Welcome to Indie City Allstars, our first competitive game jam! For those of you looking to test yourselves against the rest of the community, now's your chance: break out your A-game, your most galaxy brain dev mechanics, your top-tier dev skills- it's time for the first community development throwdown. Competitors are invited to create a single-player arcade game into a competition judged by Iron Galaxy and Itch.io community votes, culminating in a live pop-up arcade hosted by Night City.

After the jam’s end, 10 selected projects will be featured as part of a live competition and pop-up arcade at Night City. Prizes will be awarded to first, second, and third places at the event, ranked according to the number of tokens received/plays by attendees. 

Players will be able to exchange “tokens” at game booths to play, receiving tickets based on leaderboard placement. Tickets will be able to be exchanged for player prizes at the event. A set amount of tokens are given to attendees upon entry. Total tokens received will be tallied at 8:30pm CST at the pop-up arcade. Winners will be announced live at the event after tally, with prizes being sent out within seven business days via Paypal or Venmo (winner’s preference).

Suggested Theme and Guidelines

(Optional) themes are:

Constant Drain

Bounce Back

Crunchy

Some potential guidelines for creating arcade games include:

• Minimal Buttons
• Easily learned with basically no tutorial
• Fun to spectate
• High-score focused
• Average play session 30 seconds to 2 minutes

Schedule

• June 28 - 12:00 PM Central Time:  Jam begins, optional themes announced!
• July 17 - 11:59 PM Central Time: Submissions due, Community Voting opens
• July 21 - Officially Selected games announced
• Saturday, July 27 | 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM: Community reception and pop-up arcade (RSVP required!) with winners announcement held at Night City 

Quick Links

• Indie City Games Discord
• Night City
• Game Jam entry form
• RSVP for community reception / pop-up arcade

Official Selection

Games must be original and created during the jam period. Asset packs are allowed, with credit to their creators. In order to qualify for the pop-up arcade and competition, games MUST have a leaderboard function, be singleplayer, and should be high-score/arcade focused. Leaderboards may be local only, and are not required to have online functionality.

All entries will be reviewed by a selection committee from Iron Galaxy. Games qualify to compete for the prize at the pop-up arcade by either being selected as a judges’ pick (five games), or ranking within the top five community votes. Community votes are decided on after judges picks have been decided, in order to prevent overlap (I.E., if the five Judges’ picks include the #1 ranked community vote, then the #2 community vote would count as the highest ranked for pop-up arcade selection purposes. Games must also submit the jam entry form, and have at least one team member able to attend the pop-up in-person.

We want to minimize gatekeeping and encourage community participation across all skill levels.  All games that comply with the rules below will be included in the jam page on Itch.io. However, due to limited space at the pop-up arcade and limited availability of prizes, a maximum of 10 games will be officially selected.

Rules for Official Selection

To be officially selected, submissions must fulfill the following criteria:

• Game must be submitted to the game jam on Itch.io.
• Jam entries should be original and created during the jam period.
• One contact person on the team must submit an entry form.
• Games should be designed on an arcade gameplay loop and must include a leaderboard. Leaderboards are not required to have online functionality, only local.
  • Games should have a shorter average session time, encouraging repeated, multiple plays rather than one long play time.
• Teams are permitted. Participants may be members of multiple teams but may only be the contact person for a single game. Team members (usernames or real names) must be credited on the game’s Itch page.
• At least one team member must be present and able to display the created game for the duration of the pop-up arcade (we will have at least 30" x 30" of table space for you and outlets, you're on the hook for the rest!).
• Any externally created assets must be credited with links on the game’s Itch page.
• The game must be reasonably functional as determined by Night City and Indie City Games.
• If a game is submitted as playable in-browser, it should also include a downloadable version.
• Game size should not exceed 2 GB.
• The game must be playable without a third-party installer.
• Tag your game with icgallstars2024

Developer Prizes

Players will exchange tokens at the pop-up arcade for plays, developer prizes being awarded to games based on the number of tokens received! Prizes will be dispensed on a per-game basis (IE an entry comprised of multiple team members is not eligible for additional prizes). Prizes are as follows:

• 1st Place: $100 USD
• 2nd Place: $75 USD
• 3rd Place: $50 USD

For any additional help, info, searching for teammates, or just finding some local community, check out the Indie City Games Discord!