Welcome!

Magical Girls! Don't you love this genre about girls with magical powers fighting against evil?

Well, welcome to Magical Girl Game Jam #3!!

Seeing how much people enjoyed the previous two jams, I have decided I would like to see people make more games about Magical Girls again this time.

Discord server: https://discord.gg/nvHPB4X

Collaboration:

For this jam, Magical Girl Game Jam will have a test collaboration with the Visual Novel community Devtalk. If you're interested, please do check them out:

https://discord.com/invite/devtalk

Rules:

As much as I want this jam to be as unrestricted as possible, there are some rules that I have decided to put in place:

• Put at least one magical girl character in your game -- it can be your main character, the enemy, anything. Creating an original character is strongly encouraged. Magical Girls being defined as "girls with magical powers" as the bare minimum. As for "magical powers", for the purpose of this jam the bare minimum is for you as  the author to declare her power as magical and for her power to not happen in the real world.
• Properly pick a theme and follow it
• Keep NSFW materials away from your game
• The game has to be free to play upon submission
• Unfinished games are OK
• You are free to use any assets you have legal access to
• Respect the unwritten rules for game jams in general:
  • Submit games that are made for the sake of this jam
  • Keep toxicity away from this jam... or any jam for that matter
  • etc.
• Have fun! :)

Hashtags: #MGGJ #MGGJ3

Themes:

The themes will be revealed a week before the start of the jam; around 7 February 2021 JST. Like before, there will be multiple themes to choose from -- the themes are not meant to be restrictive but to inspire. Until then, be hyped ^^

Theme hints:

To make things a little bit more fun, I have decided to gradually drop hints regarding the themes until the theme reveal date:

1. There is one thing in this jam page that points to one of the six themes.
2. Take a look at (Image 1). Each of the three girls are very loosely related to a theme -- meaning that image is loosely related to three of the six themes.
3. So far only three out of six themes had been hinted; this means one theme had actually been hinted twice.
4. One of the themes is related to light.
5. All six themes are related to scientific concepts.
6. (This was supposed to be the sixth hint, but the theme related to it got guessed before it got released): 🎃

(Image 1)

Theme Q&A guessing event:

Currently in the discord server there is Q&A event (for the purpose of people to guess the themes) where everyone can ask questions about the themes for a round that lasts two days (day change is based on JST or GMT+9) and also vote questions. Of every round, the question with most votes will be answered. The event goes on until Feb 7th.

As of now, I will let the themes that have been guessed be seen here:

1. Nuclear Energy
2. Schrödinger's Cat/Superposition
3. Wave and Particle Duality
4. Spacetime Curvature/Time Dilation/Length Contraction/Relativity
5. Spooky Action at a Distance/Quantum Entanglement
6. ????????? 

7th theme:

Due to the rapid pace of the themes getting guessed... and also because during the Q&A guessing event a lot of guesses made me think "I wish I included that as a theme :("... I have decided to add a 7th theme.

There will be six theme candidates, and in the discord server there will be one-week long vote from February 1st to February 7th. Theme candidates will be revealed in February (although if you read some conversations in the discord server some of them are quite obvious):

1. ?????????
2. ?????????
3. ?????????
4. ?????????
5. ?????????
6. ?????????

Until then, be hyped.

Rating:

Your submissions will be rated publicly like based on the following criteria.

• Magical Girl Concept
  • How creative are the magical girl ideas in the game?
  • Changed from "Magical Girl Design" from MGGJ2
• Engagement/Fun
  • Duh. How fun the gameplay/story is
• Originality/Creativity
  • The creativity of the gameplay mechanics primarily
• Graphics, Audio, and Polish
  • How polished the game is. Does it have good graphic? Does the game give good feedback to the player? Aim for quality over quantity
• Theme Interpretation
  • How well and creatively are the themes interpreted
  • I hope with this rating criteria 'petty' interpretations are more discouraged; where the themes are interpreted into a concept that is basic to any game or anything Magical Girl related.
• Overall

What is a Magical Girl?

Some people unexpectedly joined the jam without knowing what the Magical Girl genre is last time, so this time I decided to explain a bit about what the Magical Girl genre is.

To put it simply, the Magical Girl genre, or Mahō Shōjo (魔法少女) in Japanese, is a genre about cute girls having cute magical powers -- often associated with anime, manga, and other Japanese works. In my own personal opinions, some primary characteristics of the Magical Girl genre are:

1. Cute girl with magical powers.
2. Cute dresses -- not always though... some Magical Girls go the elegant route while others go the wild route
3. Transformation sequence -- not always but I think most do have it
4. Fighting against evil powers -- be it witches, aliens, or whatever

If I need to emphasize this more, this is just my own opinion, not strict guidelines. Feel free to subvert or deviate from my expectations, but make a Magical Girl.

Some examples of Magical Girl works:

• Puella Magi Madoka Magica
  • A veeery cute one. The cutest, most cheerful of all Magical Girl shows.  A complete masterpiece. I recommend this one very strongly

• Sailor Moon

• Pretty Cure

• Minky Momo

If you are previously not familiar with the Magical Girl genre, I hope this explanation at least gives you a vague idea of what you should be aiming for.

For more information, you can check the TV Tropes page for it. While to avoid removal it is enough to fulfill the definition "girls with magical powers", I want you to aim for TV Tropes's Magical Girls