The games are in!  Please play and rate your fellow jammers' games!  (If you missed the submission deadline, upload your game to itch and then send the game's URL to  questions@openjam.io)

The theme for Open Jam is: Leave a mark

Open Jam is a game jam with 🖤.  At Open Jam, you build an open-source videogame over the weekend, rate other creators’ games, and compete for a chance to have your game featured at All Things Open, a premier open source conference.   We wanted to host a jam that promotes open source games and game creation tools. That's why we're teaming up with Opensource.com to bring you Open Jam, a game jam dedicated to doing just that.

Using open source tools is highly encouraged!

How is Open Jam Different?

There are other jams that require the game source to be submitted.  What we wanted to do with Open Jam is promote not only open source games, but open source game creation tools as well.  This jam encourages use of open source game engines, authoring tools, and platforms, and Creative Common assets, and to link those tools in your submission.  Anything open source in your game creation process is encouraged! That is why we are hosted by opensource.com and winners games will be featured All Things Open conference.  Open Jam is all about open games and open game development.

How does it work?

Open Jam will be a 72 hour Jam based on a theme.  It will run October 6-8th

Here are Open Jam’s guidelines:

• The theme will be announced at 11:30 PM October 5th (US Eastern).

• Your game can run on any platform, but must at a minimum be playable on either Linux or the web.

• Games should be licensed as open source.

• You can create your own assets or use existing, openly licensed assets (e.g., Creative Commons).

• You can work solo or on a team.   If you're looking for a team checkout our CrowdForge team page.

• Judging will run October 9-15th and will be peer-based.

• Games require a minimum of 10 ratings to place in the top 3

• The top three games will be featured and playable at All Things Open.

If you’re looking for open source game creation tools to try, we have a list below.  We encourage any openly licensed game engine, framework, or library, but it is not a strict requirement.  For non-code assets like music and sprites, anything marked with Creative Commons is welcome, or you can create your own! Make the greatest game you can by bringing together the best of the open world.

At the end of the weekend, release your game and code to the world, play other participants' games, and rate them.

Open Source Game Creation Tools

There are too many amazing open source tools to list on this page, but here is a categorized list of many to get you started:

Calinou's "Awesome Gamedev" list of open tools

If you want to suggest an open source tool used in game creation email jared@scripta.co and I'll do my best to get it added to the list above.

Social

1. Please stop by the community and introduce yourself or team and share your progress once the jam starts
2. Join our discord channel if you want to keep in touch in real-time
3. Follow these twitter accounts:  @openjamio, @caramelcode, @mwcz
4. Use social hashtag:  #openjam17

Prizes

After judging has completed, the top three games in the Overall category will be chosen and featured at All Things Open in Raleigh, N.C.  October 23-24.  Your game, your source code, and your contribution to open source are an even bigger prize.   There are no monetary or physical rewards in Open Jam.  

Questions

There are a number of ways to ask questions.  

1.  Ask in the community
2.   Email:  questions@openjam.io
3.   Tweet to us @caramelcode or @mwcz

How to submit a game

We recorded this video showing how to submit a game to Open Jam.  It also shows how to submit as a team.

Credits

Open Jam is a collaboration brought to you by  opensource.com,  Jared Sprague and Michael Clayton.