Games must be submitted by 9pm CT on Monday, January 15th!! You can continue to update your game after submitting, up until the submission deadline (you don't have to resubmit).

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Jam Schedule:

• Sunday, January 7th 11:59pm– Registration closes
• REGISTRATION EXTENDED!! Tuesday January 9th, 11:59pm – Registration Closes
• Wednesday, January 10th – Announce teams
• Friday, January 12th, 8:00pm – Opening Gathering with remarks from UGD and Ashlyn Sparrow and Theme Announcement
• Friday Jan. 12th - Monday Jan. 15th – Participants make their games, light refreshments are available to be picked up in the Crerar Library Atrium (pending our decision about food)
• Monday, January 15th, 9:00pm  – Final Submission due
• Monday, January 22nd, 7:00pm – Game Jam Showcase
• Week of February 4th – Game Jam Winners Announced

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Who can enter?

This Jam is only available for current UChicago undergraduate students who have registered for the Jam prior to the registration deadline.

You must submit as a part of the team you registered as (or were formed into if you registered individually. Only one submission will be accepted per team.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

What's the theme?

The theme for this jam is "X within an X".

A dream within a dream, a story about a story, a game inside a game… this theme is all about the recursive, the self-intersecting, and the meta. What is X, and why is it inside itself? How does this fact shape reality? What strange new matryoshka will you concoct?

Note: for this theme, both X's are the same -- this is not about a pizza inside a box, its about a pizza inside a pizza inside a pizza inside..........

Your game should follow the theme, and you will be asked how your game fits the theme on the itch.io submission page. That being said, you will not be disqualified from the jam if your game doesn't adequately fit the theme. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

What do I win?

We are very excited to be able to offer a $3,500 prize pool for this jam! The pool will be split between the three Grand Prize winners as follows:

• First Prize: $1,500
• Second Prize: $1,000
• Third Prize: $500
• 2 Honorable Mentions: $250 each

In order to be eligible for these prizes, you must follow all of the  rules and submission criteria for this jam as listed below. Games/teams that do not follow these rules and criteria will still be able to participate in the jam showcase event, but will be ineligible for the prize pool.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

How will the games be judged?

Games will be scored 1-10 on 3 criteria by our panel of judges:

• Adherence to Theme - Does this game critically engage with the jam theme? A good game in this category will coherently fit within the theme. A great game in this category will cause the player to think differently about the theme after playing.
• Innovative Design - Is this game unique? A good game in this category will have compelling gameplay that resonates with the jam theme. A great game in this category will present a unique gameplay experience that surprises and delights.
• Excellence of Craft - Is your game technically sound? This includes art, sound, writing, coding, etc. A good game in this category will generally work, with adequate art assets. A great game in this category will have very few bugs, with outstanding assets and components. 

Scores in each category will be averaged across judges and the 5 highest scoring games will form our group of finalists. The grand prize winners will then be picked from this group of finalists.

(These judging criteria are subject to change prior to the start time of the jam, but will not change once the jam has started)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

What can I make?

You must make a digital computer game that runs on Windows (or a Windows supported web browser). You may support other platforms (Mac, Linux, etc.), but a Windows/browser build is required. Additionally, your game must not require hardware beyond a mouse+keyboard  – no VR-only games, controller-only games, or games that require some extra equipment, like a webcam. 

Your game may not contain nudity, or hateful language or visuals. This could see your game being disqualified from being considered as a jam winner. Please consider avoiding extremely strong language and excessive gore. If you’re uncertain, err on the side of being less gratuitous.

Your game must be uploaded to itch.io.

You may make your game in whatever engine or tool you like, as long as it is playable on Windows/browser in its submitted format. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

What can I use to make this game?

Pre-existing code:

You may use pre-existing code for this jam, so long as that code was not created specifically for the jam in advance of the start time. This can include existing libraries, functions, shaders, or generic boilerplate for menus/input. You may also create any empty project files/version control repositories prior to the start time, as long as you do not begin development on your game before the start time.

You may create your itch.io profile/itch.io game page prior to the start of the jam.

Pre-existing art/audio assets:

You may use pre-existing art/audio assets for this game, provided that you have legal right to use those assets. You can use pre-existing sprites, textures, fonts, models, shaders, animations, sound effects, and music - including public domain assets, assets you have purchased, assets you have made yourself, or assets that are (legally-acceptable) derivative works of existing media.

AI generated code/art/music:

For this year’s jam, we are not allowing the use of generative AI (such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, Bard, etc.) in the creation process of your submitted games. This means all of the code, art, music, written text, etc. must be made by humans. Additionally, we ask that you don’t use generative AI tools in the brainstorming/concepting phase of creating your game. If you have questions about what tools you are and are not allowed to use for this jam, feel free to reach out to the jam moderators (ugd.uchicago@gmail.com, or follow the instructions in the UGD discord) to ask questions, but generally err on the side of making your own stuff.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

How do I submit?

Start by uploading your game to itch.io like you would upload any other game. If you need assistance with itch.io, the game jam moderators will be available to help you – please message us in the UGD discord.

Then, submit your game to the Jam on this page, making sure you follow all the submission criteria (listed below). Once you (before the rating period begins), you will be able to make changes to your game (upload new versions, change the description text, etc.) without having to re-submit, but once the rating period begins you are not allowed to upload any new files/make any changes to your landing page.

Below are a number of submission criteria – entries that do not follow these criteria may not be able to be judged properly and may be ineligible for the prize pool.

Submission Criteria:

• Your game must be set to free (or let the person pick “any amount”).
• Your game must be set to “released” and not “draft”
• Your game must not include your names at the time of submission – you must instead pick a team name and credit your game to that team (inside the game and on the itch.io page)
  • After the judging period you may go back and change this to properly credit your team members, but to maintain fairness in the judging process we ask that you anonymize your games in this way
  • There will be a field on the submission form where you can indicate your team name and who was on you team, for moderation and prize pool purposes
• Your game should credit any outside resources/assets/contributions that you employed in the course of creating the game on your itch page
• Your game page should include some description of how your game fits with/interacts with/plays off the theme – get creative, let us know in an interesting blurb!
• Your game should include some form of tutorial/control scheme/play guide to instruct the judges on how to play
  • This can either be a tutorial within the game or a brief section on your itch page – either works just fine.

Once you have submitted, make sure your game has successfully been entered by checking your game jams dashboard page on itch.io. 

You may submit your game at any point within the 72 hours of the jam, but we encourage you to submit as early as you can, so you have time to catch any bugs or work out any issues with the itch uploading/submission process. Please be sure to test that your itch.io build (when downloaded from itch.io) is playable with minimal bugs so the judges have no issues running your game.