THEME

We believe AI NPCs should be in every game. But they need to be part of a bigger gameplay experience. They should not just talk. They should matter. 

This jam is about three powerful creative directions.

 AI NPC Mods

Bring NPCs to life in already existing games. Give them memory, voice, personality, and a purpose within the world.

 AI Indie Social Games

Design social gameplay that revolves around AI-powered NPCs. Make them party guests, suspects, saboteurs, or unpredictable allies.

AI Indie Original Games

Use your creativity to surprise us with brand-new game formats that AI NPCs can unlock.

Whether you are modding Skyrim or building the next viral social game, the rule is simple: Your NPCs must feel alive, and they must drive the gameplay. 

This is your chance to shape the future of games, not with AI alone, but with your imagination and design.

REQUIREMENTS

• Join our Discord and make sure to click the "I am in an official Player2 Game Jam." button to get your role.
• Use any game engine of your choice to make your game, and mod any game you want to mod!
• Integrate the free Player2 web API for all NPC intelligence. Detailed instructions will be given at the beginning of the jam.
• Submit a playable demo or download link by the deadline.

Prizes:

• $5,000 - OVERALL GRAND PRIZE WINNER (This can be a mod or a full game) 
  
• $2,000 - First place AI NPC Mod Track
• $2,000 - First place AI Social Game Track  
• $2,000 - Most Creative (This can be a mod or a full game)
• $1,000 - Next four games
• $500 - Next Five games
• $250 - Next Ten games

Join us to prototype the future of intelligent characters and showcase your creativity – let’s bring NPCs to life!

Inspiration & Example Categories

Feel free to draw on these broad ideas—or invent your own twist—to explore how AI NPCs can truly belong:

1. AI NPC Mods for Classics Retrofit popular games (Skyrim, Fallout, Sim4, Stardew Valley, Project Zomboid, Clair_Obscur_Expedition_33, Undertale, Terraria, GMod, Lethal Company, etc.) with smart companions or adversaries that respect—and expand—the original mechanics.
2. Co-op & Party Experiences Play with friends alongside an AI narrator or storyteller who dynamically injects plot beats (à la Death by AI, werewolf or PEAK) and adapts to your group’s playstyle.
3. Original Worlds Build entirely new settings where AI characters hold new roles, jobs, relationships, or agendas that intersect with player goals—creating social ecosystems you’d never predict.

Judging Criteria

We’ll be looking for entries that:

• Integrate AI as a pillar, not an ornament—NPCs should drive or deeply influence your core gameplay loop.
• Demonstrate clear guardrails, using LLMs or other AI tools as the “cherry on top” of solid systems (situational logic, memory management, deterministic behaviors).
• Push boundaries of creativity, whether through emergent narratives, surprising interactions, or novel UI/UX approaches.
• Maintain polish & stability—AI features should feel smooth and reliable, with fallback behaviors when LLM calls fail or misinterpret.

Technical & Design Reminders

Don’t rely on LLMs alone. Use them to augment your NPCs’ dialogue, memory, or decision-making—but underpin everything with explicit game logic and consistent state.

General rules:

• Be respectful and supportive.
• Follow itch.io’s terms of service.
• Build your game in any engine you choose.
• Provide a playable demo or download link by the deadline, following the submission rules.
• Communicate with your team if you have to step away from the jam.
• Compete fairly—no sabotage or harassment.
• AI-generated game, art and assets are permitted.
• Use only assets with appropriate commercial licenses and honor their terms.
• No pornographic content or drug references. (If you won't show it to co-workers, parents, or little sister, don't make it here.)
  

Submission rules

Your game must use the Player2 web API correctly (https://player2.game/docs/api-reference), where you authenticate the player through the authentication flow with your own game client ID and send a health signal once every 60 seconds. 

To use the web API, you need to create a draft game under https://player2.game/profile/developer. Then you can find your game client ID in your developer dashboard next to your game’s name.

If you are building a game from scratch it is recommended that you use our unity/godot engine plugins. If you are using our Unity / Godot / Defold AI NPC engine, the authentication and health check will be sent for your game automatically.

Tutorials on how to use the web api, Unity, Godot and Defold engine can be found in the doc/README of each engine’s repository.

When you finish building, use the following steps to submit the game:

1, Publish your game anywhere you want to publish, this can be Steam, Nexus, CurseForge, Itch, app store, etc.

2, Submit the game through the player2 developer portal https://player2.game/profile/developer for review. If you build a web game, you must also submit the build of the game to our website in the developer portal.

3, Submit the game through itch to this game jam with links/reference to where you published the game and what your player2 game page/name is.

Need some inspiration on what to make? We've got you covered. Check out the link below!

Last Jam Submissions

Who are your judges?

Wenzhe - Co-founder of Player2 and game designer. He has amassed 100+ publications and 25k+ citations.

Aaron Shaw - Game Developer, Playroom community manager and Boss Rush Game Jam Co-founder.

Alaina - Producer for Marauder Tech Games on the mobile game Price of Glory.

Mark Soderwall -  30 years experience in art direction on games such as StarWars, CloneWars, LEGO, etc. The Founder of IndieGameU.online.

Remy - Data annotator for Player2, studying Unreal Engine and character concept art.

INDIE - 10 year Twitch partner focusing on indie games, community engagement at Marauder Tech Games, and co-host and producer for IndieGameBusiness.