Far in the future, several dozen light years away, exists a planet called Vekari. Vekari is an anomaly of the cosmos, hidden in the folds of the galaxy itself by kind and foolish "gods" who sought to save the planet from the destruction of its solar system. Without light and heat, the inhabitants of the planet would die.... so the gods remain with it.
Exius, the God of Tranquility brought warmth, light, water, and greenery to the dying planet, at the time only playfully fighting off his brother Tises' destruction of flower beds and flowing streams. Herrus stepped onto the planet himself and brought to it life, creating beings of different species and walks of life before sending them on aimless journeys for his entertainment. Ulios followed suit to open their eyes to Herrus' trickery and in turn gave them free will.
But the reality of this place is much darker. Rather than creating life, Herrus had simply grabbed beings from other planets and galaxies and wiped their memories. Tises' hatred created a cult that initiated a genocide against the Exiun, seeking to create powerful mutants, beings of war and obedience. The "gods" may not really be gods at all. And those trapped in the digital realm of Haloran became victims of The Glitch, a phenomenon that puts the very code that makes up their cells at risk.
Nothing in Vekari is really as it seems.
So why not play with everything that entails?
This jam is an open sandbox to explore every corner of Vekari with a mix of provided fact and your own imagination. To make art about feelings and memories you've avoided, to be imperfect, to be human. If it goes well, this may become an annual thing!
All kinds of submissions are allowed, from games to stories, music, comics, zines, characters, and even artwork. Choose whichever medium you prefer!
The overall theme of this jam is finding hope through hopelessness. Your work should meet the following criteria:
• Playable or viewable for free in a browser window. You may choose to make only a demo free and the rest paid, I don't get license over your work. But enough needs to be in the demo that the work can be judged properly. Feel free to make it paid after the jam, but know if you lock it entirely behind a paywall I can't showcase it for you.
• Either based in Vekari as a setting, or a work that might be found in the world itself (eg. a game in an arcade 😉)
• Contain references to the world's history, its places, and/or characters, with at least some accuracy
• Contain an underlying lesson that relates to the jam theme, with bonus points for works full of your own experiences and emotions. Use it as a therapy exercise if you have to. Lay it on so thick corporate devs would scream in terror, and then add some more. Be raw. Be authentic. Be human. Make me have to take a step back and a deep breath. Not in an edgy way, but in a "damn that hit hard" way. Feel free to reference current or past historical events in the real world as well.
• Contain absolutely ZERO generative AI work. None. No placeholder art, no "I just used it to generate magic ideas," no lifeless non-personal stories, not even made with your own database. I do not care. You will be immediately disqualified and barred from future participation when caught. I would rather you submit stick figure drawings. Shit on your hand and smear it on a canvas, say it looks like a city skyline. Literally anything is better.
• If your work contains NSFW content, it MUST be tagged as such and include a warning in the submission or on the art itself. If it includes non-consentual or potentially triggering content, please include content warnings. If you are unsure if your work needs a warning, ask.
• You MUST credit me for the world, any characters used from the official site (characters I have made and Alden Kemp are free to use), and any references to its official story. The rest is yours. For more information about Vekari's licensing, please see https://vekari.net/ttrpg/ and scroll down to the unofficial content and licensing section. Please credit Alden separately if used as he is credited on the official Vekari site.
• You must agree to have your work showcased on vekari.net, either in its arcade or library. Work will be fully linked and credited, and players will be able to discover your work while exploring the world. As the game is entirely free to play, I make nothing off of this.
• Your work must be complete by the end of the submission period. Updates to fix things or add more later are fine, as are minor bugs, but people viewing it should be able to play/read/whatever it to completion.
• You may do planning ahead of time, but the entirety of your work must be created within the jam period. That includes assets, drawings, storyboards, riffs, cover art, all of it. You are free to submit to multiple jams.
You will have an entire two months to work on your submission, so I expect substance and polish!
This jam is first timer friendly. I will be keeping an eye on the community to try to help answer questions about the world or anything from code to art and music. My goal is to make sure everyone who tries to complete a work for this actually has something to show. Free access to picking my brain for knowledge!
The jam is NOT formally ranked or overly competitive as I find that is too easily manipulated, however I will encourage everyone to go through as many submissions as possible and let me know your favourites and why so I can hand-pick a few winners and read about all your experiences! Whichever I deem to be the best 3 submissions (really hit me in the feels, you got this) will get itch keys to all currently existing Vekari works, as well as behind the scenes playtest access to the future GBC game, Vekari: Crystal Holo. Their submissions will be highlighted in the arcade/library as fancy banners as well. Aside from that, it's all for fun!
Information about Vekari to use for your work can be found all throughout vekari.net as well as within the Vekari TTRPG files, if you have access to them. Have fun!