SPOOKY SEASON HAS RETURNED

October is a scary month. Doom 3 is a scary game. It kinda fits, huh? And Doom 3 is neat in that you could snoop in people's private files because they were extraordinarily bad at infosec, but that was okay because they were either dead or in the process of dying, so no harm, no foul, right?

(IMPORTANT NOTE: The deadline has been extended to the evening of Nov 10th. Some unpleasant bugs were uncovered in TrenchBroomBFG that could affect development of entries using that editor. Some nice updates were also added to RBDOOM-3-BFG, and you're encouraged to upgrade immediately if you're going the TB+RBDoom route)

The Rules

While last year's jam was about dimension restrictions, this year's jam is focused on environmental storytelling.

You're more than welcome to throw in some demons to blow away, but we want to see what you can do with taking a player through a bite-size narrative of your choosing, whether that be done through a custom audio log or PDA email, some spoopy skeletons arranged in a questionable situation, or other clever way of letting the player know that Something Happened Here™.

Also, you're required to put in a toilet somewhere. Don't ask me; it was something that the Discord server really wanted.

You're allowed to use any custom content you have permission to use (Creative Commons assets, for example) as long as it's not something that's egregious, such as being pornographic or being hate speech. Use common sense, yo, and be sure to list credit where credit is due in your entry's README.

You're also allowed to team up!

OG Doom 3 and RBDoom3

There are no restrictions on which edition you go with. Use what feels comfortable to you! Just let us know in the README which edition you're targeting (which is probably more important for RBDoom, as it's not backwards compatible with OG D3).

Some Quick Guides

Since this jam goes a little bit beyond just tossing down some brushes and texturing them, it might be a good idea to brush up on some tutorial videos conveniently hosted on YouTube. This one might be the most relevant, but there's something to be learned from the entire playlist this video is from.

Also, if you're working with OG Doom 3 you might want to use DarkRadiant or Netradiant-Custom instead of the built-in DOOM Edit.

For the RBDoomers

New participants to Doom 3 mapping who are submitting an entry for the BFG Edition would do well to start with Tak's introduction video and 1.5 update video for the TrenchBroom-BFG + RBDoom-3-BFG workflow (though there's a lot that's still applicable from vanilla D3 tutorials, so don't neglect those either):

For The Blender Heads

You can now use Blender to make Doom 3 BFG maps, but Heaven help you if you do! This pathway is even more experimental than the TrenchBroom-BFG workflow, but you're more than welcome to try. The world needs more trailblazers!

Visit Our Discord Server For Help!

Join our id Tech 4 Discord server to chat with other jam participants in the #mapping-jam channel, show off progress, or ask for assistance when the way forward isn't obvious. We're a community, and we're all here to help each other out!

It might also be worth your while to browse the idTech4 ModWiki and idDevNet mirror that goes over some more advanced stuff that could help polish up your entry. 

Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

You have one month to complete and submit your entry, and that doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for much of anything, let alone environmental storytelling. This one's gonna be a tough one, so do yourself a favour, and don't attempt to make a Citizen Kane. If you worry you're over-thinking something, you probably are. Simplify, simplify, and HAVE FUN WITH TOILET-JAM, er, I mean the Spooky Jam. Right. Spooky Season Jam, because October and Halloween and everything...