Hey everyone and welcome to the February Gam Jam.

A lot has happened since the last time I ran a monthly jam.

The world has become a sobering place. Optimism and faith in progress have been shaken.

It's been difficult for a lot of us to care about some of the things we love the most.

Truths about the inalienable rights of liberty and happiness for all people don't seem to be so self-evident any more. The imperfect but long-effective mechanics of our democracy to guard against authoritarianism are being threatened.

But it's also been an inspiringly hopeful time. The people of our country have come together and taken action in unprecedented ways to stand up to these threats. And, in this jam, we're going to join them. The only way we know how*. By making games.

This month we are joining ResistJam, a jam being run in association with IndieCade, with support from the IGDA, Global Game Jam and Devolver. Check out details here: https://itch.io/jam/resistjam

The theme of the jam is resistance. It's a challenging theme. Games typically set up systems that players work within to achieve goals. But resistance is about what you do when your ability to work within the system has been taken away or rendered useless. Resistance is what you do when you have no recourse but you refuse to fight. Resistance can be not doing anything. How do you create a game mechanic that allows those things?

Of course, there are many other ways to approach the theme. I'm excited to see what you come up with.

We will be jamming until March 9th. So, we'll be getting started before the official jam kicks off, and we'll be ending a couple days early.

I expect to see some interesting things happen around this jam. They have already announced that there will be having online workshops and offering professional mentors to increase the accessibility of the jam. So keep your eyes on their web page and twitter.

* Maybe some of you know some other things