Do you just want to make something that your audience does not expect from you at all?

The Came Out of Nowhere Jam is for you!

Theme:

Make something your audience would not expect out of you. This can be as simple as a game in a different engine or something extreme like making a horror puzzle game when you mainly make calm piano music albums.

Optional Ideas:

1. Make a game in a different language from your usual, or just use multiple languages at once. 🌐
2. Only use 5 or less colors. 🎨
3. Sell out. 💰

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Rules

1. Due the nature of this jam, your submission must have been released during the jam period and be the only submission with you as project lead.
2. Also, this jam requires that you (or your project lead) have made at least one other game or form of media outside of your submission. The point of this jam is make something your audience (whether they exist or not) would not expect out of you. You will be asked this when you submit to provide where this game (or project) can be accessed or you can just leave it blank if you just want us to see your Itch profile.
3. NSFW submissions are allowed, as long as it is marked as such.
   
4. Please no ai generated content, spam, or anything mean*.
   *This means don't promote anything mean. You can have characters in your game be bigots as long you don't actually endorse it and/or break itch's terms.
5. You are allowed to submit to other jams, but do keep in mind the rules of other jams. For example, this jam does not require your game to be in English, but other jams might require English in your game.

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QnA

I am not a game developer, but I want to make a game!

Assuming that you have released something else before, that's fine! There's multiple tools that you can use to make a game easily. Here are some examples.

• Twine - For interactive stories.
• Inform 7 - For (parser based) interactive stories
• Ren'Py - For visual novels
• Bitsy - For small pixel games
• GB Studio - For Game Boy games

I am a game developer and I want to make something else!

That's fine too! While this jam is focused on games, you can submit anything you want as long as your audience is not expecting it (and it's within reason too obviously like don't upload a virus that's bad). Sadly, I do not have tools for you to make it easier.

What if I never released something before and still want to participate?

While you can't do a solo game or be a team lead, you can still participate by joining other teams. The requirement only applies to the main lead of the project or the person submitting the game, so team members who aren't leading can be beginners if the lead wants to have some.