/Engines/Platforms
Digital
- Turbo
- Unreal Engine 5
- Game Maker
- Godot Engine
- Unity
- RPG Maker
- Twine
- Storyspace
- Bitsy
- Pico-8
Analog
- Tabletop RPG
- Board Game
Resources
Visit our Game Jam Guide to find even more tools, resources, and free assets. See a sample below as well.
Game Jam Guide + Resource List
Art
- OpenGameArt (2D + 3D)
- Kenney (2D + 3D)
- Game-Icons (2D)
- Textures.com (Textures)
- Poly.pizza (3D)
- TheBaseMesh (3D)
Audio
- Incompetech - Royalty Free Music (Music)
- Free Music Archive (Music)
- lmms
- Freesound (SFX)
- OpenGameArt (Music + SFX)
- Kenney (Music + SFX)
- Soniss (SFX)
Tools
- BitFontMaker2 (Fonts)
- Photopea (Art)
- Paint.NET(2D Art program)
- Asesprite (Sprite Creator)
- Krita (2D Art Program)
- Blender (3D Art Program)
- sfxr (SFX Generator)
- Chiptone (SFX)
- Tiny Tools (More!)
Jam Sponsors
Thank you so much to our sponsors below for providing funding and promotion for prizes and other jam resources!
Jams & Joysticks is music, sports, pop culture and everything video games available on Twitch, YouTube and various podcasting platforms. From gaming, game development, animation, story creation and the opportunities and inspiration behind it all, Jams & Joysticks has something for everyone.
Plus Arcade is a creative studio powered by community, culture, and bold ideas. They specialize in event production, design consultation, and hands-on workshops for the gaming and creative media world. Whether it’s throwing unforgettable gaming parties, hosting indie showcases, or helping creators level up their vision, they're here to make magic happen.
Owlchemy Labs is an XR studio with a passion for polished, playful VR games and experiences. Their experiences are oozing with style, absurdly funny, and with ground-breaking accessibility to bring more joy to more people.
Rodo teaches marketing and community management skills to game devs, indie animation studios and startups. They're currently managing a marketing campaign for the indie animation film, Double Smooth.
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BiG Byte Game Jam 2024
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