Rattle those bones and crawl on out of the crypt! It's time for the 💀Skeleton Jam! 💀 Whether your skeletons are spooky, silly, heroic, villainous, fashionable, deeply inconvenienced by their lack of flesh, or just trying to make an honest living after death, we want to see them! Dig through the graveyard of your imagination and make a game where skeletons get to be more than another pile of bones waiting for an adventurer to smash. Build them, battle them, befriend them, give them jobs, send them on adventures, or let them finally enjoy their afterlife. If it rattles, clatters, and has an unreasonable number of bones, it belongs here!

What Can I Create?

All game formats are welcome!

Submit:

Video games

Tabletop RPGs

Card games

One Page Dungeons

Board games

Solo journaling games

LARPs

Interactive fiction

Mobile games

Visual novels

Game systems and supplements

Experimental games

Unfinished Projects

Whether you're a first-time creator or an experienced developer, you're welcome to join.

This is a low-pressure, unranked jam meant to encourage creativity, so take your time, experiment, and have fun!

Inspiration

Need ideas? Consider:

Afterlife of the Party - Skeletons continuing to live, work, party, adventure, date, or cause problems after death.

Skeleton Crew - Your game features a group of skeletons working together toward some goal. Pirate crew, dungeon staff, restaurant employees, adventuring party, construction workers, spaceship crew, etc.

Bare Bones - Skeleton theme + deliberately small games. Make something using limited mechanics, components, pages, or development time.

Bone to Pick - Every skeleton has unfinished business. The game revolves around figuring out what it is and doing something about it.

Rattle & Roll - Skeletons + movement, chaos, music, dice, dancing, racing, fighting, or physical comedy.

The Bone Zone - Somewhere in the world is a place completely run by skeletons. Participants decide what that actually means.

Funny Bones - Skeleton comedy. The explicit goal is making something silly rather than scary.

Old Bones - Skeletons have been around a long time. Games about forgotten history, ancient places, memories, archaeology, old grudges, or watching the world change. (In case you missed the Lost Civilization Jam!)

Bad to the Bone - Skeleton protagonists doing crimes, fighting authority, dungeon crawling, piracy, rebellion, etc.

Bone Apple Teeth - Skeletons somehow involved with food despite the obvious logistical problem.

Dem Bones - Build, rearrange, collect, identify, steal, summon, or otherwise mechanically interact with bones.

Jam Rules

Required

Your project must be completed during the jam period for this jam. If you have an unfinished project on the backburner, now’s the time to finish it!

Your game must relate to the theme.

You may work alone or as a team.

Both free and paid submissions are allowed but please offer community copies for members of the jam to check out your game

Follow copyright laws and Itch.io’s community guidelines.

Not Allowed

Hate speech or discriminatory content

Plagiarized or stolen work

Submissions unrelated to the theme

Adult-only or pornographic content

No AI Generated Games

Discord Link

Want to chat with fellow game creators, share progress, or just talk all things TTRPG and Game Design? Join my discord server and check out my game jam related channels and chats. 

https://discord.gg/XWfEvYgrds

Community Guidelines

Please be respectful and supportive.

Game jams are about learning, creating, experimenting, and having fun.

Leave constructive feedback when possible and celebrate the work of fellow creators.

Remember that many participants may be creating their first game.

This Jam is NOT ranked but I would love to review the games on my YouTube channel! I personally judge the following criteria:

Theme and Creativity will judge how well the theme was incorporated and how original the content is.

Game Design and Mechanics will judge how well the rules support play and whether the submission feels playable as written.

Clarity and Readability will judge how easy the game was to understand and whether the game was well organized.

Presentation and Layout will judge how polished and pleasant the game was to read or play and if any art included is visually appealing.

Completeness and Scope will judge whether the submission feels complete for its size. Does it deliver a full playable experience regardless of page count or length of play?

💀🦴So dust off those old bones, get those creative joints rattling, and make something wonderfully skeletal! Whether your game is spooky, silly, cozy, chaotic, or completely boneheaded, we can’t wait to see what crawls out of the graveyard. 🦴💀