A New Year's jam challenging participants to make up to 4 games in 4 weeks! This is a casual game jam meant to encourage beginner developers to start on their New Year's resolutions immediately and make at least one 'game' by the end of January. Anything you can describe as a game development project is included when I say game, so expansions and other new content for pre-existing games is welcome. There will be no ratings or competitions for this game jam, however everyone is encouraged to play other participants games and give feedback that is kind and productive. I will be doing the same thing on stream with every game submitted to the jam over on Twitch on Saturday, February 1.

Originally, I planned to reveal the themes as each week goes by. Since I already know the themes though, and this is intended to be a parallel-creating sort of jam, I've decided to go ahead and reveal all the themes at once so all the participants are in the same place as me. This decision has the added bonus of making all themes accessible to people who are working on fewer than four games. If the themes don't appeal to you, you can always do your own thing too!

I'm running this jam as a goal I wanted to set for myself. I think it will be fun and encouraging to see other people working alongside me! I'll be sharing my own progress over on BlueSky, @augustwl.itch.io, please connect with me so I can see your progress too.

week one themes, (december 30 to january 5): CONSTRUCT or START

week two theme, (january 6 to 12): SLEEP

week three theme, (january 13 to 19): HANDMADE

week four themes, (january 20 to 26): SEQUEL or KEYBOARD

Note about the themes: None of these are intended to have one way to understand or use them. Feel free to play with the words and get improvisational with it. At the end of the day, none of these themes are mandatory, so however they are most useful to your process is how you should use them. Here are some examples of how you could play with these themes:

- CONSTRUCT: This could be 'construct' as in, to build something, or like construction. Or, it could be construct as in a construct, something that has been built. I think of metal constructs or Jewish golems and the huge amount of art that has stemmed from that idea.

- START: Start is a wide open theme meant to mark the beginning of this project we're all undertaking. Start has many meanings in video games of all genres, and there are a lot of meta interpretations possible through gameplay on the start menu or with the start button. There is also the possibility to play with the idea of a starting gun or starting point in sports and competitions.

- You can make up to four submissions to the jam. Meaning that if you want to make one game over the course of a month, hop aboard! Whatever your goal is, if it aligns with what I'm doing here I'd love to have you be a part of the jam.

- Each game must contain a start point and an end point. The start point can be as simple as a screen displaying your game's title and a button that starts the game. The ending can be as basic as a sudden black screen that says, "You completed the game!" For tabletop/physical submissions, this rule is more flexible, but your submission should be able to answer the following questions. "Where do we start?" and, "When do we stop?"

- Submissions must be made within the start and end dates. External assets are welcome, but anything that someone else made or that you didn't make within the timeframe must be directly listed on the submission page. Preferably at the top or bottom of your page you should have a list of items titled, "External Assets Used."

- Mature content is allowed, but no pornographic content. If the ESRB would rate it "Adults Only," your submission will be removed.

- Anything you make is your property, but I reserve the right to record footage of your game. Any recording would be used to show your game on the jam's finale stream, or to show examples of the games that were created during the jam.

- Teams of any size are allowed. If more than one person works on a submission, please list and credit all the contributors on the submission's page.

- Cross-submitting your games to other jams is allowed. So long as they allow it too, of course.

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You may contact me by making a post in 'Community,' messaging me on Bluesky, or emailing me at august.w.lou@gmail.com