The Deal:

Are you a novice game designer? Anxious about joining a big shot game jam like Ludum Dare or Game Jolt Game Jams? Well here's a shot for you.

Novice Now! Game Jam wishes to bring out the designer in all of us and open up the doors to new programmers. From casual coders 10 years in the making to people just picking up the Notepad++ and Scratch-board now, even those not even initiated to programming just yet! We encourage new and old, young and weathered to try this out and would love to see content creators bring in a friend or family member to pick up coding.

Don't be discouraged if all you can get is a basic racing game with two dots and a track on Game Maker. YOU MADE IT, and that's impressive enough to us. Show us you have the chops to do this, and the world is yours.

Remember, this is not about winning. It's about learning the ropes and meeting fellow newbies. Take time to get to know your fellow player and collaborate! Need any help just go to our Game Jolt Forum page. Welcome to the world of Game Jams. It's more fun then you once believed!

We also now have a Freenode IRC channel! Go to this site, type in #novicenowjam in the channel bar, and connect! Find fellow developers and get help coding. Also might as well have a fun chat to take a break as well.

The jam opens on September 1st 00:00 EST and closes October 31st 23:59 EST. Plan accordingly!

Also, at the end of the Jam we'll open up all (consenting) content to Github so we can all see the hard work and get inspiration from the hard work we just did. Everything will be open source and protected under Creative Commons.

A note as well, we are running this jam on both Itch.io and Gamejolt.com. Links will be in the contacts but please join only one.

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Contacts:

Kronkus Bronzewater (co-creator, Itch, director of design) : kronkusbronzewater@gmail.com

mercurytw(co-creator, Game Jolt, director of programing) : mercurythewhite@gmail.com

Ratchet3789 (head assistant, teacher, swell guy) : ratchet3789@gmail.com

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Rules:

1. In order to participate, you must contact one of the administrators after signing up. In order to encourage collaborative learning, we will be contacting you and introducing all participants to each other in or to maximize everyone's ability to learn and share.
2. You must be a novice, that means if you've developed a big game before and it's been successful, you may have a chance of acceptance, but no guarantees.
3. All games must be for an under 18 audience. Therefore no excessive swearing, violence, gore and definitely no adult content.
4. While tough ideas can be tackled by your game and may include such topics no game shall be accepted if it attacks any race, religion, sex, gender, orientation, nationality, etc... You get the idea, don't be a jerk.
5. Have fun! Don't worry that you aren't making a big AAA video game or it isn't up to par with other high ranking indie developers. Enjoy the content you create and show it to the world.
6. Have self control. You may create concepts, story, artwork, etc. before September 1st 00:00 EST but no SPRITES, CODING, or ANYTHING CONTENT ORIENTATED can be created before September 1st 00:00 EST. We can't enforce this, but we hope you will comply for complete fairness.
   
7. Have fun!
8. All content posted must be free to play, and free as in freedom. If you choose to charge for the game after the fact then that is your choice but before that we want everyone to have an equal opportunity to view your code and we must be able to play the game for free when it is submitted.
9. All games must be Windows capable. Cross platform games are fine, but for a game to even be considered it has to Windows compliant. A big sorry to Mac and Linux users.
10. Submit content on one site and one site only (Itch.io or Gamejolt.com). It doesn't have to be this one you are viewing right now but please do not submit duplicates or trick the system and submit two games.

Thank you.

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Our Mission Statement:

Novices Now! Wishes to bring programing to the new coders, interested in design and putting together a game, but are not either confident or proficient enough to join a Ludum Dare feeling satisfied in their work. Instead NN! wants to open the minds and hearts of every new code-junky, even those not initiated. In time we wish to do events in major US cities (maybe even international) bringing together children, teenagers, and adults to either hone in their programing skills through workshops and lectures, and also attract people who either don't know a thing about coding or just feel like it's something they can't do to find out that they can and that it's very enjoyable. For now we want to foster a close community fixed on working together and making great games. We wish to bring forward the next generation of programmers and those bordering on hobby, and next big content creator. I hope with your support, that we can get there.

- Ryan Chandler (Kronkus Bronzewater, co-creator)