🍻🍹 THE DAYDRINKING JAM 🍾🍼

EVERYONE PLEASE TAKE A BOTTLE. AND JUST START DRINKING. THERE ARE NO CONSEQUENCES. THANK YOU.

Ok so here's how it is; I'm bored as hell right now and I would like to see more stories and works of art, about or featuring daydrinking as a prominent theme or subject matter. I am choosing to be as petty, unprofessional and self-serving about this as possible. There are no gods or kings here.

Other than that, I have very little in the way of constraints or structure. Go wild. Interpret that however you will.

There will be a $200 prize pool, split $100:$60:$40 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

(Watch Hot Sauce Miku because I like it and it's also the vibe here)

PROJECT GUIDELINES AND ADVICE:

• TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF: This jam is intended to be beginner friendly. The timeframe isn't intended for people to crunch the whole time. Work at a pace that's reasonable for you. If you're not sure, or if its your first time entering a jam, aim to make something small, concise, not perfect. 

• While daydrinking is the central theme, the goal of the jam is to make a narrative game or project in any format that features daydrinking. This can mean whatever you interpret it to be: an inciting incident, a game mechanic, an event within the narrative or even something adjacent to daydrinking that elicits the same feeling. It can be miserable, it can be full of hope, it can be serious, it can be silly. 

• Most importantly, I need you to be unrestrained and unhinged. Dear god, I'm so hungry for evil shit. My goal on this earth is to spread blight and pestilence.

• Since games are the main focus here, I would like to take a moment to point participants to Nadia Nova's "how to make a visual novel" tutorial. It mainly covers making games using renpy, which is not required for this jam, but for people who don't know where to begin, it's a good starting point. There's lots of other helpful advice here too about making a project. https://nadianova.neocities.org/pages/vntutorial

TECHNICAL RULES:

• Any game engine/format that can create something for Windows, Linux and Mac is allowed, the only requirement being that it is narrative focussed. Games and visual novels are the primary focus, but if you feel that you can make something on topic in another medium (for instance, a comic or an AMV) then this is allowed too. Just make sure it's something you can upload on itch.

• NSFW allowed and encouraged. For this reason all members of a team must strictly be 18+. SFW entries are still fine.

• Participants must provide a contact email to be eligible for a prize, which will be given out through Paypal. The person receiving the prize is responsible for distributing it among any other team members, if applicable. Please be good about this.

• Your project should work or be viewable in its own medium. For games, please test to make sure it works. It should work on Windows at minimum, other platforms too if possible.

• Your project must be freely available. After judging has been completed, you can do what you like with it.

• Your story may cover heavy or upsetting themes, but ultimately should not encourage bigotry. Entries that break this rule will be disqualified.

• No use of generative AI is permitted, at any point in your project, not even for placeholders. If you feel like you aren't good enough, I'd still rather see your best try at making something without gen AI or LLMs. An amateur work won't necessarily be judged as less than something more polished.

• I ask that you don't start work on your project until the jam officially begins. You may however use pre-existing assets, either your own or from public domain. Trusting people to work on the honor system here, I'm not a cop.

• The jam is unranked. Once the jam period has concluded, I will take as long as it needs to look through all the entries. After that I will pick three entries to receive a cash prize. I don't have an ETA on this. If I get a lot of entries, it may take several months or more. Please have a way I can contact you once judging has been decided (email preferred).

• There is no strict team size limit, or project size limit, but I would like to ask participants to aim to be concise in their work. Brevity and accomplishing the goals of your story succinctly will be one of the judging criteria.

• No time extensions, the deadline is the deadline. Sorry. I know things go wrong sometimes, but I'd rather not be in the position of deciding who gets an exemption and for what.

• It should go without saying, but just in case; don't drink irresponsibly irl. Harming yourself or others around you will result in a disqualification. I'm not your mom.

Examples of works I like that I would consider on theme

PASSENGER x PRINCESS: NO HOPE // MUST DIE (by me)
LONER_DOG://Snuff Puppy Carnage Society (by Snek, Blood Machine, Jane Gorelove, red_kino and Henni Wiesner)
HOPELESS JUNCTION: puppy dog barf girl and co. (by Nadia Nova)
Repo Man (1984) (directed by Alex Cox)
Serious Weakness (by xrafstar)
NOTHING MATTERS SINCE YOU LEFT THE WORLD HOT SAUCE (Kaho Matsui ft. Hot Sauce Miku)
Dum Surfer (by King Krule)

There's no Discord. Sorry. I don't want to do that. I encourage you to reach out to others for help and collaboration though. You can use the community forums for the jam for this.

THE JUDGES (as things stand):

Lunaticker (myself) 
Masha 

Good luck and have fun.