The theme for Winter MelonJam 2022 is COZY!!

Note that you are still able to submit up until January 1st 12:00 AM UTC, but the more time you take, the more points will be deducted. All submissions from this point are late, and points will be deducted. (50% of points will be deducted for 24 hours, etc.)

To claim your participation prize, please join the Discord for information and DM cinnamew#4230 on Discord. Check the Community tab or Discord server for winners!

Welcome to Winter MelonJam 2022!

In this game jam, we are inviting both beginners who have little to no major game development experience, especially high schoolers, and more advanced developers.  The theme of the game jam will be announced on December 29th 4:00 PM PST (12/30 12:00 AM UTC), and the game jam will end on December 31st 3:59 PM PST (11:59 PM UTC), with an extra 24 hours (with points taken off) if needed.

We recommend visiting our website for a recommended schedule and more information here! https://gamedevclub.tech/melonjam/

We will also be posting most of our updates on our Discord server, so join here: discord.gg/uYmNuZymJ2

Current total: $23,905

NOVICE

1st place: 

• $150 cash/gift card
• Lifetime Taskade upgrade per team member (worth $500+)
• Houdini Indie License per team member
• Wolfram One Personal Edition & Wolfram Alpha Pro per team member
• 1 year GameSalad Pro
  
• 1 Pyxel Edit key

2nd place: 

• $120 cash/gift card
• Lifetime Taskade upgrade per team member (worth $500+)
• Wolfram One Personal Edition & Wolfram Alpha Pro per team member
  
• 1 Pyxel Edit key
  

3rd place: 

• $75 cash/gift card
• Lifetime Taskade upgrade per team member (worth $500+)
• Wolfram One Personal Edition & Wolfram Alpha Pro (limited number based on # of team members of other winning teams)

ADVANCED

1st place: 

• $150 cash/gift card
• Lifetime Taskade upgrade per team member (worth $500+)
• Houdini Indie License per team member
• Wolfram One Personal Edition & Wolfram Alpha Pro per team member
• 1 Pyxel Edit key
  
• 1 year GameSalad Pro

2nd place: 

• $120 cash/gift card
• Lifetime Taskade upgrade per team member (worth $500+)
• Wolfram One Personal Edition & Wolfram Alpha Pro per team member
• 1 Pyxel Edit key
  

3rd place: 

• $75 cash/gift card
• Lifetime Taskade upgrade (worth $500+) per team member
• Wolfram One Personal Edition & Wolfram Alpha Pro (limited number based on # of team members of other winning teams)

ALL PARTICIPANTS

• 5-year Taskade upgrade (worth $350)
• Free domain through Leangap (worth $10)
• Echo3D 1-month Premium (worth $89)
• 4 months GameSalad pro
• 30-day access to InterviewCake's full coding interview prep course
• Raffle prizes, if won

RAFFLE PRIZES (open to everyone)

• 1x $20 for speaker event (starts 1 hour before the jam) -- be sure to join our Discord server for this! You do not need to participate in the jam to earn this prize.
• 3x $10 for all participants (all submitters who fill out the end-of-jam form are entered)
• 1 Pyxel Edit key
  

Games that have a lot of thought and work put into them (i.e. ranked the highest by judges) will be awarded prizes. Winners will be announced on January 8th (PST). Hosts may participate, but they are disqualified from prizes and do not have any say in the winners; judging is NOT done by hosts.

1. In order to be eligible for the novice prize, you must be relatively new to making games(if this is your first game jam or you have almost never made a game in whatever genre you chose before).
2. To be eligible for a prize, you must provide an adequate explanation for how your game fits the theme when submitting your game.
3. Any digital project that is not malware may be submitted. Keep in mind, however, that the judging criteria may limit your success if you do not submit a game that fits the theme announced at the beginning of the jam. 
4. All submissions must be developed during the alloted time slot. However, you are free to use any assets (music, 3d models, etc.) and tools (game engines, graphic design programs, etc.) that you made yourself or are given permission to use by the creators, such as through a creative commons license, an open-source license, or a purchase. If you choose to do so, you must mention this in your submission. Judges may take points off or award points based on pre-made assets.
5. All games submitted to MelonJam are uploaded under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Creative Commons license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). Participants retain ownership of any projects they submit, though the Cupertino Game Development Club reserves the right record media of those projects and to publish said media. 
6. Participants may work alone, or form teams of up to 4 members in order to work on their submission. Participants can unofficially be in multiple teams, but cannot win prizes more than once per jam-- participants must choose one team to sign on with.
7. The Cupertino Game Development Club reserves the right to not consider any uploaded games for prizes if the content does not follow the theme or is offensive or unsuitable. This includes but is not limited to: games with harmful or prejudicial themes related to gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, appearance, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship, socioeconomic status, or religion.
8. You may use any engines or tools at your disposable. We encourage you to try out a few licenses some of our sponsors have kindly granted all participants.
9. Participants who do not adhere to the rules above may have their submission canceled, or even banned from all future game jams hosted by the Cupertino Game Development Club.

Your game will be judged by professionals under the following criteria:

• Gameplay, or how well the game squeezes out value from its mechanics
• Graphics, or how impressive the project looks
• Game Feel, or how appropriate the controls feel (snappy platforming, impactful heavy attacks, or the like). 
• Innovation, or how “new” a concept in the game is (new graphics, new gameplay, new interpretations of old concepts, etc.)
• Theme, or how interesting the game's interpretation of the game jam's theme is.

Our judges are:

1. Mirek Stolee, COSMOS instructor and PhD student at University of Central Florida
2. Dani Wright, COSMOS instructor and game designer, researcher, and educator
3. Patrick Wang, SWE at Roblox and Cupertino Game Development Club co-founder
4. Ethan Soo, AR & VR Developer and Cupertino Game Development Club co-founder
   
5. Anton Yarkov, senior software engineer and team lead
6. Manu Bhat, former Cupertino Game Development Club president
7. Ryan Lee, former Cupertino Game Development Club president
8. Anooj Vadodkar, Webmaster at SGDA

We wish you the best of luck and are excited to see your creations!