Last year we said goodbye to Harold in the Harold's Last Stand game jam. But the truth is, Harold never left our hearts, our minds, or our games. He has fought off those MZ interlopers and has emerged, Theme 6 blasting.

This year we honor this beloved mascot with a new jam! There is no one true Harold. Our interpretation of him varies from incompetent dunce to savvy spellsword. An entire universe of Harolds exists within the creative minds of RPG Maker developers, and the Enter the Haroldverse game jam reflects this Haroldian ambiguity.

Hosted by Human and the RPG Maker Beta Testers Server!  Feel free to post a link to your submission on the server and let other members work out the bugs!

Themes:

Participants are required to select one main theme and one sub-theme. Main themes should be an important and obvious part of the game. Sub-themes merely must appear in some form somewhere in the game. You may interpret the themes creatively and flexibly!

Main themes:
Return of Harold
Harold: Origin
Harold Immortal
Enter the Haroldverse

Sub-themes:
Harold vs. Reid
Lost Sword
Harold's Apprentice
Theme6
HTML
Spark and Heal
Default
"MV" - (These letters, not the engine)

Rules:

1. Harold must be central to your game, whether he is the hero, villain, ever-present deity, or anything of the sort, he must be the core of your game.
2. Game length of 5-45 minutes long. Games that go significantly over in time should be docked by voters accordingly (Harold criterion partially should measure this).
3. Include one main theme and one sub-theme.
4. Collaboration is permitted (and any number of submissions is allowed).
5. Participants are encouraged to play and rate at least 3 other entries.
6. All game engines are allowed, although for obvious reasons, RPG Maker games are preferred. Also remember to  follow the EULA for any assets you use (MV Harold assets outside of RPG Maker games is a no-no). The community tab includes non-Harold resources you can use outside of RPGM (and we'll all know who they are supposed to be).
7. No pre-existing games! Please do all your devving during the jam time.  Pre-existing art work, animations, plugins, and other assets are permitted.
8. Custom assets are allowed, including plug-ins and art made by others as long as you credit and have the rights to use them.
9. Human reserves the right to disqualify entries at his discretion.

Judgment Categories:

Voted on

1. Harold
   How well does this game capture the spirit and essence of Harold? Does it do Harold justice and lend honor to his memory? Is it short enough for Harold's attention span?
2. Fun
   Did you enjoy playing?
3. Creativity
   Includes aspects of the game like art, music and sound design, gameplay, and writing - anything requiring originality and imagination.

Manually ranked

 Harold Ascendant Award. This will be awarded by Human himself to his top picks, but will be independent of voting. It will not award anything but bragging rights.

Rating Queue:

We will once again be using the "Rating Queue" system first seen in 2020's GMTK! All raters will be given a random selection of three games to rate before they can rate anything else. After rating the three randomly assigned games, raters can then rate whichever games they choose.

In case more than 25 submissions are made, the deadline for rating will be extended accordingly.

Thanks to Leaf @ itch.io for setting this up!

Prizes:

Winners of the jam will be determined by community voting, based on the criteria above.

1st Place:
$75 to be redeemed immediately for art, music, or other game dev assets (DM me on Discord - Human#8016 - and I'll buy you things).

2nd Place:
$50 to be redeemed immediately for art, music, or other game dev assets (DM me on Discord - Human#8016 - and I'll buy you things).

3rd Place:
$25 to be redeemed immediately for art, music, or other game dev assets (DM me on Discord - Human#8016 - and I'll buy you things).

4th Place:
$25 DLC from the Degica Shop (Thank you Nowis- 337 and RonaldBabe for the awesome prize!)

If the winner is a member of the RPG Maker Beta Testers Server, they will also get a unique "Harold Immortal" award role. Judgment period may be extended  depending on the # of entries.

The original Harold graphics belong to KADOKAWA.
Extreme thanks to Nowis for contributing the art. Truly a Michelangelo of the RPGM world.

All asset prizes come out of my pocket (and thanks to our contributors for 4th place prizes). If you want to help support the server, the jam, or me,  drop me a dollar or two! I'm probably just going to burn it on community Harold art, but if you're here, maybe you're all about that.

https://www.patreon.com/RPGBetaTesters