This jam is now over. It ran from 2025-09-19 16:00:00 to 2025-09-22 18:00:00. View 71 entries

SA GAME JAM is an annual competition proudly sponsored by Free Lives with the aim of encouraging more South Africans to make games!  The jam will run here on Itch.io from 19-22 September 2025.  We invite game devs of all levels to enter this exciting competition and stand a chance to win a share of over R70 000 cash!

You can enter as an individual or team.  You are allowed to use whatever tools you like and use pre-existing code/sounds/art/assets where it helps you but if you use assets you are required to disclose them.

Whether you're a pro game developer or just starting out, SA GAME JAM is for you. The competition is open to South Africans at any level of experience so enter NOW!

Please indicate in your submission what level you're participating in (student, hobbyist or professional), and whether you would like to be considered for the diversity prize.

Overall Winner: R20 000

Student (currently studying in any field): R10 000

Hobbyist (not working in the game development industry): R10 000

*Diversity: R10 000

Best Art: R5 000

Best Audio: R5 000

Technical Excellence: R5 000

Best Narrative: R5 000

Best Humour: R5 000

WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 12:00PM ON FRIDAY 10 OCTOBER.

1. Competition starts on  19 September 2025.

2. Deadline for entries:

21 September 2025, 18:00 SAST for 48 hour entries. 

22 September 2025, 18:00 SAST for 72 hour entries.

(Please note in your entry whether it is a 48 or 72 hour project)

3. You can enter as an individual or as a team.

4. To be eligible to win any of the prizes, your team has to play and give feedback to five other entries by Monday, 29 September 2025.

5. Use whichever language, tool or development system you are comfortable in.

6. Your game must contain all files needed for it to run and should not require other bulky systems to be downloaded or installed, exceptions are browser plugins like Flash and self-contained DLLs distributed with the game.

7. While any fixes post-jam will be taken into account, the version submitted at the time of the deadline will be played and judged, so make sure it is PLAYABLE WITHOUT ADDITIONAL INFORMATION NOT CONTAINED IN THE GAME.

8. Competition is only open to entry for South African residents. You must be living in South Africa and have an active SA bank account.

9. You retain all copyright to your work.

10. The illegal use of copyrighted material will not be tolerated. Do not steal!

11. All risk or liability in case of copyright infringement or other legal issue resides with the entrant, Free Lives and Maker's Massive take no responsibility for entered games.

12. The judges’ decision is final and no negotiation will be entered into.

13. No generative AI allowed. Entries using generative AI will automatically be disqualified.

*This prize aims to reward devs from marginalised groups (women, people with disabilities, people of colour, LGBTQ+ folks, Indigenous people, etc). At least one member of your team must belong to such a group in order to qualify for the Diversity prize.

You are the monster.

TBA FRIDAY, 10 OCTOBER 2025

BE SURE TO JOIN OUR OFFICIAL TWITTER & DISCORD FOR SA GAME JAM!

Submissions(67)

All submissions
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Browser playable (31)
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Windows (38)
macOS (5)
Linux (2)

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SA Game Jam 2025 - You Are The Monster - Eat fish! Get Big!
Action
Play in browser
You're a polite kaiju and you forgot your car keys.
Action
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Eat 4 pineapples to win.
Card Game
Play in browser
Everyone needs a side hustle, even dragons.
Shooter
Play in browser
you're just after tasty worms, not global destruction. :)
Play in browser
Clicker game where you solve problems! It's cute and fun! Don't think about what you're doing too much.....
social anxiety simulator
Simulation
Follow A Monster Throughout Their Day
Visual Novel
Play in browser
Turn your own spilt blood into a weapon against your foes!
Action
Play in browser
A cozy game about a kraken looking for snackrifices.
Help out your fellow monsters to escape a party you really shouldn't be attending.
Puzzle
Play in browser
Bigfoot does drugs and starts his streaming career
Adventure
Rise from the dead. Take back what's yours.
Play in browser
A game where you play as the monster and need to instill fear to the people
Platformer
Play in browser
An FPS game about embracing the monster within.
Shooter
A gothic horror Bitsy game for SA Game Jam 2025.
Adventure
Play in browser
You are a monster with a mortgage.
Puzzle
Shapeshift to survive: sneak, smash, and escape the dungeon of despair.
Puzzle
Like whackamole but krakamole?!
Action
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Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Action
Hunt down the 12 villagers before time runs out!
Action
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Creep into a Sleepy Village to grab Trinkets and cause Mischief!
Adventure
Action
Play in browser
In Abyssal Monster, you begin as an ordinary fish with one goal: feed your hunger
Adventure
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You are a monster that entered ESKOM. You have to steal the Coal.
Action
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Grow your horde, hunt down the Boss Man, and finish him off before the city is wiped out by a nuclear strike.
CO-OP FIREFIGHTERS FROM HELL
Action
Being lost in the wood can make anyone do anything
Action
Don't forget to tip your landlord, Bruz!
Simulation
Play in browser
Play as a ghost and scare away movers to protect your treasured Mementos.
Action
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Mmm Tasty Children.
Survival
SA Game Jam 2025 entry - "You are the monster"
Action
Summon skeletons. Smash heroes. Defend the dungeon.
Play in browser
Can you keep the monster happy without becoming one yourself?
Survival
Play in browser
Step into the tiny shoes of a mischievous toddler monster let loose in a classroom!
Shooter
The Kaiju make a valiant stand for something. My brain is so fried I forgot
Action
You are the MONSTER.
Survival
A monster, racing in the sky, to try defeat other monsters
Racing
It's an Alien...No, its a Monster...Wait, its Super Kat, the Fiend of Poly City.
Action
Turn cats into bioweapons
Action
Eat bunnies, photosynthesis.
Survival
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A short adventure
Adventure
It's about you and your legacy
Strategy
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Freeze into stone. Move when they don’t look. Climb up and out to freedom.
Play in browser
A simple asteroids-like in a claymation artstyle!
Shooter
Defend your castle from waves of angry villagers armed with pitchforks by using whatever you can throw
Action
Ruin a peaceful day at the park
Simulation
A fast paced space arcade game. Dodge incoming hazards and projectiles while trying to reach your final destination.
Well shiii you're stuck in a well.
Platformer
Do not let yourself turn into the monster!
Follow the White Knight across the land, saving damsels and those in need.
Role Playing
In Broken News you play as a reporter who neesds a hair transplant.
Interactive Fiction
Made for the SA game jam 2025.
Survival
Play in browser
Scare test subjects
Puzzle
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You are the ghost!
Action
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You are a shy monster, eat bugs to stay alive and keep your invisibility by hiding under the bed
Survival
Recruit the right monster for the job using children's crayon drawings
Puzzle
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Kill enemies by playing mini games
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Nuclear annihilation has never been so easy!
Action
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48 Hours Submission, you are a slime in a mad scientist's lab. Your only goal Eat or be captured.
Action
Play in browser