Hello, and welcome. I'm Ash and it is time to unveil a new special jam.

ANNOUNCING...

A jam hosted by me!

Watch this page for updates -- and please read the following sections to learn more about this huge event.

The purpose of this event is many-fold:
To motivate developers to just MAKE SOMETHING;
To offer constructive feedback for developers seeking it;
To boost project visibility so others can share their impressions;
To build a community for participating developers;
To provide continuous improvement through each iteration of the jam;
To inspire developers to continue or finish their projects!

At the end of the year-long event, participants who join will ideally be able to look back at the challenges the year had to offer, and be proud of the project they created.

This jam is a first of its kind -- a year-long event that is actually TWELVE separate jam events, one for each month of the year.  The jam will be open to all developers and allow any engine to be used.  The flow of the jam will roughly follow as such, with minor tweaks and refinements over the early months as we get into a flow:

-Developers will review the information below (FOCUSES, RULES, and SCHEDULE) and create their project (or update the project they were working on in a previous month) accordingly.
-When the submission period ends, the judgement period will begin and I will begin playing your games on the channel.
However, unlike past jams, this jam will be much more focused on giving guidance and direction to the developers for their projects.  This is because...
-At the end of the judgement period, the next month's jam will be published with new FOCUS(ES), and developers can join by improving their current projects!

In other words, the FIRST month you join, YOU will create your project following the RULES and FOCUSES;
Each month after, or any month you wish to re-join, YOU will UPDATE your project and RE-SUBMIT it with the feedback you had, and the new FOCUSES of the month you join!

You can repeat this every month from January to December for a project that YOU updated TWELVE TIMES, ending up with a game that is much more highly polished and worked on than previous works -- you might learn a LOT about devlopment in your chosen engine, your WORKFLOW, or perhaps even YOURSELF!

You can also pick and choose when to join -- after a month of developing, maybe you'd like to REST or perhaps the challenge of the current month doesn't suit you, or you don't have time -- you can wait it out and join the month after, or after that!

As long as the improvements are made (to a degree that YOU find most suitable) and the re-submission follows the NEW Focuses, your project will be taken in and played again, given new feedback and judged again!

(Yes, this means devs can do just one of any month, or multiple, or all months; or leave in May and re-join in August, then leave again and come back November, ETC!...)

This jam is open to all participants, developing any kind of game in any engine, and there are only six requirements to submit, listed in the RULES section!

This Jam is judged and therefor entries will be ranked, so there will technically be "lowest" and "highest" ranked games; however, there will NOT be ELIMINATIONS -- this is not a tournament or traditional competition!

The goal is FEEDBACK, Challenge and Reward of development!

Every month, the Jam will have one or more special Focuses.  A Focus may be a Theme, Limitation or Challenge.
The Focus will always be an ADDITIVE, ITERATIVE element that will not BREAK your project or HURT your current development.
The Focuses will always be scored as part of the judgement phase.

The First Focus for January is a Theme, and it is:

"ANYTHING GOES!"

Feel free to interpret this theme however you like,
or consider any of the following story or mechanic examples for a submission!:
A dungeon crawler; a turn based JRPG; a fantasy that is final;
a quest concerning a dragon; rescue the princess; an ongoing saga;
a science fiction space exploration; a space opera; giant mechs battling;
a visual novel; a dating sim; a high school slice of life story;
a survival horror; a murder mystery; a pizzeria simulator;
a post apocalyptic world; an isekai; a zombie outbreak;
a dystopian future; a mutant wasteland; a cyberpunk city;
the Backrooms; SCP; a parody or satire;
a fighting game; a racing game; a first person shooter;
The sky is the limit -- Your Idea Here!

But maybe not just *ANYTHING* goes -- there are rules for the jam, of course!

The Second Focus for January is a Challenge, and it is:

"Main Character!"

Feel free to interpret this theme however you like,
or consider any of the following examples for a submission:
A named character.
A character that the player creates.
A character who is nameless, perhaps masked or mysterious.
...a protagonist who is good, evil, lawful, chaotic, neutral...
...or perhaps no personality at all.
The player as a self-insert.
A first-person character whose identity is never seen.
An anthropomorphized object (like a slice of sentient bread).
One of several characters that may be chosen at the outset of the adventure.

This Challenge serves as a baseline -- it is something to put everyone on a bit more equal footing!

There are six rules your submission must follow to participate!

1. Your submission may use any engine, but must be made for PC (playable in itch.io browser is fine).

2. Your work is original for the jam and has not been published elsewhere before (except a previous month of the Year Long Jam).

3. Your submission to the jam must remain free and accessible.  No charging at any point!

4. You must either own or have permission to use all of the assets that are contained within your game.
Everything that comes with your engine by default, official DLC, and your own customized assets are acceptable.
Any third party asset pack that you have the permission, license or ownership to use is also acceptable, however: games with music or sound that is not licensed for use on platforms such as YouTube (i.e tracks that require a license to be shared on YouTube, or cause the video to be copyright claimed) MUST be disqualified.  Research this thoroughly - ask ANY and ALL questions if need be.

5. Agree to allow the game to be played on any video platforms!

(AmalgamAsh (and possibly others) will play your game for a video platform such as YouTube, Twitch, etc... by submitting, you agree to allow the gameplay footage to be published! Please look forward to a playing of your submission on the AmalgamAsh channel!)

6. Pledge to not use AI.

You as a participant must pledge to have not used AI assets in your submission, and all assets used are, to the best of your knowledge, not generated by generative AI.

BONUS RULE:  If you have participated in a past month of The Year Long Jam, you must apply the feedback given in some way to your submission upon re-entry to this month's jam, as well as follow whatever new Focuses are present!

The host (me) is a human, not a robot -- so don't try to circumvent the rules if you know better; I reserve the right to disqualify an entry if I feel it violates any of the above rules!

The Jam has three periods - Join, Submission, and Judgement. All times and dates are listed above at the top of this page. A timer will assist in counting down how much time is left for each period.  The timer is based on my local time zone but it is accurately shown to you, so if it says FOR EXAMPLE 2 days and five hours, that means that's how much time you have!

Please note, that if the jam gets a very large amount of submissions, more time may be granted for the judgement phase. This decision will be at the host's discretion and will be announced if applicable!

If you want to JOIN and SUBMIT on the same day, it's OK!

To determine ranking at the end of the judgement period, each work will be judged according to one or more criteria which is presented in the jam.

Judgement will be done either by a single judge or a panel of judges -- there is NO COMMUNITY VOTING for this jam.

To facilitate a realistic timeframe for judgement, some submissions (such as long visual novel or JRPG projects) may be required to upload a save file for the judge to use, or otherwise not invalidate the judge's existing save file, for projects that are re-submitted.  The judge / host will reach out to any participant if this needs to be done.

ALL qualifying participants of this jam will receive:

-Feedback in video form and a ranking based on the judgement criteria.

-Every participant will be allowed to re-join a future month's jam, and will be able to re-submit their project again, so long as the project follows the Focus of the month of their re-submission.  Entries will be judged on the level of improvements or changes they made based on the feedback received during the gameplay video section of the judgement phase!

Please join the Official Year Long Jam Discord to ask any questions (even if you haven't joined yet)! 
 https://discord.gg/dVkGHHfvbu

Check out the following YouTube video announcing The Year Long Jam!

Feel absolutely free to use the Community tab of the jam to start / join threads, or the Discord!

Q. Can I start working on my game now?

A. Yes!

Q. Are Non-English Games OK to submit?

A. Please submit games in English. (DeepL, machine or other translation method is fine!)

Q. Can I collaborate with someone else to make my game? Can we submit as a group?

A. Collaborations, teams and group projects are fine! Each separate participant is also allowed to submit their own project, even if they helped with someone else's!

Q. Are NSFW games OK to submit?

A. Games with NSFW themes may be submitted, however I will reserve the right to edit, limit or restrict the gameplay video for the submission in any way I deem appropriate!

Q. Is there a Discord?

A. The Official Year Long Jam Discord is here (it's new, please forgive the construction): https://discord.gg/dVkGHHfvbu

Q. I bought (or got for free) third-party assets, such as plugins, characters, tools, animations, models, or music. Can I use them in my game?

A. Please be sure that the seller has authorized the use of their assets in your project. There should be explicit permission from them to use it, on the page where you buy the assets, or it will be included with them. Works with a CC0, CC-BY or MIT license are best. If you are not certain, you can ask AmalgamAsh!

Q.  Is the jam logo font based on Batman Forever?

A. SHHHHHHHH.

An AmalgamAsh Studios, LLC event.