Conway's Jam of Life
In honor of the famed mathematician John Conway, who has unfortunately passed away recently, this is a game jam exploring his life's work. If you don't know who John Conway was, here is his wikipedia article. The theme of this Jam is anything related to his life's work, much of which has had a huge impact on the games industry.
Themes
Possible themes can be anything in the spirit of the work of Conway. Given his work, this can include a large variety of themes! To make it a little easier, there will be 6 thematic categories, 5 that are themes based on specific parts of Conway's ideas and one category for anything ( that's still in the theme of Conway's work ) that isn't covered in the other five categories. The themes are as follows:
1. Emergence
Conway's Game of Life famously modeled a system where complex behavior, and even gameplay mechanics, could emerge from simple rule sets and starting setups! This was a kind of gateway to understanding that interactions could arise from a group of systems, instead of being designed. Without this idea we wouldn't have games that were able to create gameplay from a collection of parts! That would mean a world without games like "Thief", "Minecraft" orimmersive sims like "Deus Ex". For this category, submissions should try to think about emergence! This could mean a lot of different things, such as creating a game about a new kind of life emerging from an unlikely place, or gameplay that's created by combining different systems.
2. Virtual Ecology
Another aspect that Conway's Game of Life introduced is the idea of virtual ecology. World's with different organisms that interact and finite resources that can all affect each other in one way or another. Without this we may have never seen games like, "The Sims", "Roller-coaster Tycoon"or even massive-multiplayer games like, "Ultima Online" be created. Submissions to this category should try to think about creating a world with a lot of different parts that interact with one another.
3. Free Will!
In 2006, alongside fellow mathematician Simon Kochen, Conway created a theorem that proposed a relationship between physics and free will. In honor of that, one of the thematic categories of this jam is Free Will! So you're free to do with it what you will!
4. Satisfying Geometry
Have you ever played a game of tetris and gotten just the right combination of blocks? Does making the most out of tiny spaces make you happy? Well, Conway seemed to like that feeling too! A number of Conway's ideas, like the Conway Puzzle were about making the most out of tight spaces. In fact, the blocks in "Tetris", called "pentominos", can fit in such tight spaces because of something called the Conway Criterion! So this theme deals with game-play or stories with a theme of making the most out of limited space.
5. Combinatorial Game Theory and AI
Sudoku, Go, Chess, Checkers and even tic-tac-toe are combinatorial games! Conway spent a lot of time devoted to figuring out ways to think about these kinds of games, and a lot of those insights even gave rise to innovations in AI and algorithms ( like the ones used to perform Google searches ). Conway also did work on Finite-State Machines, which are one of the bedrock approaches to building AI in video games today. This theme can be anything dealing with these topics.
6. Unbounded
This category can be anything related to Conway's life of work that doesn't fit in with the other five (5) themes. If you submit to this category, include in your description what part of Conway's life inspired your submission.
Rules
- Work alone or in a team ( up to 10 members total ) to make the best game you can.
- The majority of the game must be made within the timeline for the game jam.
- Props and Assets that don't make up the core of the game that were made before the Jam begins are allowed.
- When voting begins, vote for the game that best captures it's categories
- (Optional) Vote for which solo developer submission deserves the the best One Man developer award.
- (Optional) Vote for which submission is the most creative!
- Have fun!
Submission Guidelines
Entry Timeline
- The Jam will start on April 17th at 12:00 AM (UTC) and end, one month later, on May 17th at 12:00 AM (UTC).
- The voting period will last one week, from May 17th at 12:00 AM (UTC) to May 24th.
- Winners will be announced when the Jam ends.
Project Requirements
When submitting the game, you'll need to provide the following information:
- Your game, in a *.zip archive with your author/team name & game name ( "myGame_myTeam.zip")
- Project name
- Author or Team name
- What categories the project should be judged under
- If in the "Unbounded" category, what in Conway's life inspired the project.
- List any content made before the jam.
- (Optional) If you were a solo developer, let us know so you can be in the pool for the "One Man Army!" category.
- (Optional) A link to gameplay footage (or a gameplay trailer) on Youtube or Vimeo. Please keep it to between 30-60 seconds.
Project Restrictions
- To submit your game to itch.io, your game must be under 1 GB.
Thinking of streaming your work?
Put #conwaysjam in the tags, or twitter posts so others participating can see what you're up to!
Want to make more than one submission?
That's great! You can submit up to 3 games to this jam if you're feeling that industrious!
Happy jamming everyone!
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