#subQjam is an annual jam about making short interactive story games- fiction, art, or poetry that is enhanced by or can only be presented through interactivity. 

The theme for this year's jam is ENVIRONMENT.

Two winners—one from open voting, one judges' choice entry—will be contracted for publication in Sub-Q Magazine's February 2020 issue alongside two invited authors to be announced when the jam opens. Winners will be paid $90 USD for publication of their work.

#subQjam 2019 has now finished! 

Our winners:

• Popular Vote: A.M. LeBlanc - The Coffin Maker
• Judges' Choice: George Lockett - Growing Pains

#subQjam rules: 

• This jam is for works of interactive fiction or sequential art. That means your game should broadly fit into one of these categories and should not be (e.g.) a first-person shooter, a 2D platformer, or some other type of game.
• 1000 words of prose or 9 panels of sequential art.  This means that there can be any amount of interactivity happening behind the scenes but the piece should only present 1000 words  or 9 panels of sequential art maximum before the reader across all playthroughs. (e.g. not five paths with 1000 words each, but a total of 1000 words across all paths. Yes, it's really short!)
• No more than two submissions per person, please. (Co-authored works count for this purpose.)
• Entries should clearly meet the theme, which will be announced when the jam opens in mid-November. 
• You can create your submission with Twine, TADS, Inform, ChoiceScript, StoryLab, Quest, Unity, Bitsy custom HTML5, or any other method, so long as it runs in modern browsers. 
• All submissions must be previously unpublished original works.
• One winning entry will be selected by jam participants in open voting to run from December 15th to January 1st.
• An additional entry will receive an Editors' Choice award and will  also be contracted for publication.
• Both winning  entries will be paid $90 USD upon publication and contracted for publication in Sub-Q Magazine.
• Final publication of the winning entries is solely at the discretion of sub-Q Magazine. Torture; Gore; Revenge fantasies; and stories that glorify, minimize, or inaccurately represent child abuse, animal abuse, or sexual assault, ableism, racism, sexism, or any other kind of discrimination are likely to be disqualified from winning. We also are not a market for fanfiction or erotica.
• We reserve the right to ask for edits, tweaks, and other changes, and to disqualify winning entries that we deem have not followed the rules of the jam.

We like beautiful, moving prose, but we also like pulpy fun! If you’d like to submit something but you’re not sure it’s a good fit, don’t self-reject. Let us see what you’ve got! We'll be waiting!

Previous Jams

2018 - Love: Entries and Published issue with winning entries