Welcome to the jam! Once you've read the rules on the main page, here are some more specific cases to give you an idea of what you can work with.

If you can't find your specific case or situation, feel free to ask!

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GENERAL CLARIFICATIONS

You can:

• have more than a single choice or fork in your VN/story
• use your existing universe so long as the player does not need prior context to understand your entry
• have unlimited solid color backgrounds in menus and in-game
• use Text-To-Speech without impact on any audio limits
• use any freely available asset (paid, Creative Commons, and others)
• provide additional information on the VN's website including separate character drawings, backstory info, banners and cover images, provided they don't make diminish the VN-only experience
• use your own existing assets not made for a VN/game (e.g. vacation photos, childhood drawings, old poem)
  
• use previously created custom menu styles, even if they appeared in other games before.
• submit NSFW/R18 work, provided it's tagged/flagged appropriately
• draw by code, but only when the results are equivalent to having a single sprite and single BG

You cannot:

• use sprites, backgrounds, scripts or other assets made or commissioned for a different VN/game project before (even if it's unfinished)

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ONE SPRITE

It is within the rules to:

• have many facial expressions for the sprite by changing eyes, nose, eyebrows and mouth.
• have many off-screen actors / characters, so long as only one is visually represented by a sprite
• have a character sprite have an auxiliary character that does not feature in interactions (e.g, a woman holding a baby, a pirate with a parrot, blind person with dog)
• have an "extra item" which is a single non-central element that will be hidden (man loses a hat, child's balloon flies away) or appears. 
• use the single sprite for twins, clones, ghosts, swarms, etc.
• mirror and otherwise transform the sprite in game
• show only a portion of a sprite, including cut-outs or zooms.
• have an inanimate object as the sprite (e.g. UFO, a portal, a robot)
• having multiple small ambient objects as the sprite (e.g. adding traffic to the city, searchlights to prison)
• fully or partially assemble a sliced up sprite in game, and apply effects to individual elements (e.g. a snowman's head)
• animate parts of the sprite to achieve effects of breathing, bobbing their head, or other idle animation
• have a single alternate movement of a single body part (head, single arm) so long as it doesn't change the pose, and so long as the VN does not also use the allowed "extra item".

It is not allowed to:

• have multiple changes of clothes for the sprite, or any other separate layers that overlap with their non-transparent parts
• use a sprite overlay to vastly transform the background (e.g. pre- and post-war city)
• create animations of the sprite that use extra bits for transitioning from state to state
• change the sprite's pose (e.g. move the torso)
• drawing alternate forms of hair or shaded clothes for any movement

Illustrations (CGs) can:

• be used instead of a separate sprite and background
• feature characters with expression changes and other alterations analog to sprites
• feature simple crowd silhouettes, or suggestions of people

Illustrations (CGs) cannot:

• show multiple people
• show a silhouette next to a fully shown character

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ONE BACKGROUND

Allowed:

• using the engine's functions or scripting to alter the background (e.g. blur, night filter, mirroring) 
• small looping animation (e.g. inside of train with passing scenery, waterfall)
• zooming, panning and cutting around a larger image
• revealing previously obscured information or areas through pans, zooms and cuts
• using layers to show a sliced up an image as a single background (no opaque parts of layers can overlap)

Not allowed:

• creating secondary versions (multiple separate files) of the background image (e.g. blur, night version)
• using masks to create secondary versions of the background image on screen
• using an image which is created in such a way that focusing on segments effectively changes scenes
• achieving the background by overlapping fully or partially opaque layers, even if the in-game result appears as a single image

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ONE THOUSAND WORDS

When in doubt, pure words counted by Google Docs are to be taken as standard. 

Counts against the 1.000 word limit:

• foreword / afterword / author's notes
• text of all the VN's branches combined
• text of choices
• images of letters or longer-form text
• any additional parallel language / translation
• custom menu items like "Start your adventure" instead of "Start"
• emoji-only statements (count as a single word)
• emoji made of words (count as the amount of words in the emoji)

Does not count against the 1.000 word limit:

• minigame using words if it's purely a game mechanic (does not advance story)
• chapter names, even if displayed on screen
• signs, posters, even if they relate to the story
• short factual glossary, if explanation cannot be reasonably provided in game
• credits, help / controls
• emoji used to only accompany and reiterate a word or statement
• repeats of blocks of text achieved by scripting (e.g. common route, recurring dream)
• surplus text generated from a base text that is within the word count limit (e.g. chat bot, AI generator)
• name tags, so long as they are not directly conveying narrative

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ONE MUSIC TRACK OR ONE AMBIENT BACKGROUND NOISE

Allowed:

• a looped sound effect acting as ambient background noise (e.g. rain)
• a track with multiple melodies / styles, if it existed prior to the jam, and only a single segment is looped, with another segment looped only for a special short segment / occasion.

Not allowed:

• a track combining music and ambient sounds
• a mash-up or mix of multiple songs with timed transitions (megamix, medley)
• additional menu music (if the VN also has in-game music/ambient noise)

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ONE SOUND EFFECT

The single sound effect...

• can be used multiple times
• cannot be looped continuously (if yes, it counts as background noise)
• can be made by a person different to the voice actor
• limit does not apply to interface sounds

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ONE VOICE ACTOR

The O2A2's single voice actor...

• can use use variations of voices
• can have their voice modulated and processed to create completely different sounding voices
• can be replaced by sound effects / beeps processed to act as voices
• can speak lines not part of the VN's text, provided they don't go over 1.000 words combined.

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ONE PIECE OF MENU BACKGROUND

The main menu / title screen background...

• can be different to the in-game background. 
• can have separate versions of itself with menu location indicators
• can contain any version or portion of the in-game sprite, background or the CG (e.g. cropped, filtered, lineart).
• can contain a heavily stylized or abstract version of the single sprite character (e.g. logo, chibi, mascot)
• cannot contain a new character, or a new pose for the single sprite character.
• can be accompanied by an unlimited quantity of solid color backgrounds for any menu screen..

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ONE PROJECT

One person in the O2A2 jam...

• can only be the primary creative lead for a single project (e.g. producer, director, author)
• can additionally be a secondary creative contributor for someone else's project (e.g. draw a sprite)
• can further collaborate on other projects in a non-creative role (e.g. coordination, marketing)