TLDR:

Theme Announced at 3PM PST / 6 PM EST (4-12-24)

Boston's Game Jam: 6 PM EST Friday - 6 PM EST Sunday (4-12-24 - 4-14-24)

Irvine's Game Jam: 6 PM PST Friday - 6 PM PST Sunday (4-12-24 - 4-14-24)

Voting Period: Sunday - Wednesday 6 PM (4-16-24)

Winner Announced on Wednesday (4-17-24)

A few of us at the Irvine location have been planning a casual weekend "Game Jam". This would take place starting Friday,  April 12th (6PM PST) and submission deadline would be Sunday, April 14th (also 6PM PST).

For those not familiar with game jams: Similar to a "hackathon", a game jam is a short period of time where you are tasked with creating some type of "game" based on a given theme. There are no rules on what languages or technologies you can use, or even what is actually considered a game. You are encouraged to team up and collaborate with other participants even if you aren't working on the same game.

Nobody is expecting fully working or bug free games, but here are some platforms/engines you can use to create at least a "proof of concept" game:

1. Unity (C#): https://unity.com/
2. Unreal Engine (C++): https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US
3. Bevy (Rust): https://bevyengine.org/
4. Phaser.js (Javascript): https://phaser.io/
5. Pygame (Python): https://www.pygame.org/wiki/GettingStarted

Again, feel free to use whatever you want! Depending on level of interest, we may create a private teams chat for participants. Send me a message if you'd like to join!

More info on game jams: https://gamemaker.io/en/blog/what-is-a-game-jam