SEE AND PLAY THE WINNERS ON LOSPEC: https://lospec.com/games/lospec-jam-1


INTRODUCING THE LOSPEC LTRO-1, GAME MACHINE

The LTRO-1 has the following features:

• 240x135 resolution (REQUIRED)
• 10-color palette - https://lospec.com/palette-list/ltro-1  (REQUIRED)
  
• 7 Button controller - up, down, left, right, start, A, B (REQUIRED) (optional 2-player support)

Style recommendations:

• Television Interface Adapter sound chip
  • 2 1-bit sound channels (max 2 sounds playing at once)
• sprite/tile restrictions
  • sprite/tile size should be multiple of 12x12
  • 4 colors per 12x12 sprite/tile + transparency

Check out the resources section at the bottom!

BOX ART

Please also include a 400x300px box art image . It does not have any image restrictions (you don't need to use pixel art or the palette). It will be used as the cover image for your game on Lospec. If you do not provide one, an embarrassingly boring one will be provided for you.

Also please remember these rules:

• games and apps are allowed
• web based is most preferred (but desktop also allowed)
• simple finished ideas are better than incomplete ambitious projects
• design at the native resolution with no filters
• nothing overly offensive

Please review the rules in full below!

Need ideas?

Here some ideas to get your brains storming! Mix and match, put your own spin on them, or disregard them completely!

Welcome to the very first Lospec Game Jam!

We've been getting requests to host a jam for a long time, so we decided it's finally time!

If you're not familiar with Lospec, we're a website dedicated to low-spec art forms such as pixel art, voxel art, chiptune and more, most known for our pixel art palettes list.

This is a medium-length jam which takes place over 2 weeks.

Games and Apps

For this jam we accept both low-spec games AND apps! Games will be judged based on fun, while apps will be judged based on usefulness.

Console Restrictions

Lospec Game Jams will center around the restrictions of an imaginary game console, the details of which will be released when the jam begins. For the most part this will be a strict palette and resolution, though later ones may have more restrictions.

Polish over Potential

We encourage you to create a polished, complete game/app, rather than an ambitious prototype, even if that means going for a much simpler idea. Clones of existing games are allowed, but no copyrighted/trademarked names, characters, symbols or assets are allowed.

We highly recommend you aim to have a complete working prototype done in the first week, and then spend the second week polishing your submission (fixing bugs, adding extra screens, adding small quality-of-life features, etc).

Rankings

At the end of the jam, your entries will be judged on the following criteria:

• Fun / Usefulness - Games will be judged purely by how fun they are to play. Apps will be judged on how useful they are, and how easy they are to use.
• Polish - We will be looking at how complete your game/app feels. Bugs or missing features will cause a lower score.
• Art - The overall quality of the visual art, music, sound effects and GUI design

Submissions will be voted on by the public, but the final ranking will be determined by our panel of judges.

Once the jam is concluded, all submissions will be embedded onto a web page on Lospec.com in order of their rank, so people can play them all in one place.

Rules

Your submission may be disqualified if it does not follow these rules.

Platform

As we plan to embed entries in a webpage, web-based games/apps are highly preferred. But we don't want anyone to not be able to join based on that, so all platforms are allowed (but at least try to include a windows build).

Entries must be the exact resolution and colors specified by the prompt. You may show a scaled up version on your itch page, or provide support for full screen mode, but you must make sure it will also work when embedded at 240x135 pixels.

Games using html canvas must include the following CSS:

canvas {image-rendering: crisp-edges; image-rendering: pixelated;} 

You must only use up to 7 buttons for interacting with the game. The game must be playable without mouse or gamepad. You can  support any extra keyboard layouts or controllers, but it must by default support:

D-PAD = Arrow Keys;     A  = Space;    B = Left Alt;   Start = Enter

additional recommended key maps:

D-PAD = WASD;     A  = Space;    B = B, Backspace, Escape;   Start = Enter

Content

Content must be relatively safe for work / generally palatable (no porn, hate language or anything excessively offensive). We reserve the right to disqualify any app if we feel the content is too harsh.

You may use any game engine that allows you to fit the specs, but most of the gameplay has to be created during the jam (no skinning an existing game). You can use existing art and sounds, but original work is highly preferred and will affect your ranking.

Teams

Teams of any size are allowed! You can participate in multiple teams, or even make multiple submissions! If you are looking for a team to join you can try the Community Page, the Lospec Discord, or the Lospec Forum.

Resources

Sound:

• TIATracker - standalone software made for atari vcs
  
• hues2600 - vst plugin
• 1bitstudio - collection of simple vst plugins for emulating 1-bit sounds
• atari 2600 sample pack - collection of waveforms you can use to emulate the sounds

To emulate the sound, try to limit yourself to only 2 instruments at a time, and very simple waveforms.

Graphics:

• Palette demo by adam horner

Programming:

• Construct 3 - web based game editor, with a restricted free trial
• Godot - completely free 2d game engine
• phaser - free javascript game engine
• pixi.js - fast javascript 2d renderer
• intersects - small javascript collision library