This year, we're continuing the judging pass.

Here’s how it works:

• Everyone is still able to participate and compete in Spooktober 2026.
• Special categories will be nominations based, with public vote ranking taken into consideration in addition to community and judge nominations. Judges will continue to review the nominations and select winners there.
• The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes require a Judge Pass to qualify a team for consideration.
• Judge passes also entitle participants to pitch and present in a special competitive Meet & Greet, focused on helping people find teams and team members seeking to compete for the grand prizes. This Meet & Greet is scheduled August 16th, and purchase of a Judge Pass is required before that date in order to present.
• Judge passes will stop being sold September 15th, 2026. Your order number is your Judge Pass number, so make note of it.
• The goal of this pass is to reduce the total number of entries the judges need to review and permit us to continue judging at the quality we want to maintain.

Proceeds from the passes will be given to the judges to thank them for their time or given back to the community at their discretion.

The pass will be available here: Judge Pass link coming soon.

You are permitted to create concept art, written outlines and log lines prior to the start date. With the exception of the log line, these prior creations cannot be used as-is in your final submissions.

Please be mindful of commonly reported content descriptors!

The ESRB's content descriptors are a good guideline of what we want to be mindful of!

Our judges do not wish to review and rank sexually explicit content, and many of our participants and audience are minors in their location.

We won't complain if you change it after the jam.

Our judges do not wish to review content where upon suicide or self-harm is promoted, glorified, or instructed.

Text, whether in-game or in the non-executable files of the submission, containing instructions, encouragement of, or statement of intent of suicide or self-harm are similarly disqualified and reported to Itch.IO staff where applicable.

If you do not feel safe or have ideations of self-harm or suicide, please visit the find a helpline site to find a crisis helpline in your country!

Jams can be tough, and it can be hard to create a complete experience on your own in such a limited time frame. We encourage utilizing pre-existing, pre-packaged assets to help supplement your development to ease the burdens of skill and time.

Note: Third party means it was not created by you, or on your behalf.

Humans must illustrate, write, program, etc every part of your submission!

Be mindful if you are using third party assets as per the previous rule, as this extends to 3rd party assets.

In order to judge your entries, we need to be able to download them, and afford to download them. You're welcome to charge for your submissions after the judging period.

Running our competition in September means your visual novels will be ready by October. While Halloween is only one day of the year, people will consume Halloween and horror content leading up to the holiday, after which it sharply declines. Timely releases make your visual novels more likely to be seen, and we want visual novels to be seen!

Yes! In fact, we encourage it!

We download ALL of the submissions at the point where the jam closes and we judge that copy of the submissions. Those copies cannot be updated, but you can update and fix your submissions for your players.

In order to be eligible for prizes, you must be able to enable payment through Itch.IO and accept funds from Itch.IO. Special category winners may optionally accept prize distributions through PayPal or agreed upon distribution. Those not eligible for prizes due to pay out limitations are still eligible for awards that do not carry a prize.

In addition to the above, sponsors of the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam or those acting on their behalf are not eligible for prizes OR awards. The Spooktober Visual Novel Jam staff, judges, administrators, as well as their families, employers or those employed by, with, or under aforementioned competition officials are similarly ineligible for prizes but may still otherwise participate in the event.

Prizes and awards that would otherwise be given to an ineligible participant will be given instead to the next eligible runner up.

The Spooktober Visual Novel Jam staff do not distribute funds directly to individual team members. Prizes are distributed directly to the owner of the account that submits a prize winning entry, and the owner of that account is responsible for managing the prize distribution amongst team members.

We encourage teams to plan for success! Be sure to have an agreement amongst your team members about how prizes your team wins will be distributed.

As long as it fits the above criteria and was created within the same time span as this jam, then yes!

Yes! Inquire on our Discord Server or at Stella@SpooktoberVNJam.com

Yes! Please do. Logos, graphical attribution, and similar assets representing makers of the game that would ordinarily be included on a splash screen, on the title screen, or in a credits section, are fine to be included.

Yes! Actually we appreciate it if you do. Using the logo in your submission helps us quickly identify that the game was made for Spooktober VN Jam and it helps readers find your fellow jam participants through the name of the jam!

You are welcome to remix the logo to fit your game's aesthetic, keeping the same general shape and the words 'Spooktober Visual Novel Jam' in their arrangement.

We expect that people be allowed to stream and consume the content during the month of October freely. If you'd like to add a price after October 31st, we won't object.

We claim no ownership of any jam game submitted. By submitting to the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam, you do agree to allow the hosts of Spooktober Visual Novel Jam and its sponsors to use all or part of your submissions for jam promotion and sponsorship news purposes.

If you have any concerns about your jam submission, whether it be a rule based on or you'd just like some feedback on improving it before submitting, check out our Discord server.

The community votes are publicly visible on Itch.IO.

The Judge rankings that are publicly visible are only the three main prize winning submissions and the special category winners and nominees.

Short answer: No. All of the judges do not read all of the entries. At least two judges will evaluate each submission.

For the first pass of judgement, two judges are assigned to each submission to determine whether or not it is likely a submission will be able to compete in the top entries for the competition. Those that are confirmed as potential contenders for ranking are added to the Short List.

Entries that make it past the first pass of judgement are then read by all of the judges, and then ranked accordingly.

Yes and no.

Judges are permitted to write reviews if the team lead of the project specifically asks for a written review from the judges. This does not mean a request will be fulfilled, as the judges can elect not to give feedback.

• Test your game before submitting! Most entries that do not make it into the short list crash, have typos or other visual bugs that could have been avoided.
• Show your Spooktober pride! Include the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam 2026 logo as a splash screen if you can.
• Winners credit their help! Credit your team members on your submission page. If you are the only member, credit yourself as a sole developer.
• Be mindful of your loudness! Consider having someone master your audio prior to submission.
• Be mindful of standard features! Save/Load functionality, skip previously read and automatic progressing of text are usually a good idea to include.

• Pay attention to the year's special categories.
• Make complete, self-contained experiences.
• Work on your opening segments, log line, and other promo material.
• Join the Discord and get advice for your specific scenario.