itch.io

Seasons greetings Billboard Jam™* Jammers!

Can you believe that Billboard Jam™ is over? We can’t either! Have you seen any good billboards since? We have too! And after a few weeks of very technical and very important bureaucratic work**, we’re excited to announce that your billboard inspired games are being artisanally distributed to our esteemed judges so that they may whisper their billboard jam rulings into reality and onto the jam page. We’d also like to extend a special thanks to the streamers who enthusiastically have offered to check out the submissions, too!

After that, we’ll put the winning jam games on an actual billboard! But we’ll talk more about that once we have our winners.

Thank you for peering into suspended roadside advertisements and seeing art where others see products.

Best,

Billboard Jam Team

*Billboard Jam is not trademarked, but please be kind and not trademark it away from us.

**the technical and very important bureaucratic work is subject to interpretation.

Our judges are:

Pippin Barr is an experimental game designer and Associate Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University. He is a prolific maker of videogames, producing work addressing everything from airplane safety instructions to the nature of videogames and videogame technologies. He is a well-known figure in the independent and artistic videogame scenes and makes his source code and process documentation publicly available via his website pippinbarr.com. Pippin cohosts the podcast GAMETHING and his forthcoming book, The Stuff Games Are Made Of (2023, MIT Press), discusses videogame design in terms of its materials.

Challenge:  No words. (Unless they're on the billboard.)

Davis Cox lives in Los Angeles, CA. He used to write about video games for websites like Kill Screen, Fangamer, Rolling Stone's Glixel, and Unwinnable. He also used to make social media advertisements for companies like Verizon, Mondelez, Unilever, and one time was included in the liner note thank-yous for a Hanson album. He used to also host video game events as This Near Future and hosted a biweekly podcast with David Wolinsky called The Electric Cybercast II: ONLINE. 

Challenge: Games that make him so impressed by the advertising genius on display he wants to immediately become A Good Consumer and buy things.

Paul Galloway is the Collection Specialist for the Architecture and Design department at the Museum of Modern Art, where he coordinates the growth and management of the collection and oversees research through the A&D Study Center. During his thirteen year tenure Paul has pioneered and codified the process for acquiring complex works of commercial software, coordinated ambitious conservation projects, co-organized exhibitions, administered the department’s loan program, and shepherded the acquisition of over 6,000 objects into the collection.  As both a writer and as a regular speaker at museums, conferences, and universities, Paul has made the celebration of digital creativity a personal mission. In 2022 he co-curated the MoMA exhibition Never Alone: Video Games and other Interactive Design. 

Challenge: Use the word "bill" and/or "board" in your game. 

Merritt K is a writer, editor, and designer who was an editor at Fanbyte and once upon a time made a lot of little games. Her forthcoming book LAN Party is out from Thames & Hudson later this year.

Challenge: No player avatar/character.

As you may have noticed, Billboard Jam’s scheduled dates have been changed (again): the final set dates are  October 6 - 15. Due to a wonderful long bout of sickness, I was unable to hold up my side of the game jam preparations. That said, we are going to take advantage of our new planned date and have a neat billboard announcement:

The judge picked games will be displayed on a digital billboard together! 

The billboard dates are TBA, as it will heavily depend on the amount of submitted games the judges will have to review and other factors.

Thank you for reading, and don’t forget to post your billboard pictures,

-Just404it

Hello billboard enthusiasts!

As you may have noticed, Billboard Jam’s scheduled dates have been changed: the new dates are August 31 through September 10. Due to a wonderful bout of sickness, I was unable to hold up my side of the game jam preparations. That said, we are going to take advantage of our new planned date and have a neat billboard surprise in store. 

Thank you for reading, and don’t forget to post your billboard pictures!

-Just404it

ps: here is a hint at what we hope the suprise might be

Thank you for asking and my apologies for not posting sooner. Due to some unexpected health issues, we had to delay the jam. Right now, we are discussing with the judges and figuring out a new date for the jam. Once this is all finalized, we will update the start date one final time and post an announcement.  While I was hoping that waiting would prevent confusion, I'm sorry that my alternative did just the same. That said, we do have something exciting planned for the end of the jam, and I'm hoping it will pan out! 

Hidden Heroes Game Jam is running from February 24th 2023 to March 6th 2023.

Create a game about someone in your life who has inspired you!

https://itch.io/jam/hidden-heroes-jam

Was just about to send you some help! Glad it's figured out. Cheers!

Please do submit! That sounds awesome, and congrats on finishing it (:

make an alarm on your phone

That is totally ok! As long as you make the games themselves during the jam. Cheers!

Yes! As long as you made them within the time frame of DecadeJam

✋

Thank you for asking! There is no theme in particular to DecadeJam. However, there is an Optional Themes and Diversifiers section at the bottom of the jam page!

Of course! As long as they were first created after 2020 began.

You can do both! Submit as many games as you like (as long as they have been created since the jam start) and submit games that you create over the course of the decade. 

I love this thought!

https://just404it.itch.io/ifc

Thank you for organizing the bundle. Congrats on the milestone and all the amazing work bub! <3

🥀

😢

Of course! 

That's really great! The laundromat story is fantastic.

And no worries! All the tools we use were made before the jam so it's not an issue (: 

Thank you for asking!

That all sounds like it's in the spirit of the jam. If you'd be willing, it might be nice to include a little disclaimer note to explain that the script was made before the jam and then how it's implemented in the game!

Best of luck!

I think that's totally within the spirit of the jam! If you want to be safe, it could be cool if you included the original prototype alongside the finished game when you submit - maybe with a little .txt about how you expanded from the prototype and where it took you.

Can't wait to see what they become (:

Of course! Any and all games created between 2020 and 2030 are eligible for submission.

Happy new year!

If you plan on submitting each update as a stand-alone .exe (rather than replacing the older submitted file), I'd recommend including them all in a single folder (and submitting that) so that they'll be kept together and easier for players to find. However, if you feel that each update reflects a large enough change that it is almost like a new game, please feel free to submit them however you like!

Perfect! Added (:

Of course! Would it be ok if I added that idea to the diversifies?

it has been here all along ha ha!

than k you dad.

i love u and cannot wait for u to see me again.

- yours

did you get to th e temple?? it can be hard to get all the way there !