*** Topic: Parallel Worlds ***

A game jam is a game development competition where teams make a game from scratch within a specified time frame. You can also watch this video to get some more information on how a game jam works.

Anyone with or without developing skills is welcome. There's something for everyone:

👩🏻‍🎨Graphics, 👨🏽‍🏫Texts and Story, 🧑🏼‍💼Project Coordination. 👩🏾‍🎤Sounds, 🕵🏻‍♀️Research and Testing, 🧑🏽‍💻and of course code and development skills.

We also collected some helpful links to no-coding game development tools, free asset libraries and tutorials. Check it out here.

And the most important thing: It's all about having a blast!

The best games / teams will be voted by the whole company and receives prizes.

Start: October 20th, 5 PM CEST | 11 AM EDT with the Kick Off Meeting (invitation to follow)

End: October 23rd, 10 AM CEST | 4 AM EDT

• Kick-off meeting on Friday October 20th 5:00 PM CEST
• October 20th - 23nd Game Jam Weekend 
  • Start: 6:00 PM CEST | 11 AM EDT - Oct 20th (Friday)
  • End: 10:00 AM CEST | 4 AM EDT - Oct 23rd (Monday)
• CW 43-45 Playing & Voting Phase
• CW 45/46 Winner Announcement

• Create a game that matches the given topic
• Don't start working on it before the jam starts
• The game must be playable standalone (without the need of any additional software that costs money)
• It is allowed to setup your tools and game engine before the game jam.
• Do not copy an existing game
• Be fair, have fun

Winning teams

• 1st place: 50€ voucher (Amazon or Steam) for every team member
• 2nd place: 30€ voucher (Amazon or Steam) for every team member
• 3rd place: 15€ voucher (Amazon or Steam) for every team member

Every participant will also receive a little reward

• Who can participate?
  • Every employee of marbis (Nitrado, Apex, MCPH) is welcome to join and can invite up to 2 friends. <3

• Do I need to sign up as a team already?
  • Not at all. You will sign up for yourself in first place. Everyone is free to team up with colleagues before the event starts. There will be a "marketplace" for teammembers prior the event where everyone can talk about experiences, skills and interests in order to find a team. This will be done via discord and in written form to be efficient :)

• How will we submit the final game?
  • There'll be an upload option for you where you will provide the final game files.
    You can submit your game at any point after the jam begins. If you submit early, you can update the game at any time before the jam closes.

• When will the game jam start?
  • It will start with the kick-off meeting on Friday October 20th where the game jam's theme will be announced. As the company will have a great focus on ARK at that time, every participant is asked to start working on the game jam after working hours. This ensures a fair play among all participants regardless of their timezone.
    We might change the schedule or split it per timezone/region to enhance fair conditions for everyone.

• How does the voting look like?
  • Every employee will get access to the games after the event. This is followed by a 1-2 week voting period.

• I have questions, where can I address them?
  • Participants: Refer to the discord channel and reach our to Timo, Eva or Bozi. Voters: Please reach out to us via Slack

• Can we stay at our German offices (Berlin / Karlsruhe)?
  • Of course! We'd love to get some pictures of chaotic setups and messy desk from your onsite game jam experience.

• What can I make my game in?
  • Anything. You just need to be able to upload a file that runs on desktop or mobile, and doesn't require any additional hardware or software.
    You can make your game in whatever engine, programming language, or software you like. We also collected some helpful links to no-coding game development tools, free asset libraries and tutorials. Check it out here. You can not require the user to download additional software from external sources (so no ROMs for emulators). If your game requires additional files (like DLLs) they should be included in the download and not require separate installation).  Your game must not contain nudity, or hateful language or visuals. This could see your game being disqualified from being considered as a jam winner. Please consider avoiding extremely strong language, as the jam should be suitable for a general audience. If you’re uncertain, err on the side of being less gratuitous.

Details

• We are aware of the challenge of having several time zones, even within teams, but needed to go with one slot that gives everyone enough time to work on a game. We reserve the right to adjust the times if reasonable and fair to all prior the event.

• There will be a theme to the game jam. The whole company will submit and vote for the theme which will be announced in the kick-off meeting right before the start of the jam.

• To ease testing and voting, board games, card games and other analog game types will run out of competition. However, in case you still want to work on such ideas and just have a great time with your friends and colleagues, you're still welcome to join and present your game to the company.

• We use Discord for communication and collaboration. You will get a link to it via email some weeks before the event. We encourage every team to exchange with other teams on Discord to share knowledge or just have fun.

• At the end of the event, every team needs to submit the final game to this game jam here on itch.io. By that we make sure teams won't continue working on their games after the actual event has ended.

• The whole company will have the opportunity to play each game and vote for the winner.

Joining the jam

1. Anounce your team & members in discord (Note: Only your team lead has do this)
   • Community-chats -> campfire
2. Create an itch.io account (or skip to step 3)
   • https://itch.io/register
3. Log into your itch.io account
   • https://itch.io/login
4. Open the gamejam page
   • https://itch.io/jam/nitrado-jam-2023
5. Click "Join jam" (Note: Only your team lead has do this)

Submiting your game

Note: Only your team lead has do this

1. Upload your game to itch.io
   1.1. Open https://itch.io/game/new
   1.2. Fill out all fields to your needs
   1.3. Save the game
             Note: Your game is not visible yet! You have to make it public!
   1.4. On your freshly saved game press "Edit game" in the top of the page.
   1.5. Set "Visibility & Access" of the game to "Public".
2. Open the gamejam page: https://itch.io/jam/nitrado-jam-2023
3. Click "Submit your project"
4. Select your game and click "Submit"
5. Your game is submitted now!

Testing & voting games

1. Open the submissions page
   • https://itch.io/jam/nitrado-jam-2023/entries
2. Select any game you want to play
3. Play it
4. On the games submit page do the rating and click "Save rating"