This is the first ever Reciprocity Game Jam created with the specific goal of creating the conditions for our community to learn from one another and grow.

Within a period of 6 months, you will be tasked with creating a game that follows a specific theme. This theme will be provided at the beginning of the Jam. As you make your game, we hope to help you share and observe your growth and the growth of others.

HOW TO JOIN

Anyone can join, all you have to do is press join the jam at the top of the screen.

Then join the telegram channel by clicking here

For any Non-ethiopian developers, we recommend you dont join. This is a game jam designed specifically for ethiopian developers and you may not get the full benefits of participting in a gam jam.

RULES

General rules

• Solo or teams of 2
• Monthly checkups (Full devlogs or simple feature list)

AI

• Audio, Visual, Text or any other content in the
  game made by generative AI is entirely banned
• Use of AI for inspiration or guidance is heavily discouraged
  (We hope you can come up with your own ideas and make ur own dicisions)
• Limited coding with AI is allowed
• AI game design or decisions is discouraged.
  Believe in yourself and make your own choices

Submissions

• Any solo or team dev can submit any amount of projects
• Submission after the deadline is not allowed

RANKING

After the end of the submission phase, the submitted games will be judged by mystery judges to be announced.

All game will be ranked using 6 categories

• Overall
• Originality
• Theme Usage
• Fun
• Art
• Creativity

FAQs

1. "What is a game jam?"

- a creative, accelerated event where individuals or teams design, develop, and publish a playable video game from scratch within a strictly limited timeframe, usually 24 to 72 hours.

2. "Why is this game jam called Reciprocity?"

- One of the main reasons we are organizing this game jam was to bridge the gap between the skillsets of us Ethiopians as game developers and that of the rest of the world. Best way to do that in our opinion was to give the contestants 6 months to learn, plan, design, and implement their entries while at the same time sharing their experiences and learning from each other, i.e "reciprocating".

3. "Why does it last 6 months? Why not 2 days to a week?"

- The biggest hurdle most of us organizers faced in all the game jams we took part in is that we were always unable to learn a new tool, skillset or try experimental ideas within a 48 - 72 hour timeframe. Going out of our existing knowledge base always ended up in a disaster as our final submissions were often underbaked as a result of mismanaged short time. To solve this issue, this game jam will last enough time such that nobody will feel rushed and be in survival mode while working on something that should be considered as a hobby.

4. "Are there prizes?"

- No. The aim of this game jam is to make videogames and get better at the craft.  It was initially planned to be held among 8 friends but we decided it'd be more fun if we had more competition. That being said, if a sponsor is willing to cover the costs of a prize they have in mind we will gladly assist their charitable spirit in any way.

5. "How will the winner be decided?"

- So as to avoid getting review bombed by a public audience, whether its positive reviews left by friends and family who haven't even tried the game or negative reviews from people who are being toxic, the game jam submissions are going to be evaluated and ranked by select judges that won't be participating in the game jam.