If you don't know who I am. My name is Josh Bycer and I run the site and channel Game-Wisdom. I specialize in talking about game design and covering varieties of games, especially indie titles. Over the past 7 years of running things, I have played and covered thousands of games. With the channel now over 10,000 subscribers, I wanted to start doing something special to raise awareness for it and to give more indie developers a chance to create something and get their own name out there.

And with that, I would like to do at least annually one game jam, maybe more if this takes off. These jams will be focused on a specific game design challenge, and I'll be offering a cash prize (make sure to read the rules for the condition).

The theme for our first game jam is: Opposite Day

Your challenge is to take a game mechanic/system, or genre qualifier -- something that is considered vital when defining a game, and do the opposite of it. This doesn't mean creating a bad or janky version of that genre, but to do something that would be the opposite of what we would normally expect out of this gameplay loop.

Rules Updated 9/14/23 for future jams 

teams should be no more than five people and you are free to organize on the Game-Wisdom discord.

The game jam period will run for no more than 10 days, entries not in by midnight will be disqualified.

All game jam games must be submitted via Itch, I will not accept email links to google drive or dropbox. https://itch.io/jam/game-wisdom-game-jam

Prototypes can be as short as you want, but a prototype should require no more than 30 minutes of playtime. While judging, if a game does exceed the 30-minute time limit, nothing past that mark will count for the game's rating.

For the sake of showing these off on stream, please keep things SFW.

You are free to use premade or store assets provided you have the license for them. 

All prototypes must be made during the jam itself, you are not allowed to turn in an already created game/prototype.

If a game cannot be played at all due to browser issues, or files are being flagged by basic antivirus software before running, those entries will be disqualified. If your game has a problem during judging, you will be given a chance to fix it.

Games will be graded in the following categories and what they mean score-wise:

Originality -- How original was the gameplay

• 1 - The game played like everything we've seen before 
• 5 - completely new gameplay for the respective genre

Gameplay -- How good was the overall experience to play?

• 1 - not enjoyable to play
• 5 - smiling ear-to-ear while playing

Performance-- Options menu, controls, UI/UX etc.

• 1 - The game is barely functional, if at all
• 5 - has full options, no bugs, slowdown, etc.

Aesthetics -- The look and feel of the game.

• 1 - It looks like someone just pasted asset packs into an engine and called it a day
• 5 - The art goes with the theme and gameplay perfectly

Clarity -- Does the game meet the theme of the jam and how clear was it?

• 1 - No idea how this game meets the theme
• 5 - The theme is front and centered and easily seen

Completion -- Is there a full concept and beginning, middle, and end to the demo?

• 1 - The submission is over before it starts showing any real gameplay
• 5 - The demo shows off the theme, explores gameplay with it, and has a conclusion

All game jam concepts and game designs submitted will be owned by the respective designers, and any coverage done on Game-Wisdom will be owned by myself. All games played and judged by me will be archived on a showcase video on the channel with links to the respective games listed. 

Judging Details:

Judging will be done by me along with several judges. The judges will play the games on their own, and grade the games on the three metrics I have listed above. Whichever game has the highest overall score from the judges will be considered the winner. After the jam period is over, I will give judges 14 days to play through the submissions (subject to change based on the number of submissions.)