Have you ever gone trick-or-treating and gotten something special: maybe some cash or even a fun little toy? We have, and it's such a refreshing change!

To help make this Halloween even more special for everyone, Angel came up with the idea of a jam where people create things, and then we bundle it all up. The people who get the free bundle can print whatever items they want and give them to trick-or-treaters or distribute them at Halloween parties. 

How to Enter

All you need to do is submit something that can be printed and given to people! Smaller is better, to ensure that it'll fit in someone's basket/bag, preferably no bigger than 1/2 a page but if it can be folded to that size without damaging it, that's cool too. That could be a zine, a bookmark, a business card, a coloring page (as long as it can be folded up and won't ruin it), or whatever else! You can make it during the jam period or enter something you've previously created. The only two rules are:

1. It has to be printable. No digital games, no multi-page games. It has to be able to fit in a typical child's trick-or-treat basket. If it can survive being in there with other things without getting damaged, even better!
2. It HAS to be kid-friendly. Nothing NSFW. Nothing gory. No vulgar language. Creepy is still cool though! You should feel delighted that a young child would be given your entry. While not necessary, this means something on the simpler side is best: no elaborate rules, no pages of text, etc. 

If you have any questions, email us at bethandangelmakegames@gmail.com or comment in the community :D

Permission to Print and Distribute

By entering this jam, you are giving people permission to print and distribute your work. This does NOT mean you're allowing them to resell it. I will make it clear on the bundle page that people have the right to print and distribute anything from the bundle (and they're encouraged to do so) but they are NOT being given permission to sell the things, and that the things belong to their original creators. 

If you're not okay with people printing what you enter and giving it out to people, whether that's a few people in their family or dozens of trick-or-treaters, do not enter this jam.

In a perfect world, people would be printing them by the bucketload and distributing them at libraries and stores, too, but the limited time frame means I doubt that'll happen... 

Best Practices

None of these things are necessary, but would be nice, and might make your entry more likely to be printed and distributed :D

1. Make something easy to print and cut. If someone has to print a whole piece of paper for one card, they'd have to print LOTS of pages just to distribute them. Laying the cards, bookmarks, or whatever else onto a page to easily cut out multiples means less printing and less waste!
2. Aim for an audience. Some people will be giving these out to kids (which can be anything under 18, and even over 18 in some cases!), and others might distribute them at parties where kids and/or adults will be present. Not everything has to be aimed at young children.
3. Offer black-and-white versions, or at least do a test print to ensure that your creation will print okay on printers without color ink. Simply requiring people to have a printer will already narrow down the target audience, but requiring a color printer narrows it down even more. 
4. The same goes for double-sided prints. A lot of people cannot print on both sides of a piece of paper, many printers are just awful at this or don't even have the option. Even our printer is pretty awful for it, and it's a $100+ printer lol. If you do require double-sided printing, please leave big margins on each side (top, bottom, left, and right) of the item so if it doesn't perfectly line up it won't mess things up.
5. PUT YOUR NAME AND A LINK TO YOUR CREATIONS ON EACH ITEM!!! Not on an instructional page, not on one of the items, EVERY item. For instance, if you make a business card game, slap your name and a link to your work (or even just a QR code) so if someone gets it in their basket and they like it, they can find more of your stuff :D Alternatively, you can link to a specific item you want people to check out, your social media account, a LinkTree, your Itch page, or whatever else. I learned this lesson the hard way...

The Bundle

The bundle will be put together for FREE once the jam ends, including everything from the jam that qualifies (which will probably be everything aside from spammy stuff). If you're worried your creation won't be accepted, email us at bethandangelmakegames@gmail.com and we'll let you know :D We know how rough that anxiety is lol

While the bundle will be free, people can optionally pay to support the creators and link the creations to their Itch account permanently. Our last free bundle (Free Zine Week) earned just under $40 for each creator, but we certainly can't promise that'll happen again. The point is that you're certainly not gonna get rich from the bundle, but you'll probably make a few dollars :D

The way this works is an "even" split of revenue per creator. So if Angel and I enter 5 things and you enter one, we each get the same percentage of the bundle, we don't get 5x what you get. Itch cannot split percentage points, so it's very possible some people will get 1% more or less than others. This is unavoidable and I'm sorry, it's a limitation on Itch's system and I don't pick and choose who gets what.

The goal of this bundle is twofold:

1. Get our work into the world. If even one person prints and distributes what you make, you might earn numerous new fans, and you didn't have to do any of the printing and cutting yourself! 
2. Make people happy. At least for me, personally, there's nothing cooler than making someone's day better with something I made. 

Bundle Approval

When the jam ends, we'll put the bundle together and send it to everyone to approve. If anyone hasn't approved by October 20th, we'll remake the bundle without them and everyone else will have to approve again. If that bundle isn't approved by October 27th, we'll be forced to make the bundle with only people we know to ensure it's quickly approved in time for Halloween. I'll be reaching out via multiple channels to make every effort this doesn't happen, though.

Normally I would've set this up so there's more leeway with remaking the bundle, but I had a couple of really rough months lately... I do have a note to start this process at the beginning of September next year though!