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Mapemounde is an analogue (non-electronic) map-game design jam. Participants are given a theme, a design goal, and 10 days to create a playable draft of an original map-game.

Usually, games use maps to enhance the participation of the players and to make sure everyone knows where their character or party is. Mapemounde intends to encourage the creation of games in which the map is not a simple tool, but an essential part of the game which is central in shaping the story and its narrative.

Mapemounde will run from May 6th to 30th.

The jam begins May 6th at 00:00 (Pacific Daylight Time) and ends May 16th at 00:00 (Pacific Daylight Time). The voting phase begins immediately afterwards, from May 16th at 00:00 (Pacific Daylight Time) until May 30th at 00:00 (Pacific Daylight Time).

The theme of Mapemounde is always «maps». This means you should create a map-game: a game in which maps are crucial. You should create a game that interacts with the map, a game that is a map, a game that allows players to create maps, etc. Feel free to explore the theme.

The design goal changes every year. It is a rough indication to allow participants to focus on the same objective. It can be a concept, an instruction, a piece of flavour text or a quote. The design goal is your North Star to follow during the jam. The design goal of this fourth edition of Mapemounde is «a game in which the map is the body of the loved one».

You can participate alone or in a team of an unlimited number of members. We also have a community, so you can decide to join the other participants and form a new team (this is the way we prefer because we love ideas coming from people with different backgrounds).

Your map-game shouldn’t exceed the limit of 4,000 words. This is not really a rule, but an excessive length (combined with the fact that there may be many participants and that the time available for evaluating other people's games is short) may decrease the chances of your game being read by other participants. If you need to check the length of your map-game, you can use Wordcounter.

For Mapemounde you have to present an original work. You can certainly incorporate ideas you already  worked on, but you cannot submit a game that you published before the jam started. Take care not to infringe other people’s intellectual properties. It's okay to use quotations or excerpts from other works, and to be influenced by others’ works, but take care to reference your sources and be respectful of the work of others.

You can write your map-game in the language of your choice. Winning the jam is not the main goal in Mapemounde, and the voting system is principally intended to be useful to you, as a way to collect feedback. So feel free to propose a map-game in your language, but be sure to mention it in the description and through the tags.

All map-games must be shared and licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) and must remain free for the entire duration of the jam (even during the evaluation phase). When you are about to publish your game, we invite you to insert also the two reference tags of our game jam: #mapemounde2022 and #map-game. Besides, this is not a rule but consider putting a price on your game after playing it and making sure that what you have written makes sense at the table.

Admission to the jam can be revoked if you approach a sensitive issue in a disrespectful way. We strongly believe in the importance of fostering the design of games that deal with complex themes (e.g. sex, religion, minorities) but we also believe they require extra care. If you intend to design a map-game around a theme you believe to fall under this category, we will be happy to discuss with you any doubts or concerns about the admissibility of your game. If that is the case, feel free to contact us via the itch.io community or by email.

Once the jam ends, on May 16th at 00:00 (Pacific Daylight Time), you have fourteen days to evaluate the other submissions. You don’t have to evaluate all of them, or even a certain number, but we invite you to actively participate in this phase. If you can, leave a comment or short review to the authors, we assure you that they’ll appreciate it even more than your votes. For your evaluation, follow these criteria, and rank them with 1 (low) to 5 (high) stars:

• How well the game fits with the theme and goal of the jam;
• How strongly maps are integrated into the game’s design;
• How elegant the game’s design is;
• How captivating the tone, feel and style of the game are;
• How easy to understand and use the game’s rules are.

All criteria contribute to the final ranking.

During the jam and the evaluation phase, be respectful, helpful and constructive. We are guided by the Mammut RPG Manifesto, and so are the events we organise. Learning from each other, interacting respectfully and fostering a community of players and designers are key values to us, and we think they are the real treasure at the end of this map. In this regard, consider participating in the debate in our community by posting and replying to others’ posts.

Mapemounde is a game design jam. You have fun together and you win all together.

Nevertheless, we are keen to somehow reward the authors (or teams) of the three most-voted games. They will receive a bundle of games in PDF format, containing:

• Lost in the Grey by Dee Pennyway;
• Beak, Feather, & Bone by Tyler Crumrine.