🛸 Welcome to the JAM 🛸
This is the main page for ACM Game Dev's Fall 2025 Game Jam. This event is only for S&T students. If that's you, then welcome!
ALL SKILL LEVELS WELCOME!
ARTISTS + MUSICIANS + DESIGNERS IN HIGH DEMAND!
Theme: Conspiracy
⚙️ What is this event?
You, or your team of up to 4 people, have one week to develop a game based on the theme listed above. If that sounds overwhelming, don't worry! That's the whole point... It's all about the challenge and creative limitations. Build skills, collaborate, and have some fun! By the end, you just might have a badass game to show off.
🎮 How To Submit Your Game
Step 1: Create an account on itch.io if you don't already have one: https://itch.io/register
Step 2: You must upload your game to itch.io before submitting it to the jam. Only one person per team needs to do this:
Step 3: Click the "Join jam" button at the top of this page if you haven't already. This will reveal the "Submit your project" button. Click that button, which will take you to a page that lets you add your game to the game jam.
🗳️ How To Vote On the Theme
Use this Google form: https://forms.gle/BagBanJVCTYsoiHi8
Read the instructions. Follow the rules, or else your vote will be excluded!
📆 Schedule
We advise that you show up for these events, but you can still participate even if you can't make it. If you win a prize and can't attend the awards ceremony, reach out to ACM Game Dev people over Discord.
Kickoff, 🍕 FREE PIZZA 🍕
When: Thursday September 18th @ 7:30 PM
Where: Computer Science Building, room 222 + Over Discord
Game Dev leadership will review the rules, answer questions, eat pizza, and probably get up to some other mischief 😈😈😈
Then, the theme of the game jam will be chosen. Without spoiling it, let's just say... the way we choose the theme is fun...
Once the theme has been chosen, the jam officially begins.
Games are Due and Voting Period Begins
When: Thursday September 25th @ 11:59:59 PM
Where: Wherever you want, I guess...
Hang Out and Play Game Jam Games
When: Saturday September 27th @ 7:00 PM
Where: Computer Science Building, room 222 + Over Discord
Come on over to hang out and play the game jam games. Bring your friends ( and enemies )!
Awards Ceremony
When: October 2nd @ 7:30 PM
Where: Computer Science Building, room 222 + Over Discord
Voting closes. Prizes and trophies are awarded.
💬 Discord Server
The # jam-chat channel is a great place to ask questions and show off your progress.
If nobody is getting back with you, direct DMs to members with the Leadership role.
🏆 How Are The Winners Chosen?
Once games are due, students will play them, then vote on whose they think is the best. Anybody can play the games, and anybody with a Missouri S&T email address can vote.
Criteria
Voters will rate games based on the following 5 criteria:
- Fun: How entertaining/addicting was the game?
- Adherence To Theme: How well did the game follow the theme?
- Originality: How creative was the game's design?
- Completeness: To what extent did the game feel like a finished product?
- Presentation: How good were the game's graphics/audio?
For each game, scores are averaged across all criteria. The game with the highest average score wins. Ties are broken in order of the criteria.
Prizes
1st, 2nd, and 3rd place will be awarded 100 Prize Points each.
There will be multiple prizes available for purchase using these Prize Points, worth a total of 300 Prize Points, and a total of $350.
1st place chooses their prizes first, 2nd chooses second, and 3rd chooses last.
🎁 What Are The Prizes?
2x Razer DeathAdder Mouses - 25 points each
2x Redragon Mechanical LED Keyboards - 25 points each
4x 500GB External Hard Drives - 25 points each
3x Anker Soundcore 2 Bluetooth Speakers - 30 points each
Anker USB-C Power Bank - 10 points
🧙♂️ Some Words of Advice
- Web builds are the best builds. Make your game playable in the browser! It is the most convenient platform, since it's compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux, and doesn't require players to download the game. That being said, it's optimal to export your game to as many platforms as possible.
- Windows builds are the second-best builds. Most PCs use Windows.
- Good teamwork is overpowered. For the introverted: use this event as an opportunity to get out of your comfort zone.
- If you are working in a team, learn to use Git. It's the best collaboration tool for software projects. It's not that hard to learn. Look up some tutorials. It will also help you get a software development job.
- Open-source your project. Unless you plan to sell your game, put the code somewhere like GitHub. This helps with portfolio-building, and is the best way to preserve your project. It's easier to rebuild an old project than to make an old executable compatible.
- Don't wait until the last minute to export your project. Give your team a good hour before the deadline to iron out build issues. The submission deadline is strictly enforced, though with permission, you can add more builds after submissions are due.
- Ask questions in the ACM Game Dev Discord. The community is very welcoming to developers of any experience level.
⚖️ For Fairness' Sake
- If a participant is not a current Missouri S&T Student, their game will be disqualified.
- If a participant plagiarizes somebody else's work, their game will be disqualified.
- If a participant uses paid music and/or art assets, their game will be disqualified. Pay-to-win is for Umamusume, not game jams.
- Teams with more than 4 participants will be disqualified.
- You will be required to sign in with a valid Missouri S&T email address in order to vote on the theme.
- The submission deadline is strictly enforced, with a few exceptions. Try not to wait until the last minute to ask.
- Remember to give credit if you use pre-existing free-to-use music and/or art assets.
- Remember to credit all teammates in your submission.
- Make sure your game adheres to the theme. Remember, Adherence To Theme is a rating criteria.
- All programming languages, game engines, and frameworks are allowed.
🤖 AI Policy
Many artists and musicians view "Gen AI" as an existential threat. Who can blame them? These models are often marketed as an existential threat to creative types. It's foolish to think anybody can accurately predict what the role of artists will be in the future, and even more foolish to use faulty predictions as an excuse to disrespect artists today, while their skills are very much still valuable. It's out of respect for artists that we created this policy.
1. No AI art/music assets.
More specifically, if ACM Game Dev leadership can prove you used art/music assets made using a generative diffusion model, we will disqualify your submission.
However, this is a hard thing to prove. To make matters worse, assets can be edited "by hand" after generation, resulting an a whole spectrum from "lazy generic slop" to "used as a reference". We'll do our due diligence.
But consider the following: artists and musicians will be reviewing your game. They tend to be good at identifying AI-generated assets, and we will impose no restrictions upon their judgement. Why risk it?
2. AI generated code is allowed.
AI models are also marketed as an existential threat to programmers. But, ask any engineer who isn't trying to sell you something, and they will tell you that current models are miles away from the technical and logical competence required to pose that type of threat ( to be fair, the hype itself has been harmful ). It's a tool, and an unreliable and imprecise one at that. Use it, but don't let it use you.
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