Welcome to the jam! Once you've read the rules on the main page, here are some more specific cases to give you an idea of what you can work with.

If you can't find your specific case or situation, feel free to ask below!

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GENERAL CLARIFICATIONS

You can:

• have more than a single choice or fork in your VN/story
• use your existing universe so long as the player does not need prior context to understand your entry
• have unlimited solid color backgrounds in menus and in-game generated by the engine, alongside your illustrated BG
• use Text-To-Speech without impact on any audio limits
• use any freely available asset (paid, Creative Commons, and others)
• generate images from AI prompts to adapt into assets if others can reasonably achieve the same output as you using the same settings - AI-generated assets are only allowed if you own the training data. (e.g. Photoshop's content-aware fill, training an entirely separate instance of AI on exclusively your work, using ML to remix art with permission from the artist, etc.) Systems in which the training data is not owned by the dev (ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and similar) are not allowed.
• provide additional information on the VN's website including separate character drawings, backstory info, banners and cover images, provided they don't make diminish the VN-only experience
• use your own existing assets not specifically made for a VN/game (e.g. vacation photos, childhood drawings, old poem)
• use previously created custom menu styles/GUI, even if they appeared in other games before
• submit NSFW/R18 work, provided it's tagged/flagged appropriately
• create additional simple shapes by code (e.g. squares, circles, etc.)
• draw an image by code, but only when the results are equivalent to having a single sprite and single BG
• prepare code for basic VN functions (e.g, skip, auto-forward, text history, save/load, etc.) in your engine of choice
• use any engine to create a game that is considered a VN first and foremost (e.g. due to the required assets needed, an engine such as any version of RPGMaker would not be allowed)
• update your game after the jam is complete (we highly recommend making it available as a separate download for posterity's sake, but this is not necessary)

You cannot:

• use sprites, backgrounds, scripts or other assets made or commissioned for a different VN/game project before (even if it's unfinished or unreleased)

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ONE SPRITE

It is within the rules to:

• have many facial expressions for the sprite by changing eyes, nose, eyebrows and mouth
• have many off-screen actors / characters, so long as only one is visually represented by a sprite
• have a character sprite that includes a separate auxiliary character that does not feature in interactions (e.g, a woman holding a baby, a pirate with a parrot, blind person with dog)
• have multiple "characters" associated with one sprite, as long as those are all a part of that singular entity (e.g, a medusa with talking snake hairs, a person playing with sock puppets on their hands, etc.)
• have a "suggestion" of another character represented by a shadow or a reflection with very vague detail (see Illustration/CG rules)
• have an "extra item" which is a single non-central element that will be hidden (man loses a hat, child's balloon flies away) or appears. 
• use the single sprite for twins, clones, ghosts, swarms, etc.
• mirror and otherwise transform the sprite in game
• show only a portion of a sprite, including cut-outs or zooms.
• have an inanimate object as the sprite (e.g. UFO, a portal, a robot)
• having multiple small ambient objects as the sprite (e.g. adding traffic to the city, searchlights to prison)
• fully or partially assemble a sliced up sprite in game, and apply effects to individual elements (e.g. a snowman's head)
• animate parts of the sprite to achieve effects of breathing, bobbing their head, or other idle animation (this includes the usage of programs such as EmoFuri, Live2D, or Spline which do not require drawing new frames)
• create minor frame-by-frame animations involving features of the face, such as blinking or mouth movement
• have a single alternate movement of a single body part that is drawn differently (head, single arm) so long as it doesn't change the pose, and so long as the VN does not also use the allowed "extra item"

You may not do the following:

• have multiple changes of clothes for the sprite, or any other separate layers that overlap with their non-transparent parts
• use a sprite overlay to vastly transform the background (e.g. pre- and post-war city)
• create extensive frame-by-frame animations of the sprite outside of parts of the face (e.g. snapping fingers, turning a hand around, etc.)
• change the sprite's pose significantly (e.g. move the torso)
• drawing alternate forms of hair or shaded clothes for any movement

Illustrations (CGs) can:

• be used instead of a separate sprite and background
• feature a character with expression changes and other alterations analog to sprites
• feature simple crowd silhouettes, or suggestions of people without identifying details

Illustrations (CGs) cannot:

• show multiple people in high detail
• show a silhouette next to a fully shown character

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ONE BACKGROUND

It is within the rules to:

• use the engine's built-in functions, code, or scripting to alter the background (e.g. blur, night filter, mirroring) 
• have a small looping animation (e.g. inside of train with passing scenery, waterfall)
• use zooming, panning and cutting around a larger image
• reveal previously obscured information or areas through pans, zooms and cuts
• use layers to show a sliced up an image as a single background (no opaque parts of layers can overlap)
• use custom particle effects, so long as there is only one type of particle being used (e.g, cherry blossom petals, fire, etc.)

You may not do the following:

• create secondary versions (via multiple separate files) of the background image (e.g. blur, night version)
• use masks (via multiple separate files) to create secondary versions of the background image on screen
• use an image which is created in such a way that focusing on segments effectively changes scenes
• remove parts of a background to create a new scene, even if parts of it were seen in the original (e.g. there is a wall a window with a view outside, and then that wall is removed so the scene is now outside completely)

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ONE THOUSAND WORDS

When in doubt, pure words counted by Google Documents are to be taken as standard. 

Counts against the 1.000 word limit:

• foreword / afterword / author's notes
• text of all the VN's branches combined
• text of choices
• images of letters or longer-form text
• any additional parallel language / translation
• custom menu items like "Start your adventure" instead of "Start"
• emoji-only statements (count as a single word)
• emoji made of words (count as the amount of words in the emoji)
• ellipses (a freestanding ... is considered a word by most word processors)

Does not count against the 1.000 word limit:

• minigame using words if it's purely a game mechanic (does not advance story)
• chapter names, even if displayed on screen
• signs, posters, even if they relate to the story
• short factual glossary, if explanation cannot be reasonably provided in game
• in-game content warnings
• credits, help / controls
• emoji used to only accompany and reiterate a word or statement
• repeats of blocks of text achieved by scripting (e.g. common route, recurring dream)
• surplus text generated from a base text that is within the word count limit (e.g. chat bot, AI generator)
• name tags, so long as they are not directly conveying narrative
• image captions intended to describe visuals to players with low vision conditions for accessibility

Concerning the last point, please utilize an engine's accessibility features and do not abuse image captions to add to the narration in a way that moves it forward. We trust that participants will consider making their games more accessible to low vision readers in good faith.

If you are using Ren'Py, we suggest npckc's Caption Tool in order to add image captions to your game.

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ONE MUSIC TRACK OR ONE AMBIENT BACKGROUND NOISE

It is within the rules to:

• use a looped sound effect acting as ambient background noise (e.g. rain)
• use a track with multiple melodies / styles, if it existed prior to the jam, and only a single segment is looped, with another segment looped only for a special short segment / occasion.
• alter the pitch or speed of audio via code

If an ambient audio file you create or find has multiple sources of different audio (e.g. a storm may have wind, rain, and thunder) and you do not control the timing of the other recorded audio, this all counts as one ambient track. If you do control the timing of other sounds, this counts as your sound effect.

You may not do the following:

• create or use a track by combining composed music and ambient sounds
• use a mash-up or mix of multiple songs with timed transitions (megamix, medley)
• have additional menu music that loops (if the VN also has in-game music/ambient noise)

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ONE SOUND EFFECT

The single sound effect...

• can be used multiple times
• cannot be looped continuously (if yes, it counts as background noise per the last section)
• can be made by a person different from the voice actor (we consider this to be a foley sound)
• can bed altered via code

This limit does not apply to interface sounds, which are considered part of the GUI. Having different sounds assigned to button hover, activation, etc. could be an accessibility feature for low-vision players, as that's audio feedback for different actions.

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ONE VOICE ACTOR

Your entry's single voice actor...

• can use use variations of voices
• can have their voice modulated and processed to create completely different sounding voices
• can be replaced by sound effects / beeps processed to act as voices (this does not count as the sound effect)
• can speak lines not part of the VN's text, provided they don't go over 1.000 words combined

Regarding usage of voice beeps in lieu of voice acting: you may create different beeps per character as long as it remains consistent to that character.

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SPLASH SCREEN / MAIN MENU / GAME MENU ART / GUI 

The main menu / title screen background is now considered part of the GUI and thus is not beholden to many of the previous year's restrictions.

It is within the rules to:

• display multiple splashscreens before the start (e.g, for the jam, engine used, studio logo)
• have multiple variations of the title screen / game menu background
• show as many characters / objects as you'd like
• show a different location from the one in the game
• use a combination of the sprite and background or the one CG as the main menu
• have multiple typefaces

You may not do the following:

• show any part of the main menu in the flow of your script if it is different from the assets in the game

Regarding image buttons that appear to be objects: these buttons should only appear as a choice, and the images should not appear again in other parts of the game due to the fact that this can be abused to bypass the item/arm/head change limit.

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ONE THUMBNAIL ART 

The restrictions for the itch thumbnail for your game's preview have now been relaxed, as we recognize that it is an important aspect of marketing your game to potential players. It is within the rules to:

• show as many characters as you'd like
• show a different location from the one in the game
• create any animation for it, even one with multiple frames of animation

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ONE PROJECT

One person in the O2A2 jam...

• can only be the primary creative lead for a single project (e.g. producer, director, author)
• can additionally be a secondary creative contributor for someone else's project (e.g. draw a sprite)
• can further collaborate on other projects in a non-creative role (e.g. coordination, marketing)

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OFFERING WEB BUILDS OF YOUR ENTRY 

If you offer both a web and downloadable version of your game, you may optimize effects (e.g. video backgrounds) for the web build as long as the downloadable version follows the rules. You may want to note differences between versions if applicable. Please follow this rule in good faith.

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OMAKES AND FANDISC RULES 

An omake means "extra," as in extra/bonus content for source material that you own or have permission to develop for. Fandisc is another term for the same concept.

It is within the rules to:

• reference assets from your main game to create new assets (e.g. redrawing a sprite or BG, making a remix of a song, etc.)
• reuse code from your main project to expedite development (e.g. recycling animations, code for setting up images, etc.)
• use the same GUI from your main project

You may not do the following:

• directly reuse any non-GUI assets you have created for your main game

We highly suggest writing your omake in a way that those unfamiliar with the source material are able to enjoy it, but this is not a requirement.

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FANGAME AND DERIVATIVE WORK RULES 

Fangames or derivative works are generally unofficial works based on source material that you do not own or have express permission to develop for. The O2A2 Jam Hosts are not responsible for any cease and desist notices for individual entries should they occur.

It is within the rules to:

• adapt an existing fanfic or other work you created or have permission to use into a visual novel format

You may not do the following:

• directly reuse any assets from the official source material (this is piracy!)

We highly suggest writing your fangame in a way that those unfamiliar with the source material are able to enjoy it, but this is not a requirement. For your protection in the majority of cases, we also suggest turning donations and PWYW off for fangame entries.