IF YOU WANT TO JUST HOP TO OUR DISCORD, CLICK HERE!

Welcome to ENTRY LVL's first-ever game jam, the Summer Entry Jam!
ENTRY LVL is kicking off this August with a month-long jam, celebrating industry hopefuls and early entrants to the video game industry! Come join us on August 1st 12:00 AM EST as we kick off our 4 week jam, following the schedule below:

AUGUST 1ST, 12:00AM EST: Jam officially begins! 

SEPTEMBER 1ST 12:00AM  EST: The 1st official ENTRY Jam ends! All submissions are finalized and passed to the judges, who will score your game out of 30 and rank your game out of all the submissions. Our top submission will be earning prizes!

OCTOBER 1ST 12:00AM EST: Results are finalized and released, and our winner is officially announced

We know, we know, rules are the least fun part of a game jam. But we have to go over them, promise! These rules will make sure your entry is 100% valid for judging. If you break even one, we'll have to disqualify you from the judging, and even completely remove the game from our submissions!

• Submit a Windows Build
  Engines such as RPG Maker, RenPy, Unreal, Twine, Unity, and Godot are all valid options! However, mods & non-solo TTRPGs will be difficult for our judges to play and will be invalid. 

• NO GENERATIVE AI
  This should be simple enough. Absolutely no generative AI (including generated text!) allowed. This is a hard no for the folks at ENTRY LVL
  
  
• ANY TEAM SIZE IS OK
  Like the above states, any size of the team is ok! Please make sure to credit everyone though. Remember as well that more doesn't always equal better! Sometimes it can be difficult to manage large teams on strict deadlines
  
  
• PRE-CREATED ASSETS OK
  Use of pre-made assets are absolutely ok by us; this jam is meant to be creator friendly, after all! If you're using free assets (for example, offered by the Unity Store), please make sure to credit them properly in your itch page and game.
  
  
• PRE-CONCEPT PHASE OK!
  You're allowed to spend the time period before the jam officially starts to find or create a group! You're also allowed to prototype, create concept art, and moodboardsbefore the jam starts! 

• KEEP IT SFW, PLEASE! THAT BEING SAID, 18+
  While we understand that great narratives are often built on sensitive subject matter and some gory graphics can be great, we'd like to keep this open to everyone and that means no NSFW content (excessive violence, sexual themes, nudity, etc.). If you're not sure if something is counted as NSFW, please message us! In accordance with our discord, please be over 18 years of age when entering!

• INCLUDE OUR THEMES
  Our ENTRY Jam features two amazing themes (more info below)! Please make sure to include them to make the best use of your points. One of the bonus themes is totally optional, but you do get loooooooveeely bonus points for adding it!

• YOU'RE ALLOWED TO SUBMIT TO OTHER JAMS BUT...You must respect our rules AND the other jam/s you are submitting to. Failure to comply will lead to disqualification
  

• MUST SUBMIT ON ITCH.IO BY DEADLINE
  We're not great at following a billion submissions to a billion sites. For that reason and for our judges' sake, we'll only be accepting games officially submitted to our ENTRY Jam itch page within our deadline of September 1st at midnight EST.

Every good jam has a theme, and because we're even cooler than every other good jam we have TWO themes. These are concepts, ideas, or keywords that must be used within your game or game concept; the more creatively the better! One of our themes is a must-have and will grant you a maximum of 5 points based on its use. The other is totally optional, but will get you a bonus point!

Our MAIN THEMEIS "FISH", and you can visit our Discord where updates will be posted first.

Our secondary theme (or bonus theme) is our mascot, FishHook! FishHook is ENTRY LVL's official mascot: an underwater dragon fit for ruling the seven seas! Including them in your game will get you a bonus point, however that may look.

Ain't he cute!

We've decided to leave the popularity contest out of it this time, and are instead putting the ultimate judgement of your game in the wonderful and capable hands of our three expert judges!

DESTINEE CLEVELAND is the founder and director for Dames 4 Games, a marketing manager, a writer, and so much more!

MELINN CHAILOM is an indie game dev whose career was launched by winning a full scholarship through game jam projects.

BRODY ARMSTRONG is one of 3 founders of Glowbox Games, making games and marketing is what he does best!

Our judgement rubric (patent pending) is a scored rubric of 26 points that our 3 judges will be grading your game out of over the course of September. These points are divided as follows:

• THEME (/5) : Does your game fit the primary theme provided by the ENTRY LVL game jam?
• INNOVATION (/5): Is your game innovative? Does it include unique gameplay, styles, or creative elements? Are your elements original?
• GAMEPLAY (/5): Is your gameplay smooth and easy to understand? Is your game FUN to play? Remember, accessibility counts!
• SOUND DIRECTION (/5): Does your game make good use of sound and music? Is your sound/music original content?
• NARRATIVE DIRECTION (/5): Is your narrative direction easily to follow (as limited as it may be)? Does the script/writing make sense?
• MASCOT USAGE (+1): Did you put our mascot in your game?

Okay, okay, you want to get to the fun stuff. We do too, don't worry!
Our prizes are subject to change, but right now FIRST PLACE within our jam by the end of the September is able to win the following:

• ONE (1) HUMBLE BUNDLE STEAM KEY PACK
• ONE (1) COPY OF SIZEABLE BY BUSINESS GOOSE STUDIO
• ONE (1) COPY OF SUNSET DRIVE BY KLAPANOM GAMES

Remember, this isn't per person! This is per team, so keep that in mind :)

We're a social kind of people, and that's to your benefit! You can follow all of our updates, information, and posting on LinkedIn, BlueSky, or Discord. You can also use these socials to meet some awesome new connections!

DISCORD IS OUR PRIMARY USE FOR THE GAME JAM. LinkedIn is our business-y one and BlueSky is our main social media outlet, but Discord serves as our main connection to all of you!

Discord will be used to allow you to:

• Post & Find potential team members for the game jam
• Contact moderators via ModMail to ask questions or confirm content
• See our updates LIVE as soon as they come out
• Be fun and meet the ENTRY LVL community!