Game Experience Playlist by TheConceotBoy: Youtube Playlist for assessed games.

What matters in this game jam is not that you come out victorious but that you enjoy your journey. Come and tells us why you're think you're a great fit for this event what it is you're looking to get out of this game jam! Tell us about yourself and what projects you're working on!  Click the banner above or the link here to join: https://discord.gg/Qd7pQfn

Narrative Imperative Game-Jam is a competitive game making event that focuses on narrative driven game development. Participants are given just a little over two weeks to create a short game that strives to deliver an engaging story that follows one or more heroes or subjects as the plot develops. The story must present a complete character/subject transformation arc and bring the story from exposition, through climax, to a sensible conclusion.   

The story foundation (structure), effective character/subject arcs and delivery (composition) will be the core focus of this game jam.

This is a game jam organized by Miles Thatch (TheConceptBoy) on behalf of TheConceptBay.net platform. 

The following streamers, youtubers and content creators have come onboard to play the game submissions!

CLICK ON THE BANNERS TO SEE THEIR CHANNELS!

Send 'em a welcoming hello while before the game jam starts!

The Game Jam event will be split into three stages:

1. Development Competition: Participants are given a little over 2 weeks to create an narrative game experience.
2. Voting Panel + Streaming Rampage: Streamers will take on the submissions from participants, offering their own interpretation and feedback on the narrative games created while the Judges of the Voting Panel will play and optionally stream the games themselves and provide constructive criticism of the games.
3. Voting and feedback from the Voting Panel is released.

Useful Links:

• The game-jam will be curated on TheConceptHub discord server. For any questions, and swift reply, join the server. 
• Dialogues can be a very valuable tool in a narrative game, but more often than not, they are also tedious and time consuming to write up. So to help speed that step along, I have created an easy to use web-based dialogue builder which allows you to create complex dialogue trees with choices, messages, quest, task and item giving/taking/checking, ability to hide and reveal dialogue trees, add flags to hide and reveal certain dialogues and so on. It allows you to save and load your dialogue files as json. It is free to use and can save you a lot of time. Check out: Dialoogie on TheConceptBay.net

In general the focus of this event is on narrative games, These could be adventure games, mystery, horror, romance, historical tales, fiction or non-fiction and really anything under the sun. As long as the story keeps you engaged.

1. Use of theme:
Does the game use the theme? Is the use of theme original compared to the other entries? Is it constantly present throughout the story, or is it just slapped on top of otherwise unrelated plot?

2. Premise: 
Is the premise of the story captivating? Does it provide value to the overall story and development of it's characters. Does it hold the players interest?   

3. Plot:
Is the dramatic movement engaging? Is the plot progression well-structured? Does it make use of plot twists and revelations - and on that note, are these twists well-grounded in the story or did they come from nowhere? Does it have some interesting character developments?

4. Writing:
The general writing quality. First, it covers more technical aspects like using proper grammar/spelling/punctuation, not having too many repetitions etc. But it also covers more "stylistic" aspects like having varied "character voices / speaking styles", making the dialogue sound natural, seamlessly including humour, painting the scenery with words etc.

5. Non-verbal Storytelling:
Bringing the plot to life and adding a flair to it with things other than words. This includes things like using music to set the mood, using sounds to convey certain situations, adding different character portraits for different emotions, formatting or aligning the text one way or another etc. This also includes how the game uses the player interaction to enhance the story.

X. Bonus/Penalty Points:
After all the story stuff, this is still a game experience. So the overall impression of the game may take a hit from uncreative or excessive use of generic purpose visual novel engines or frequent crashes, which negatively impact the overall enjoyment.
Likewise, extra credit may be given for a convenient backtracking feature that allows exploring different choices easily, or for composing the music for the game on one's own, when others would pre-made royalty free soundtrack.

6. Gameplay Mechanics:
Remember that we are still making a game and games are meant to be played. Just because a game is narrative driven, doesn't mean that unique gameplay mechanics and innovation should take a back seat. Your gameplay mechanics should offer something that supports and extends the players connection and interaction with the narrative. The mechanics need to be present in the foreground and help move the plot forward.

7. Overall:
There are many aspects that go into making a narrative game. It is built out of many moving parts and ingredients, which in the end interact with one another to create the overall experience. So with that in mind, with all the ups and downs, perks and flaws, how enjoyable is the game experience overall? For example, one game might be primarily be text-based and have next to none non-verbal storytelling, but the writing itself could be amazing. On the flipside, another game might use text very rarely if at all, but excel at setting the mood and implying the story with the non-verbal cues and environmental storytelling. From that perspective, the game that is pretty ok at both writing and non-verbal storytelling might not make such a strong impression as the other two, even if it's rated 7/10 in both writing and non-verbal storytelling compared to 10/10 writing plus 0/10 non-verbal in the first game, and 0/10 writing plus 10/10 non-verbal in the second game.

When the game-jam starts, we shall reveal a THEME right here under this message. While there are many game jams that make the theme optional, here it is not be so. Considering that this game jam event is a battle of creative writing wits, It will be imperative that your narrative game makes effective use of this THEME. Themes can be interpreted from many points of view (for example if a theme is about survival, one could write about an ant surviving the forest, a nation surviving a war or a cancer patient surviving their daily struggles that comes with the sickness), thus, as a writer, you need to make your story revolve around your particular interpretation of the theme. The more interesting and rooted your interpretation is, the better. Lazily slapped themes or themes attached onto pre-made games are very easy to weed out, thus it is in your best interest to play honest and show your passion for game dev and creative writing.

The are a few rules to abide by when participating in this game jam (rules template courtesy of GMC Jam 44):

1. You can use any Game Engine and Supplementary Software (painting, 3D, modelling, texturing. audio) of your choice be it free or commercial as long as it was legally obtained. 
   
2. Games must be made between March 11th 00:00 EST(Eastern Standard Timeon and 24:00 EST on March 27th, and posted here on itch.io
3. Your game can be of any genre, style, point of view, the main focus is the narrative. If the composition of your game supports your narrative then that is all that matters.
4. You may use resources such as graphics, sounds and scripts that were made prior to the jam, as long as the bulk of your work takes place during Jam timeframe. While it may not offer tangible bonuses, you will certainly earn extra street rep for producing your assets during jam. 
5. The credits should make clear where the assets come from and which were made before the Jam; The creators of the entry must have rights to all of the assets; unlicensed use of resources is not allowed. (This rule is enforced, failure to follow this rule will result in disqualification)
6. You may create one submission entry per game.
7. You are encouraged to write a devlog under your game page! In fact it will help ensuring evidence that your game submission is genuine.    
8. All entries must be submitted here on itch.io before the submission end date passes.
9. All entries should work on Windows as a standalone executable / compressed zip folder. No installers please. Your entry can also work in HTML5 and on other platforms, but most judges and streamers will be using Windows and therefore, in order to ensure that streamers and judges can play your submission, your entry should work primarily on windows.
10. You may participate alone or in a team of up to 4 members. We encourage you to find team mates to help divide the workload and ensure you achieve your project vision. We limit it to 4 in order to cover 4 pillars of a game (Coding, Writing, Music/sfx, Artwork/3D) 

I have created this game jam under the same premise as any other game jam I've participated in. Thrill of a deadline, good fun and sportsmanship. it is encouraged that these be the primary reasons why you've decided to participate as it'll show that your project came from a place of love for the craft you've dedicated your life to. However I did figure that perhaps a small complimentary set of prizes could be appropriate for the first, second and third place winners. As the first game-jam of it's name, the rewards are nothing to brag about, but for someone it could be an extra meal, piece of software to push their career or asset pack for their project:

Rewards:

Perks:

In addition, it is no secret that Indie Game Developers are delighted to see their games be played, and Streamers love having an audience. Hence why the Narrative Imperative Game jam event has partnered with aspiring streamers to give our games an honest try in their streams. I for one am looking forward to seeing how someone plays my creation - will you?

[to be updated]

After the submission deadline, a the panel of judges will be playing through the games and assessing them on their storytelling merit. Considering the participation incentives, the voting is done by a panel rather than public vote to avoid spam voting. This is a learning experience for everyone, including the judges.

While the event is being organized, we're looking into potentially involving streamers. This is based on whether they streaming bodies are engaged with the idea but we'll try our best to find some interested figures. 

More info may be added to this description as the event approaches start date.