Welcome to the JagJam 2025!

The 2nd game jam dedicated to the infamous Atari Jaguar console!

HOW TO JOIN

We were very happy with the first JagJam last year and some nice titles emerged from this - you can find them here. So now we're in for another round: If you always wanted to do something on the Atari Jaguar, this is your chance to prove to the world that the infamous Jag can be very entertaining and is still alive in 2025! Anyone can join, no matter if you work alone or in a small team. You will just need to have an itch.io account. So let's show the Jaguar where you learned to fly!

PRIZES

The winner of JagJam 2025 will receive:
– 200 EUR price money (PayPal required; if a team effort wins, the price money will only be paid to one account, so you'll have to split it up yourselves) 
– A nice digital badge to put whereever so everyone will know that you have won the JagJam 2025
– The chance to get a publishing collaboration with Songbird Productions for the game that you have created

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Here you will find an overview for the submission details and rules to participate in this JagJam. Let’s create some enjoyable content for the Atari Jaguar!

– Every game genre is welcome!
– One person or team can enter the jam with more than one game
– No violation of intellectual property
– The cartridge image must run on a real Atari Jaguar (K- and M-models) with GameDrive (as cartridge file, JAG, J64, ROM, BIN, ABS)
– Include instructions on how to play (just include a .txt file)
– Your game must run on PAL and NTSC machines (50/60Hz)
– Your game must be finished by October 31st 2025 and submitted for rating
– Your game will have a free public release at least in form of a playable demo
– You may not enter this year's jam with the same game (or a refined version of it) you entered with last year

If you are in doubt of anything mentioned above or have additional questions, please contact the host. Also, please let the host know at which email address we may contact you throughout the jam and after it’ll be over.

WHERE TO START

If you want to dive into coding for the Atari Jaguar, there are some options out there. If you are looking for a development suite to use, you will find one in JagStudio, which is comprised of several modules. You can find more information about that on their website. You can find additional information about coding for the Jaguar and ask questions over at AtariAge in the respective section "Atari Jaguar Programming". You can also use the Jaguar SDK or for music and sounds, this U235 sound engine project might be interesting to you. You can find more information about them on their respective websites.

You are free to use whichever tool you like best to create your game.

Regarding testing: If you have a Jaguar yourself or trust someone to test your code on the machine for you, that's fine. Just please keep in mind that the game needs to run on real hardware with a GameDrive (SD-card solution for the console). There are emulators out there, but please be aware that your game running well on emulators like BigPEmu and it running at all on a real machine are two very different things. The Jaguar core on Mister FPGA systems seems pretty advanced, but it's still not perfect – so please be advised that still nothing beats testing on real hardware.

IMPORTANT TO KNOW

Last year’s JagJam has shown that waiting till the very last day of the deadline until releasing your game might come at a price: If you have not tested it on real hardware but only emulator(s) beforehand, it might not run on the wild Jaguars out there. So here are a few very basic things to keep in mind when you’re getting started: 

1. Just because it works on emulation doesn't mean it will work on real hardware. Test on real hardware early and often. BigPEmu is great at running working Jaguar code, but purposely does not always fail to run broken Jaguar code. If you don’t have a Jaguar of your own, that’s not a problem – just ask in forums like AtariAge or Atari.io for help. You can also ask the host of the jam to take a look on real hardware in time. Because testing on real hardware has one more catch:

2. Test on both, "K" and "M" models of the console (refering to the first letter of the serial number). If you want something production quality, you'll have to test on more than one Jaguar. Don't have both/either? Recruit testers on the forums or ask the judges in time.

3. Initialize your global variables manually in your code and to be extra safe, clear the BSS section and stack to zero before starting your program.

RATINGS

Every game will be rated by select judges, taking into consideration originality, graphics, sound & music, playability, replay value, presentation and technical finesse. There will be only one overall-raking this yea . The winner will be announced one month after the deadline of the jam.

WHO'S JUDGING

Carl Forhan, Founder and CEO of Sondbird Productions

Rees, Youtuber CTRL-ALT-REES

Boris Kretzinger, author of Clipped Claws - The Atari Jaguar Story