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Comparing a game jam to professional documentaries or films is a huge reach. Documentaries have years of research, massive budgets, and legal teams to make sure they’re being ethical, and even still there's a lot of debate about whether they are ethical or not. They also often get permission from the families when doing the documentaries, and it is generally frowned upon when they don't. You’re expecting game devs to achieve 'impactful, grounded exploration' of real-life trauma in a matter of couple of weeks is unrealistic. Games also differ as a medium because they allow the player to DO things. You aren't just watching some facts about a terrible event, you are participating in it.

I appreciate the reply, but I think you might be a bit out of touch on this. This is a horror jam, horror is generally not a moving story about being a victim or whatever you are trying to say, and few are going to interpret the theme this way. The rule about no NSFW or sexual content is just so out of touch with what real serial killers are and do. Changing the names of the victims doesn’t really show respect when you're still requiring the "direct depiction" of the crimes that killed them. I would have sooner expected the theme to be serial killers and a rule to be that you are not allowed to depict real killers...

I do see you added some additional rule explanations, I think that's better than nothing. You don't need to respond to me again, I am sure you are busy and I am probably stressing you out with this lol. Just food for thought. Good luck!

A serial killer theme would have been one thing but requiring people to make video games that turn real life serial killers and their horrific events into entertainment is in really poor taste. Like you may as well have made the theme "real school shootings" or "real terrorists". If a developer chose to use a real serial killer for a generic serial killer theme, that would be on them, but since you are requiring it, every horrible edgelord shit game that comes out of this jam is on you. It doesn't help that most famous serial killers SA'd women and children too, which is against itch policy to upload games about. You have, quite irresponsibly, opened up a huge can of worms with this theme, and I am sad because I was looking forward to this jam, but I don't think I can participate if this is the theme, because I don't want a game like this in my portfolio. Just really poor judgement call here.