Imagine this: you're minding your own business in the city one day, holding a cute gift box and waiting for a bus -- when suddenly...

> A scary ragtime fanged hunter of bounties from the wild west sneaks up on you, and steals your precious box! OH NO!

So you get up and at em, running and chasing and weaving through the busy sidewalks, desperately trying to catch that darn phantom thief...

And you catch up to them! With the power of a thousand suns, you leap forth and gloriously tackle your opp. Haha!

AH, but, oh... that sent your silly little gift box flying. And the top fell off...

And uh, there was a silly little gift in the box, also careening through the air like a bomb. With ominous little beeps. Because it is a bomb.

A flash of white renders you, your assailant, and the city into a cute Polaroid photo.

But when you flash back to think about how you got here, you remember something very, very peculiar:

You remember a silly little dog strolling up to you in the park, silly little gift box in hand.

You don't remember the good boy smirking or otherwise deviously grinning behind you, but now that you think about it...

> Wait a minute, what's really going on here!? Is there more going on? Who really has it out for you...?

... something like that, anyway.

Now imagine it as a video game! Go cook it... we'll be waiting.

Is the theme a requirement?

Yes! We provide the theme to serve as a bunker buster for those afflicted with Creator’s Block, a terrible debuff... beware, all ye who cross thee!

But what if I don't know how to make games?

That’s okay! Jams are all about experimenting and learning something new, and we want to encourage that here. Whether you’re an industry veteran or an artist looking to dabble, here’s how you can:

(If you want a quick reference, just pick one of the Big Four: GameMaker, Godot, Unity, Unreal Engine)

• If you have absolutely no programming knowledge (or some but don’t know where to start), you should start with the basic tutorials for easier-to-pickup game engines such as GameMaker or Godot to get a sense for how they work and how you can compose games in them!

• If writing code scares you but you want to make things work anyway, visual scripting is a great designer-friendly way to get into it:
  • Check out Construct 3 and/or GameMaker's visual tools!
    
  • Check out the Orchestrator asset for Godot here!
  • Despite being primarily C#, Unity also provides visual scripting!
  • Despite being a scary-big C++ engine, Unreal Engine also provides visual scripting via Blueprints.

• If you’re familiar with code but have never built a game, here are some common mappings that may help you pick one:
  • Got C++ or C#? One of the Big Three may suit you: Godot, Unity and Unreal Engine.
  • Don’t know how to architect a specific game feature, or layout? See if learning some common Game Programming Patterns will bust you through the wall!

• If you are a code zen expert or other veteran, pick up an engine you vibe with and start ripping its docs apart! Or, try some of these advanced recommendations:
  • Got that 8-bit fever? Pixel Vision 8, PICO-8, and Pyxel are engaging and challenging!
  • Interactive fiction or text adventure from days of yore? Try it in Clojure or Ink (similar to Markdown)!
  • Forge a retro dungeon crawler-style game in JavaScript or Haskell!

• If you’re looking for an insane challenge, try writing your own from scratch – SDL2 and Electron are common starting GUI frameworks for this. Remember, you still gotta make a game!

I don't have a team!

We hear you, so we’ve devised a clever '#looking-for-team' system on our Discord. Feel free to drop by there and engage with fellow jammers!

Important note: finding a team can be a difficult and stressful thing sometimes, we absolutely get it -- BUT! You can help us, yourself, and other devs out by being proactive in talking to one another (break the ice!), conveying thoughts and ideas, and assessing whether you'll be a good fit together. All are good soft skills to learn!

This isn't high school or university where you get forced together, after all... get out there and meet your devs!

Otherwise, nothing is going to happen, you won't find or form a team, and you'll kick yourself for not doing it. (been there... _(´ཀ`」 ∠)

What if I don’t want a team?

You can do that too! Some popular fan games (and plenty of official games!) were originally made by only one person, so don’t feel pressured to.

The inverse is true, however: don't feel pressured to make a game all by yourself.

One thing we will stress, as many veteran game devs do: teamwork is an important skill, and sometimes even necessary enabler! Games can get big and complex really quickly, so beware your capability and scope for the deadline.

Should I submit a web build, or is a normal build okay?

If it's at all possible, we strongly recommend a web build -- but we know that some engines can't target web builds, and that running some games in the browser are more restrictive on performance, so normal builds are still okay.

Why Discord only?

We know that consolidating community to a single, non-internet-indexable server owned by some random social media company is seen in a bad light, we do.

But nurturing a platform where our devs feel comfortable and cozy is one of our strongest goals, so the disjointed overhead of managing itch community boards just feels... transient. Yeah. Sorry! Even social media platforms like X/Twitter and Bluesky are better places to share comms (and for reach, we do!). 🤷‍♂️

(and yes, many of the platforms mentioned suffer from the class problem of Enshittification™... but there's nothing we can do about it right now.)

Are other VTubers okay too?

Yes! We're a pretty darn wide-reaching community, so it's inevitable some freaky fantomes, momos, nightmares, or other fans will come our way too. All the rules apply though, so don't forget Doki... we encourage you to try and make sly references to make up for it >:)

Does the game need to be finished?

You or your team should strive for a workable demo, but it’s more important to have fun with the process! It doesn’t have to be a fully-fledged game since you could keep working on it after the jam ends, but you should have a polished functional prototype of core game concepts or a story -- something that you’re proud of, that you had fun making.

That doesn't mean you can slack off on a half-baked game though, so give it your best! (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

What can I expect from showcases?

After everyone has gotten a chance to try out each others’ games and give feedback, the staff will hunker down and validate that every entry is safe. Entries will then get curated into a secure bundle that Dokibird and others may (or may not) choose to review, whether on-stream or otherwise.

If you don’t want to be in any showcases, that’s okay! Just let us know with your jam entry whether or not you consent, and we’ll make sure to exclude it if you don’t.

I'm a content creator. How do I stream Doki Jam games?

In general: it is almost always chill to stream Doki Jam games, as long as you credit authors and links in your description and don't make a bad name of Dokibird or authors; normal streaming-case commercial use including members-only is allowed.

An important exception to this blanket is that some jam devs may refuse consent to their submission being used for any showcases, which doubles as stream permission. To respect this decision, you must consult their page or the historical list of jam entries here via the "can_stream" column.

If you are uncertain of anything here, or you are a dev who wishes to modify their entry metadata in that hand-curated database, please reach out to staff via the ticketing system in Discord!

• Doki Jam, its organizers, affiliates, and partners claim zero ownership of your jam entry -- never ever!
• Have fun! :D, or else…