GMTK Game Jam 2025

The GMTK Game Jam is an annual game making marathon, where individuals and teams try to make a game that fits a theme, in a super short time period.

Each year thousands of games are submitted as designers improve their skills, flex their creative muscles, and try to get their game featured on Game Maker’s Toolkit. You can see (and play!) the past winners here. 

This Year's Theme

The theme for GMTK Game Jam 2025 will be revealed the moment the jam begins.

It's up to you how you interpret the theme, and you will be given a chance to explain how your game fits the theme when you submit. You will not be disqualified from the jam if your game doesn't adequately fit the theme.  

Voting Categories

Voting works a little differently this year.

We'll have five voting criteria - Creativity, Enjoyment, Narrative, Artwork, and Music

However, there is no "overall" ranking that combines all of these scores. So please don't feel like your game needs to be perfect in all of these categories.

After the jam is over, Mark will play a subset of the entries - based on all of these scores but weighted in favour of Creativity and Enjoyment.

More information will be shared closer to the jam's start!

Quick links

Discord Bluesky YouTube

Rules

Who Can Join

The GMTK Game Jam is an online game jam, so it's open to anyone, from anywhere, of any age. You can work alone or in teams.

More Details

If you're under the age of 13, a parent or guardian should upload the game.

There is no limit on the number of people per team, and people can be in multiple teams. You can submit more than one game.

Only one person needs to join itch.io and submit the game. However, if others on the team also join itch.io, they can be tagged as contributors. (On your game's itch page, pick "Edit", "More", "Admins", and follow the instructions). 

Game Compatibility

You must upload a digital game to itch.io, which is playable by someone using a Windows PC, with nothing more than a keyboard or mouse. It should not require additional hardware or software to run.

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You can support controllers and other peripherals, as long as keyboard or mouse also works.

You can upload builds for Mac, Linux, Android, etc, as long as you also have a Windows or browser version.

You should not require the user to download additional software from external sources. If your game requires additional files (like DLLs) they should be included in the download and not require separate installation.

The itch upload limit is 1GB. You can compress your game as a ZIP, RAR, or 7Zip file (ZIP is preferred). You can also upload larger files via Butler if you really need to.

You can have online features like multiplayer servers and leaderboards - but files hosted outside of itch.io must not be modified or updated during the voting period - with the only exception being to ensure compliance with itch.io rules (i.e. removing a rulebreaking leaderboard name).

Content Suitability

The game should be suitable for a general audience, so please avoid strong language and excessive gore. And your game should not contain nudity, or hateful language or visuals.

Assets

You may use pre-existing code and can use whatever art and audio assets you have the legal right to use, but you shouldn't make stuff ahead of time that is specifically for this jam. You should credit all external art and audio in your game description. 

More Details

You can use pre-existing code, libraries, and functions. And make use of generic code for things like menus or input.

You can also create things like a blank Unity project, a Github page, or your itch.io profile in advance to save time.

You can use pre-existing sprites, textures, fonts, models, shaders, animations, sound effects, and music - including public domain assets, assets you have purchased, assets you have made yourself, or assets that are (legally-acceptable) derivative works of existing media. 

Generative AI

You must not use generative AI to make art or audio assets for your game, or your Itch.io page.

More Details

In general, we ask that you do not use artificial intelligence for the GMTK Game Jam. Make it yourself, or find someone who can help! However, we are only able to actively police the use of generative AI for art and audio assets.

Voting

When the jam finishes, everyone is invited to play the games and rate them against five criteria: Creativity, Enjoyment, Narrative, Artwork, and Music. After the jam finishes, Mark will play a selection of the top-rated games and pick his favourites for a video on Game Maker's Toolkit.

More Details

When the jam ends, there's a five-day rating period where uploads to the jam will be locked, meaning you can no longer provide bug fixes, additional versions, or extra levels.  

Please do not put links to other builds (such as "Game jam upload has a bug! Please play this one!”) in your description or comments. This will see you being disqualified from the jam.

If you delete your game during this period, we will not be able to help you and you will be disqualified from the jam.

You can change your game's page during this time, including the thumbnail, description text, screenshots, and page design. You'll want to do this as fast as possible though, as the majority of the ratings happen at the very start of the rating period.

Once the rating period is over, you're free to update your game however you please, charge for it, release it on other platforms - the game is yours, do what you wish with it. 

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