Cats are great. Let's celebrate that!

The Cat Jam invites creators to make media about or prominently featuring cats. This includes tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) and physical games, plus everything adjacent like supplements, modules, hacks, or resources, as well as comics, illustrations, asset packs, writing, and video games. 

Submissions to this jam can opt-in to be included in a charity bundle with all proceeds going to Seattle Area Feline Rescue (SAFe Rescue). I'm a Pacific Northwesterner cat-lover myself, and I'm super happy to be working in collaboration with SAFe Rescue to bring more cat content into people's lives while supporting real cats and the people who love them too. SAFe Rescue takes in homeless cats and kittens, gives them the care they need to recover, and finds them loving homes. 

This jam features cute little badges that you can include on your entry. These badges are like achievements you can unlock by include certain features into your entry. They're self-reporting and are also used to help others know what to expect. If your entry fits the description of a badge, save that PNG and slap it wherever you'd like!

All the cats featured in these badges are currently or were previously adoptable through SAFe Rescue (or they're my cats).

Open to All Entry Types

This jam (and the subsequent bundle) is open to all entry types, from physical games to video games, visual novels to comics, zines to essays, whatever you've got that also adheres to the other rules. I'm a TTRPG guy myself, so this jam is set up like other physical game jams. However, our goal is to gather a bunch of amazing cat appreciation to raise money for charity, so the more the merrier.

No AI

Absolutely no AI. Any submission including AI generated or modified material, such as images, texts, or sounds, will be automatically disqualified and removed without warning.

No Bigotry

No bigotry, fascism, racism, sexism, transphobia, or hate speech will be tolerated. Any entries with bigotry or promotion of hatred towards marginalized groups will be removed. These themes may be included as forces to overcome, overthrow, or undermine, but not to be celebrated. Don’t make the Nazis the good guys. Don’t punch down.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions must prominently feature cats or cat-like creatures or people. Make cats the main characters, make it about running a cat cafe, add rules for cat companions or mounts or catperson playbooks to your favorite system, write a story or expansion all about protecting a cat village, there are so many (cat-related) options! Please do not emphasize, glorify, or make light of harm to cats. There is certainly nuance here, so feel free to ask questions in the community section or in the TTRPG Collective discord server (yes, even if you're not making a TTRPG).

Participants are encouraged to submit new works, but old works are accepted. Since we're looking to populate a charity bundle, I won't be a stickler about this, but try to at least spruce your entry up. Consider commissioning some art for it or finally fixing that one typo that's been haunting you.

Multiple submissions are welcome and encouraged (so long as you’re not spamming).

Simultaneous submissions to other jams are okay as long as your game genuinely suits the themes of each jam you’re submitting to (and you’re not spamming). 

You can collaborate with others as long as everyone involved in a submission is properly credited. Please come to an agreement well before publishing how revenue will be handled.

This bundle is family-friendly. Adult and NSFW content is awesome, but SAFe will be sharing the bundle around, so please keep these entries PG-13 or tamer and label with appropriate content warnings.

Late submissions won't be allowed in order to stay on track for our upcoming bundle. If you submit a WIP, please label accordingly.

Also, feel free to join us in the TTRPG Collective Discord Server (look for the Cat Jam thread) and share your process! We're always hyping each other up, and giving a helping hand so if a brand-new project seems daunting, we’re here and we’d love to help! As I mentioned, I'm a TTRPG creator, so this is the server I'm already hanging out in. We're not about gatekeeping though, so you're absolutely welcome even if you only have a passing knowledge of roleplaying games. We've got gamers of all stripes and a bunch of awesome artists.

Accessibility

Your submission may be paid or free, but it must be available to other jam participants while the jam is active. You can include community copies, share a download link or file in the TTRPG Collective Server, or make it accessible in some other way of your choice. However, do consider putting a price on your work—your creativity, time, and energy are valuable and valid (also prevents bots from scraping your project).

Label content warnings that might be applicable to your entry.

Safety tools are an important part of all roleplaying games—and I bet video games too. Please use the TTRPG Safety Toolkit curated by Kienna Shaw and Lauren Bryant-Monk.

Have Fun

Have fun! This is not the kind of jam to lose sleep or stress out over. Participate with your community, share drafts, bounce ideas off each other, and enjoy the process. If your idea fizzles out, try something new! If you're running down to the wire, submit something incomplete (just try to come back to it later)! If you don’t finish, that’s okay too—I hope you had fun in the meantime, and I’ll catch you in the next jam.