We welcome developers of all skill levels, whether you're completely new and want to make your first game or a veteran who's been grinding at a long-term project, to challenge yourself to make a micro visual novel. O2A2 is a low pressure, anti-crunch, non-competitive jam without judging; everyone who completes a game by the deadline is a winner!

Why participate?

We think O2A2 has a special place in the midst of all the other jams as we want to emphasize quality over quantity. This is a jam with a low barrier to entry that also allows experienced developers to experiment with ideas and presentation, so there's something for everyone to challenge themselves with! We've seen creators who've used their entries as a springboard to their development career as well. Get that drabble out into the world and make yourself a little game for your portfolio. What story will you tell?

What are the rules?

You can use at most:

• one sprite / one character / one pose (multiple expressions without change in pose are okay)
• one background / one place / one time of day
• one illustration in place of the one sprite and one background
• one thousand words
• one background sound file, either one music track or one ambient background noise
• one sound effect
• one voice actor
• one piece of menu background art
• one main project. Submit only one entry where you are the creative lead/director or owner of an account. You may participate in other teams as a different role.

To develop a game in 10 days.

There are no restrictions on:

• themes / genres, such as romance, horror, comedy
• suggestive/explicit or violent content, so long as such content is tagged appropriately on the game page
• using Creative Commons, similarly licensed free-to-use, or paid assets
• usage of solid color backgrounds, such as all white, black, or another color
• programming and scripting effects
• minigames, so long the main portion of your entry can be considered a VN
• special effects / movement / zoom / animation, such as blinking, lipflap/mouth movement, sparkles, moving side to side, etc. Complex frame-by-frame animations that would change a significant portion of an image are not allowed.
• custom GUI assets like buttons, text boxes, textures, and other elements
• price point of completed entries
• submitting your entry to other jams, as long as you follow the rules of those jams
• language your game is in. You're free to write your game in a language other than English as long as it's equivalent to one thousand words.
• omake/fandiscs and fangames are welcome. However, if you do not own the IP, please do not steal assets from the source material.

Use this freedom in the spirit of a simple jam.

Examples

What is not allowed?

• submitting partial works, e.g. demo, Part 1 of x, etc. Self-contained prologues are okay!
• submitting unfinished works or placeholder pages for future uploads
• submitting entries that promote bigotry and hateful conduct, or are otherwise made in bad faith
• using non-GUI assets, such as sprite, BG, audio, etc., from a larger project of yours
• using illegal assets, such as pirated/stolen assets, or assets you do not have a proper license for
• using engines or programming in a manner that would make hybrid games, such as a half VN/RPG hybrid that features exploration, due to the assets required to make a functional RPG with an overworld map

Entries that disregard the rules will be removed from the jam.

Additionally, AI-generated assets are not allowed. Utilizing systems in which the training data is not owned by the dev, such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and similar, is not allowed, and those entries found in violation will be removed from the jam.

Okay, but... Is X allowed?

See our FAQ in the Community Boards for more in-depth interpretation of the above rules, including edge cases and previously established limits.

However, we would like to reiterate that the spirit of this jam is to create something minimalist and to use the limitations to spur your creativity. So please do not over-complicate yourself. There is probably a simpler way to make the thing that you want to do within the constraints of the jam.

And most importantly: Don't stress, focus on having fun, and keep in mind the aim of the jam is to create something small, self-contained, and finished.

How can I prepare?

The jam follows the "standard" jam protocol. You can:

• make notes/outlines, jot down ideas, brainstorm
• make a sketch or two for designs
• browse and select already existing / Creative Commons assets
• look for team members

All the mental efforts, working out the logic of your story, calculating time needed and other "preparations for your journey" are fine. Finalized assets or writing that appear in the actual game as a direct result of a team member's effort should not be done before the start.

Join the DevTalk Discord for direct support, sharing, and talking to other participants in the "current events" section. You can also use the Community section of this jam page. If you're on Twitter, Bluesky, or other social media sites, post using #O2A2VNJam to see what everyone else is up to!

Disclaimer

We're recommending every game includes some text, either in the splash screen or the game page, indicating your game is an O2A2 VN Jam game and thus was made under some restrictions. This is in hopes of preventing low reviews from players who are unaware of the restrictions of the O2A2 Jam rules. This counts as GUI and doesn't affect your wordcount.

You may use this example boilerplate:

This game was made for the O2A2 VN Jam 2026, a micro Visual Novel jam with strict asset limitations and a 1000 word limit.

You may use the promo graphics for the splash screen for this. If so, please credit accordingly. See "Credits" below.

Credits

This year's banner by Dice! Cherry and Lime belong to DevTalk community and the Visual Novel Developer Network!

We would like to especially thank the following people for their prior involvement hosting O2A2 in years past:

Mikey of ATP Projects

PRINCESS INTERNET CAFE

Tofurocks