💀 Dead Air 🩸 Horror Game Jam starts May 18th!
Welcome to Dead Air, a horror game jam hosted by qforge.studio!
Your job: make a short, Telltale-style branching horror game with immersive audio — voiced characters, sound design, and player choices using qforge.studio.
Every voice, every silence, every sound builds the horror.
🎧 What is qforge.studio?
qforge.studio is an interactive audio storytelling platform and studio — think choose-your-own-adventure meets audiobook, with branching paths, voiced characters, sound and music.
✨ Example stories
- The Doorstep — a tense horror story where your choices decide what happens next
- Dust — a cinematic world built through sound and atmosphere
⚡ How it works
- 📖 Write your horror story in qforge.studio — or bring one you've already written
- 🎙️ Add character voices, sound effects, and music
- 🔀 Create branching choices that change how the horror plays out
- 🚀 Publish on qforge.studio and submit on itch.io
No coding required. No engine needed. Just your story, brought to life through sound.
🏆 Prizes
🥇 1st place — $150
🥈 2nd place — $100
🥉 3rd place — $50
⚖️ Judging Criteria
- Voice & Sound Design — Voice direction, sound design, music, and mixing. Do the voices feel alive, and does the sound build the horror, including the silences?
- Writing & Choices — Dialogue, character voice, and choice design. Does the writing sound natural spoken aloud, and do the choices make the player hesitate or want to replay?
- Atmosphere & Dread — The horror payoff - pacing, tension, restraint. Does it actually unsettle you, or just describe scary things?
📜 Rules
- Your entry must be built and published on qforge.studio during the jam window.
- You can adapt an existing story or start fresh.
- Must have branching choices, at least two decision points that affects the narrative.
- The entry must be in a playable/listenable state at submission. Demos and works-in-progress are welcome.
- 👥 Solo or team - any size.
- 🔞 NSFW content must be clearly marked and follow itch.io rules
- 💜 No hateful, harassing, or discriminatory content
- 💬 Joining the Discord is optional, but recommended for updates, feedback, and support
💡 Tips
- Headphones change everything. Design for them.
- Silence is a weapon. The pause before the voice answers is scarier than the voice.
- Less image, more imagination. One haunting frame beats a slideshow.
- Branches don't have to be huge. A few meaningful forks beat one big map of dead-ends.
🎓 Tutorials
Need help getting started?
👉 Watch qforge.studio tutorials
⚖️ Rights
Creators retain full copyright to their stories.
By submitting an entry, participants grant the jam organizers permission to showcase and promote their work in connection with the jam and qforge.studio (for example on websites, social media, presentations, or videos).
Proper credit will always be given to the creator.
How to export a story?
Here’s a quick tutorial on exporting a story: Export a story in qforge.studio
🚀 Join the jam
👉 Start creating in qforge.studio
👉 Join our Discord
👉 Submit your project on itch.io
