Welcome to Climate Jam 2024!
Kickoff Keynote - game designer and USC Games professor Richard Lemarchand welcomes us to this year’s jam and goes over the game development process: https://youtu.be/rIQK5cP9sak
Theme
Climate Jam organizer and mentor Dargan Frierson introduces this year’s theme: https://youtu.be/xMqa74pycis
Climate Jam is a yearly game jam devoted to making games that raise awareness and explore solutions to address our rapidly changing planet.
This year’s main theme is Change the Story, which means:
- Telling the stories of climate justice that aren’t often told.
- Countering the history of disinformation.
- Breaking out of the dialectic of pessimism (too gloom and doom) vs optimism (too rosy). The real world is more complex!
We strongly encourage you to make games that explore this topic, but any game related to climate change and related issues still fits the spirit of the jam!
Format
Greenlight Jam co-creator Tyler Coleman explains why we chose this style of jam: https://youtu.be/IssqYwAU6wU
For the first time, we are incorporating the Greenlight format into Climate Jam. This means you are participating in a five-week jam broken up into sprints. Each sprint has its own focus and deliverables with the aim to work step-by-step towards a polished, releasable project.
The sprints ahead are Ideation, Prototype, Production, and Release and Marketing.
Sprint 1: Ideation
IndieCade Co-Founder and festival Director Sam Roberts introduces the Ideation sprint: https://youtu.be/o3WMp31XRGk
Your first sprint is Ideation. For the next week, you want you to focus on brainstorming and working out what you will make.
Do not fully start making a game. Instead you should brainstorm, research, work out team structures, and do some early prototyping (things you can throw away later!). What are you going to make? What is the gameplay? How will the player engage? What is the fun-factor? What will it look like?
For those of you who jam regularly, you might find it challenging to not jump right in. But the extra time spent ideating and planning will pay off in the upcoming weeks. If this was a typical 48 hour jam, this is the "end of Friday night" for where you should be.
Submission
For this sprint we want you to submit concept art, storyboards, and mood boards. Show us your aesthetic plan, your ideas about potential game mechanics. Provide a rough plan of what you’ll make and how you'll make it in the weeks provided.Consider how and where your project might be released once it’s done.
Submissions for Ideation are due by June 22nd at 12pm Noon, Pacific Daylight Time.
Submit your Ideation materials here: https://itch.io/jam/climate-jam-2024-ideation
Do not submit to the main Climate Jam itch.io page!
Ranking
After submissions close, and Sprint 2 begins, there will be a 4 day ranking period where we invite Submitters and Contributors to look at the other entries and rank them on the following criteria (this also gives you an idea of what to think about while working on yours).
- Promising Idea - How interesting is the concept? In a perfect world where all development goes as planned, would you want to play this concept?
- Reasonable Scope - How reasonable is the scope for the timeline of the jam? Does this project seem larger than the Climate Jam timeline?
- Aesthetic / Art - How cohesive is the aesthetic? Is there a clear theme? Is there concept art and does it help portray the game's intent?
- Well Planned Production - Is there a clear production plan? Does the developer clearly show a plan to make this, with an understanding of potential risks and unknowns?
- Use of Themes - how effectively or uniquely does this concept engage in the jam's themes ("Climate Change", "Change the Story", or related)?
Jam Community
We have a Climate Jam community on the IndieCade Discord server! We have channels for resources, mentors to discuss science and game development, places to find team members, and more! It’s a great place to ask questions, chat, and meet other jammers.
If you are new to the IndieCade Discord server:
- Go to https://www.indiecade.com/discord
- Hit the green button with the checkmark to acknowledge our Code of Conduct.
- Enter in the following command in any channel to get the Climate Jammer role: !climate
- There are channels marked specifically for Climate Jam 2024.
Also, if any of you want to share a devlog with the community, let us know! We can link to an external site where you post or host it on the server.
Climate Storytelling Challenge
To help get you in the Climate Jam mindset, and help your fellow jammers, we have an optional weekly challenge. Find a good example of climate storytelling from a media source other than games. It could be from a social media post, a TikTok or YouTube video, or a news article. It could be climate fiction, in the form of a short story or movie.
Share it to the #climate-storytelling channel, and say why you like it! At the end of the week we’ll compile them into a list on the #jam-resources channel.
Extra side quest: Contact the creator of your piece, tell them about our jam, and ask them if they have ideas about making quality climate games!
We hope you all have a fun jam and can’t wait to see your ideas come to life!
Regards,
The Climate Jam Team