Welcome to the first ever Indie Maker Syndicate game jam! Looking to get into custom controllers and intro electronics while making a unique game? You’ve come to the right place.

Want to participate? Buy your kit from our Adafruit Wishlist!
Ready to Jam? Join us 3/19 at 6PM on twitch.tv/makersplay for game jam tips, our controllers workshop, and our theme announcement!
Looking for a team? Head to the #find-a-team channel in the IMS discord!

Active Jammers:

•  Steal our CODE for your controller!
  
• Test out your controller with Twisty Tunnels, a sample game made by Andy! Thanks, Andy!
• See our Game Jam resources!
• Watch Mark's workshop again! If you want to! Thanks, Mark!
• Check out the theme reveal video!

About the Jam

We’ll launch this jam with a livestream workshop on how to build a simple alternative controller, which will map rotary inputs to keypresses. Jammers will design and develop games that fit this unique interface, and at end of the jam you’ll have a small library of games designed your custom hardware as well as a solid starter kit for building alt control games and experiments

If you’re interested in joining this jam, we recommend buying the hardware for the controller in advance - all inputs are mapped to keypresses, but our goal is to have games that feel natural on the hardware. Don’t worry, the controller doesn’t require any soldering or special tools, and the pieces you’ll be buying are easily repurposed for other experiments!

This is a remote jam! We will stream the workshop and jammers will be able to talk, ask questions & make teams on the IMS discord . Please consider the safety of yourself and others if you chose to work in person with people you do not live with.

The Theme

The Controller

Our controller is simple by design: two arcade buttons and one rotary controller and nothing else, powered by an Adafruit Circuit Playground Classic. We’ll provide code for the Playground that translates inputs as follows:

• The rotary encoder will translate clockwise movement to "right arrow" presses, and counterclockwise movement to "left arrow". Rotary encoders can spin infinitely in either direction, making it a fun piece of hardware you won't find on a typical game controller! Flicking the rotary quickly can lead to a lot of simultaneous presses, letting you make games that might not work with a standard button.
• The arcade buttons will map to "Z" and "X"

You can view and buy the full parts in our Adafruit Wishlist. You’ll also need a mini-USB cable to load code onto the controller (you probably have a few of those lying around, make sure that they’re not simply power only and can carry data.) Buying the controller is not required to submit for this jam, but it is highly recommended as games should feel more natural on the rotary controller than they do on keyboard. 

The Theme

Though the controller itself is the main theme of the jam, we'll post a more conceptual theme here when the jam begins on March 19th. Tune in to our kickoff workshop on the 19th to see how to build your controller and see the theme as soon as possible.

Submission Rules

The controller and its code are standardized, so that all submitted games can be played without having to change the controller at all - make sure left, right, z, and x are the only buttons needed to play your game. The controller will read as a keyboard so you can use any game making tool you'd like to make your game.

Makers Play

A week after submissions end, we'll highlight jam entries during Makers Play, the Indie Maker Syndicate's first livestream event. IMS is a collection of creators and curators, united around the goal of making a digital space for indie developers and tinkers to showcase their work. You can learn more about IMS at indiemakersyndicate.com, and tune in for our livestream at twitch.tv/makersplay.