Welcome to the 12 Days of Sketchoween Game Jam. This is a slightly different to the usual Sketchmas style game jam. The others are a rather relaxed 12 day jams with 1 prompt per day. For Sketchoween I want us to try something different. For the 12 days of Sketchoween the goal is to create a small Halloween themed game, spoopy or not, and release it for sale. The jam starts 3^rd October 0:00 UTC and ends on the 17^th October.

How it Works

Create a Halloween themed game in 2 weeks.

Set up a marketing campaign (optional).

Release the game for voting (and sales).

We all meet on the Discord/jam page and do a post-mortem at the end of the jam.

Rules

Create a small Halloween game in any engine you want, bonus points for using an open source engine like Godot or Amethyst (we have a list of open source/free/freemium engines on the Discord server). If you'd rather create a small print-and-playable tabletop game, that's also acceptable.

You are free to use any assets you have the right to use such as assets you create yourself, freely available creative commons/public domain assets or paid-for assets (provided you follow the terms of the licenses).

Prompts

Unlike other Sketchmas based jams there won’t be multiple prompts. There will be a prompt provided but you don't need to use it. It’s just there to be an inspiration so you’re not just approaching the jam with a blank piece of paper in front of you. The prompt will be released at the start of the jam.

The Prompt is Drain

Feel free to interpret this however you want. It could be as simple as a vampire game (playing as or battling against), you could have to drain the power from a mad scientist's lair before they summon the demon or play a sewage worker investiagating some spooky goings on, fixing the plumbing in a haunted mansion or anything. Remember the prompt is to help your creative juices flow. If you already had an idea or don't like the prompt/suggestions provided you don't need to use it.

Why is this jam different to the other Sketchmas based jams?

Honestly? For the last few years I’ve been trying to make and/or release a Halloween themed game and every year it gets too late. So this year I thought I would make a game jam out of this desire and hopefully it would give me more structure to get something done. A game jam also lets me share this want with others, hopefully helping them to make something fun for the season too.

How Much Time Should I Spend on the Jam?

As much time as you want/can, just don’t burn out. My original thinking was 1-3 days working out the design, make sure you’ve got it down, maybe work on some art assets. Spend the remaining days programming, getting the game as polished as you can and designing your marketing plan.

Why the Does the Submission Period Last 2 Weeks and Not 12 Days?

Sketchmas style jams are designed to fit around your life, a short weekend jam is fun and if you’re skilled enough you can create a simple game just fine but often life, lack of inspiration, over ambition can get in the way. This can be quite disheartening. The original Sketchmas jam was designed to fit around the hectic winter holiday party season, family visits, friends and all that. The name 12 days came from the fact that it was based on 12 prompts (as in the 12 days of Christmas). The extra week was to ensure you had enough time to implement everything to a satisfactory level despite delays.

This jam follows a similar design/philosophy minus 12 prompts. Without multiple prompts and with the optional sales period it seemed better to run the jam for a solid 2 weeks, leaving 2 weeks for the sales component.

Sales?

The sales “competition” is a completely optional part of the jam. I thought it would be fun for this jam for people to develop and work out a marketing strategy on a game that has no real time/investment risk behind it. This way they can learn from their mistakes and from others’ successes. However I understand that you may not feel comfortable with the quality of your game or that selling the game puts you in a place of too much commitment or that you simply are not in a legal/financial place to accept money for a small game jam game, as such if you’d rather not don’t worry about it.

Postmortem

Because there is an optional sales competition for this jam it might be nice to run a proper postmortem on your project, saying what went right, what went wrong and ask for advice on your marketing strategy to see if you can improve your sales after the jam period.

Community

We have an official Discord server feel free to join and talk about game dev, art or whatever.

The Art Jam

Normally with Sketchmas style jams the art and game jams are run concurrently. However because the game jam starts so early in its respective season (for the sales component), the art jam will be run later, starting on the 20^th of October and finishing on the 31^st. To find out more visit the official art jam page.