Hello and welcome to WIZARD JAM, the bi-annual Idle Thumbs community-run game jam!

With two of the vanguard podcasts from the Idle Thumbs network on indefinite hiatus, we are going to change things up a little, so make sure you read about the new theme below!

Wizard Jam is not a contest; the main emphasis is to celebrate the Thumbs community through sharing and collaboration over the course of a fortnight. We write devlogs and post GIFs. We offer support and volunteer music, sounds and other assets. We play each other's games and stream them. It's a lot of fun!

The other thing we try to emphasise is encouraging people to try making something new and unfamiliar; or to try game development for the first time entirely (quite a few of the entries we've had in the past are from complete first-timers to gamedev!). We run the jam over the course of two weeks to give people the room to try something weird and see how it turns out.

We're gonna be posting dev logs, forming teams, and chit chatting over here in the thread on the Idle Forums; come hang out! The welcome thread also has a link to join the Slack channel that's the hot spot for wizard chats.

https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/forum/42-wizard-jam/

We have a twitter account, @wizard_jam, to help share everyone's progress or just let the fans follow along! Tag @wizard_jam or use the #wizardjam hashtag when you post progress updates so we can retweet your stuff!

Wizard Jam - Friday, July 12th to Sunday, July 28th

Showcase Weekend - Saturday, August 3rd to Sunday, August 4th

The Idle Thumbs Podcast Network is alive and well, but the many of the 'casts haven't had a new episode in a while. To give some relief to the database of episode titles, we are going to try a new theme this jam:  Endorsements.

Each episode of Important If True featured  the hosts' endorsements of all sorts of things they found helpful, enjoyable, or enriching. Fortunately for us jammers, these are great inspirations for games. 

Choose an endorsement from an episode of Important If True and use it as a theme prompt for your game. A spreadsheet of the endorsements has been compiled here, and if you need further information (like links and humorous alt-text), you can get the full details in the show archive: https://www.idlethumbs.net/importantiftrue/episodes

If you have been planning on making a game based on an episode title, feel free to do so! As reinforced in the "Important Points" below, we don't have a lot of strict rules and want you to be excited about what you are creating!

1. This jam is not a competition, and there is no minimum level of game development experience needed to join. People from all backgrounds are  welcome to participate. If you're new to gamedev, let us know! Join us on the forums and on Slack; where you'll find help, advice and encouragement from the community. Wizard Jam began out of a desire to help people get starting making games, so don't be shy! 
2. Aside from the next 2 administrative points, there are no rules. You don't HAVE to use an endorsement. You don't HAVE to make your entire game in the 2 weeks allotted. Most people will, but if you come in a little late, or get started a little early, or submit something unrelated to the podcast that's A-OK!
3. Entries containing any form of harassment or hate-speech are not permitted. Anything crossing into this territory will be removed.
4. If an entry is clearly from someone trying to use the jam page on Itch to promote an unrelated game, we'll contact the submitter and the entry may be removed.
5. Stay spicy!