A weekend challenge to revise music from your past!

All skill levels are welcome (nay, encouraged!) to participate. Even if you've never made music before, you should take a crack at it! It's not as scary as it looks.

Join us on Discord to ask any questions, share your progress in the challenge, and talk all things game dev.

Special thanks to lilou_cormic for the cover image.

Challenge: Revise!

Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is as follows: revise a piece of music you last worked on at least three months prior to the start of the jam.

This can be an unfinished, unreleased sketch, one of your older releases, or anything between.

You must submit both the original and revised version, as the main judging criteria is how well you improved the piece.

There are no limitations on theme, tempo, genre, instrumentation, or tools.

Use this as an excuse to update that piece gathering dust in a dark corner of your hard drive, or to finally "fix" one of your ancient releases that's been bothering you since it got out. See how much you've learned since then!

We heavily encourage you to record or stream your process to share with the community. Don't forget to let us know on Discord when you're going live, or share your video there.

Rules

Please read the following carefully. If you have any questions about the rules, ask in the community or on Discord.

1. You must not have worked on the original piece since January 18, 2025.
   
2. Submit both the original piece and the revised piece as wav, mp3, or ogg on an itch.io page. Name the files using hyphens as follows:
   1. For the original piece: artist-name_song-title_old
   2. For the revision: artist-name_song-title_new
   3. For example, "Best Song Ever" by My Cool Band would be my-cool-band_best-song-ever_old.ogg and my-cool-band_best-song-ever_new.ogg
3. Tag the file before uploading with Title and Artist (and any additional metadata you want to include).
4. One entry per person. We encourage the production of multiple pieces for experimentation, but please only include one piece in the submitted page, and don't link to other new music on the submitted page.
5. Both versions must be a minimum of 30 seconds and around 4 minutes maximum. The top end is flexible, but we'll reject anything that gets too out of hand.
6. This is a solo challenge, so collaboration and teams are not allowed.
7. All work on the revision - planning, composing, producing, mixing, etc. - must happen during the challenge weekend.
8. The piece you are revising must be "original" in the sense that it isn't a remix or arrangement of preexisting work, or an unaltered work generated by Artificial Intelligence. Samples, etc., are allowed, as long as the work is reasonably transformative (including the case of AI), and you have the rights to use all samples for public work.
9. You must disclose any use of AI on your submission page.
10. You can continue editing the submission page after submitting, but uploads will be locked, so you cannot replace the music or upload new files until judging is completed

Rating

Entries will be judged by the public in the following four categories:

• Improvement: How much has the new version improved on the original?
• Production: Does the music sound clean, clear, and balanced?
• Interest: Does the music retain your attention through to the end?
• X Factor: How much do you like the music?

The winner will receive fame and glory. At least, we hope so. :)

But also, the top entry will be added to the list of 8 Bits to Infinity Challenge Winners!

About Us

Hosted by 8 Bits to Infinity: a game development community dedicated to improving creative and technical skills through rapid iteration and honest, critical feedback. Join us on Discord, check out our website, and take a look at our past jams and challenges.

The man behind 8 Bits to Infinity is Retro Indie Josh (aka Joshua McLean): gaming content creator and music producer. Check out his game music (free for you to use in jams and commercial projects!) and YouTube.