Robot Party Jam 2023 has concluded, but you can watch some post-mortem presentations from many of our designers here!

The Robot Party Game Jam is about making a diverse range of weird games that adhere to a strangely specific theme and ruleset. The scenario and characters were brainstormed with a live audience on Twitch (archived here!). Here is the result:

THEME

The boss’s daughter Melanie is turning 14 on July 17th. We obviously had other stuff to do, but our boss has decided that we need to build the perfect birthday present for Melanie: a video game based off of her original world and characters detailed in a notebook she pointedly left on the kitchen counter. When you flip this notebook open you find one cryptic phrase on the first page…

In this world, everyone has three friends. And the only way to break up with a friend is to solve their trick.

After that intriguing description of the Original World, the notebook contains 8 pages, each depicting an Original Character with a unique Secret Power.

PRIMEVAL MASK - Power Ranger-esque costume - SECRET POWER: Can morph into historical figures

THE CHAMP - Wears Hawaiian shirts - SECRET POWER: Their rhymes cause subtle shifts in reality 

WALRUS GEMBY - A toothy smile - SECRET POWER: occasionally holds pleasant conversations with small critters

MARY MARGARET - facial birthmark - SECRET POWER: can communicate with the dead

BIG GEORGE - very small man made of cotton wool - SECRET POWER: highly flammable but cool with it

SERAPHINA - shimmering silver hair down to her ankles - SECRET POWER: echolocation (from swishing hair back and forth)

AURORA BLACKMOON - Athletic build - SECRET POWER: can communicate with big animals

SOLVEIG - Longggg hair - SECRET POWER: Untraceable gossip

*Thanks to LittleKittenBit for coloring these!

Our objective is to make a video game that will make Melanie happy. We don’t know much about Melanie, just that she’s turning 14, she’s “mean but in a fun way,” and she hates losing.

Our boss’s gentle demand: we have to make a game that will take place in Melanie’s Original World and star one of her Original Characters, and it has to be finished by her birthday on July 17th.

PLEASE NOTE: This doesn't mean your game needs to use Melanie's highly-specific friendship rules as a mandatory gameplay mechanic. Think of this as background lore for whatever you'd like to create.

Similarly, characters do not need to appear exactly as Melanie drew them. Everything is wildly open to interpretation!

RULES

- Any kind of game is accepted, though it must be playable on Windows without additional software or run in a web browser
- Do not use any unlicensed material (Epidemic Music is cleared on my channel)
- Do not use machine learning AI for any asset, text, or code generation
- The game should not take longer than 30 minutes to finish

- Your game must take place in Melanie’s Original World and star one of her Original Characters
- The star’s Secret Power must remain a secret
- Any Game Over screens must be encouraging in some manner
- At some point, the game must include the line “...but not as beautiful as Melanie.”
- The game must feature an item shop run by Dark Schippie Dues, the multidimensional heel. He must sell an item that is seemingly beneficial but offers potentially disastrous drawbacks. This was last-known appearance of Dark Schippie Dues:

JUDGING

There will be open judging on itch.io. The judges will grade games in three categories with a score from 1-5. The categories are: 

Making Melanie Happy - How much we think Melanie is going to love this gift
Sticking to the Rules - How well the game abides by both the important and seemingly trivial rules
Actually Fun - Acknowledging all of the constraints, how much fun is at the heart of this game

The deadline for entrants is July 17th, 5pm ET. Each entrant will be streamed live Friday, July 21st on twitch.tv/KyleBosman, adding additional days as necessary. Judging will close July 27th.

The winning entry to this Game Jam will be bestowed with the honorable distinction of being recognized as official canon.

In addition to the single Robot Party Jam Winner, this year the community will also be voting on extra Robot Party Jam awards. The categories will be:

Outstanding Original Music
Neatest Game Mechanic
Strongest Narrative
Nicest Visuals
Best Dark Schippie Dues
Most Foamy (The Random Bonus Chat Category)

DISCORD

If you're looking to collaborate on a project or just chat about the game jam, there's a dedicated channel on the Robot Party discord server here: https://discord.gg/HhXAdRFwcC