There's always a game jam for making a small game, or constructing the best out of a certain theme, or, or...

But none of them tap into WHY we create games: to unleash our wildest dreams.

This jam is for it. 

And the top 3 winners,  + one winner per criteria, will have a crowd fund of their choice promoted by the jam.

Go ahead, show me your wildest game ideas, without any restraints.

Come hang out on Discord

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Important: you are NOT required to develop a giant ass game in 4 weeks, the jam focuses on the IDEAS not a final product, the design itself (plan) rather than the production.

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Stage 1: The Grand Vision (Week 1)

Your mission this week: Answer two simple questions that will define your game's soul.

1.What makes your game unique?

2.Describe how will the players play your game?

That's it. 

Submission: Copy the questions and answer them directly on your jam page, feel free to add more info, either below the main questions, or in a separate Google Doc.

UPDATE =======

Apologies for the late update, but here's the next stage of the Jam:

Stage 2: The Core Loop 

Congratulations on completing Stage 1! You've shared your dream. Now, it's time to distill your grand vision into its most fundamental element: the core gameplay loop.

Your mission this week: Create a focused plan that defines three essential elements:

- The Action: Pick ONE action (what happens when you click a certain button, or engage a certain mechanic).

- The Reward & The Loop: Tie a reward to that action, and make sure that reward loops back into enabling the next action. Build up a score from the number of rewards (or a similar strategy).

- The Challenge: Add a "counter force" which breaks the loop or outright stops the scoring. Usually it's enemies, but it can be anything that creates tension.

Action, Reward, and Challenge. That's the holy trinity of game design.

Submission: Submit your Stage 2 plan directly on your jam page, it can be under the "How would we play your game?" Question

Stage 3: The Prototype

You have your perfect gameplay loop, time to actually make the loop:

We decided that we have an action, a reward, and a challenge, no?

Cool, now pick up ANY game engine, the first one you heard of, the one you already used, or the one you think matches your style (There's Godot and Unity if you know none) and get started.

All game engines have all the functions and graphics/animations you need, some things are just faster/easier to do based on the engine, but for a prototype, they all should be equal.

List down the mechanics, here's an example:

- Action: click jump

- Reward: player jumps with a backflip (remember, it must be satisfying)

- Challenge: enemy charging at the player in random places on screen

- Win/loss condition: score based, you lose in 3 hits.

Keep in mind that this is only the starting point, you can change ANY of the details if they didnt work out, but you must always keep it to One Action, One Reward, and One Challenge (movement can be added without counting as extra action)

I want to make this in Godot, first impulse might be searching: how to make a backflip in Godot

which is a fine starting point, but if that has no results, break it down to smaller concepts

Example: how to jump in Godot + how to add an animation in Godot + Backflip animation free game asset

You can also use AI chatbots to teach you

Yes you can ask them to make the script, but it will spit out a giant ass research just to replace one line of code: 

apply_central_impulse(Vector2(0, 10) * delta)

- apply_central_impulse is the "order" that says: hey, I need an "impulsive" force pushing this thing

- Vector2 is the little "package" that delivers a 2D "sizes" of sort, where you decide the dimentions

- 0,10 is the X and Y of the package, you're saying I need it to move nothing sideways (X arrow/axis) and 10 meters up (Y arrow/axis)

- delta is saying "apply this every frame", deleta auto calculates the time per frame for you, why use it? Because you might want the movement to be faster (half frame or delta/2) or slower (2 frames or delta*2)

That's it, basic math, and you now know that you can speed it up with delta, or move it further with X and Y

Doing this with AI will give a bloated article of text, and will need pulling your hair every time the AI forgets "You need 10 meters UP not sideways"

So, stick with asking AI to teach you, and ask it to keep the answer short, one thing at a time, follow the same rule about breaking down the question.

Most actual code is fairly simple, the hard part is the idea, and you've ALREADY finished it, go make it real.

Stage 4: The Hook

 (will NOT be considered for voting, but can be handy for real applications, I was late adding it so it's on me)

   

As much as we want to drop an exciting game and watch people play it, we know players will not give a shit unless they have a reason to.

And the Hook, is the reason you give players to play your game.

Think like a player: why would you play your favorite game, nut not the 100th clone of it? Even if you already cleared it and are hungry for more.

When you first heard about it, What was the simple but powerful moment/line/description that made you open the page and check it out, or even click download directly? 

So, remember the 2 questions from Stage1?

That is mostly the context of your hook, players (you included) mostly ask 2 questions: why should I give a shit? And what's the gameplay like?

The catch: there's too much info overload on the internet, and most subtitles/previws only allow 1 line under the thumbnail, people won't even click your game unless that thrills them.

And this is why there's (or was) an entire week for this stage, you need to compress your answers from stage 1, to one line with both answers.

I found is video on YT to help, but feel free to look for other resrources if it's unclear or you prefer a different explanation: 

Have Fun! With this, your game's core will be finished, and you can use the same workflow for every system you need in the game.

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Criteria: (One winner for each, + 3 overall winners)

- Fun Factor

- Creative Vision

- Immersion

- Hook

•Yes, you can start before the jam. The jam is a multi-stage jam and you're only submitting the first stage. Don't worry about fairness.

•No, you do not need any experience in game dev.

•No, there are no limits to the ideas, number of submissions, or scope. We do recommend you focus on one idea though, following through with multiple might be too much.

•Yes, you can use AI, but beware. This is a jam for IDEAS and self-expression. If you expect an AI to relate to human feelings, you might want to rethink your strategy.