Submissions open from 2024-09-20 09:00:00 to 2024-09-30 10:00:00
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Join the 12th GoedWare Game Jam, a 10-day coding challenge open to all, where you can learn, enjoy, and share game development experiences. Create a game using any framework, keep a devlog for insights, and submit it on itch.io. Games are rated in categories like gameplay, art style, audio, theme, and more, by both participants and a special jury panel. Prizes include gift cards and some sponsored items for the winners. Enjoy the Easter Egg challenge for some extra fun. Share your creations, learn something new, and who knows, you might just win! Theme is announced at start.

This is the 11th Game Jam organized by GoedWare ( LinkedIn | Website | Discord ).  Our goal is to let you practice coding, create and finish a game in around 10 days and also learn from the experience, expand your skills and above all have fun and enjoy making your own game and playing other participants' games.

*(Link to previous Jams #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11)

The theme will be announced at the start of the Game Jam:  

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  • Anyone, regardless of experience, is welcome to participate!
  • An itch.io account to be able to join the jam and submit your entry.
  • You can use any engine or framework you like! For example: Unity, Godot, Unreal, Gamemaker etc. You can even make your own if you want. But some of our prizes are Assets for the Unity Engine (you can choose a gift card instead).
  • You can not edit your submission after the deadline! So be wise and submit your game a few hours before the deadline to be able to tackle any last minute issues.
  • Teams are allowed, but we recommend keeping the teams up to 4 members, after that it becomes hard to manage a team in 8 days for a game. (Prizes are only for the whole team, not the individual members)
  • If you have the time and can manage it, multiple entries for the Game Jam are allowed.
  • Music must be royalty / copyright free and properly credited. 
  • You can use fonts from the internet, as long as you have the correct license for it.
  • You can use assets you own. For example assets from the Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace.
  • Please only use assets you have permission to use, and avoid infringing upon any copyright or trademark.
  • No NSFW games.  Games must not contain nudity, or hateful language or visuals.
  • Participants who try to manipulate voting will be removed.
  • You have the option to create a Devlog (optional) where you can give an insight into your game development process, or tell others how you solved a particular game problem or implemented a game mechanic. This way we can all learn from each other's experiences.
    • This can be a blog, a video, your daily schedule of the jam, some text or a short story telling us how you made the game, what difficulties you had during the jam and how you solved them. Or an explanation of some of your key game mechanics. How did you come up with them or how did you implement them. Or what you think are important learning milestones for us. It does not have to be much. Every information you can share will be helpful for us to learn to make better games that are more fun for the players.
    •  You can easily add your log to your Itch.io Game Project page or provide a link in the submission where we can read your log.
    • This is optional, but if you do create one, you stand a chance of winning a nice prize (see Prizes).

All entries will be judged by other participants of the jam, so that includes you (hopefully)!

The categories the games are rated in are:

  • Gameplay / Fun: Basically, how easy and how much fun it is to play the game.
  • Art Style / Visuals: How cool, beautiful, or eye-catching the game looks.
  • Audio / Sound Design: How good the music and sound effects are, and if they make the game feel even better. Do they enhance the theme.
  • Innovation:  Unique mechanics, original concepts, or unexpected twists that set the game apart and offer a fresh experience.
  • Theme: Does the game fit into the theme.
  • Devlog: How insightful and educational was the log of the developer(s). 

There will also be a Judge/Jury Ranking: a rating by our own panel of judges. They will make a separate ranking from the participating games based on their own tastes, preferences and gaming enjoyment as to who will receive a prize. They will take into account any double or unfair voting in the normal rating. To balance uneven or unfair votes.

The theme will be announced when the jam starts.

After the jam ends, a 1 week rating period starts, in which people can play and rate all of the submitted games.

Don't forget to leave feedback on any game you rate! It's more helpful than just a number, and it helps them find your game 😊.

Note: You need at least 10 ratings to be considered for winning in any of the categories. So make sure you play a lot of games so your game will have a higher chance of getting rated!

*The voting is open, but we reserve the right to take any submissions down that are clearly vote brigaded.

** The number of needed ratings to be considered a winning will be adjusted according to the number of participants.

Yes, this Game Jam will have prizes for the winners 😊. These prizes are made available by our sponsor and organizer GoedWare.

Let's start by saying that if you press that join button and upload a game before the deadline, you are already a winner!  Having fun while creating and finishing your game project is an achievement in itself!  That experience is more valuable than money, but we do have some real prizes for the winners also 😉.

We have a public vote with prizes and we also have a jury ranking (see these prizes under the public vote) with prizes.

#Overall winner

The overall winner will receive a $100 gift card!* + Eternal Glory of winning the Game Jam😁! 

* Participants will receive an Amazon gift card for the Amazon website that applies to their country. No other gift cards or prizes will be distributed or swapped.

*** For the record for Brazilians. Unfortunately, no gift cards are possible for amazon.com.br and we will give out gift cards for amazon.com online shop.

#Runner-up 

The runner-up will get a $25 gift card.

#Gameplay & Fun

The winner in this category will receive a $25 gift card.

#Art Style / Visuals

The winner in this category will receive a $25 gift card.

#Audio / Sound Design

The winner in this category will receive a $25 gift card.

#Innovation

The winner in this category will receive a $25 gift card.

#Theme

The winner in this category will receive a $25 gift card.

#Devlog (optional)

The most insightful, informative & educational Devlog will receive a $100 gift card .
* The Devlog category will be manually ranked by the Jury and not the participants. It is NOT a required part of the Jam if you want a chance to win overall prizes. The deadline of the devlog is also a couple of days after the game submission period. So you can add it later and focus on your game during the  jam.

#Jury ranking

#1:  The winner will get a $250 gift card!!

#2:  The runner-up will get a $125 gift card.

#3:  Third place will get a $50 gift card.

#Gameplay & Fun:   The winner in this category will receive a $50 gift card.

#Art Style / Visuals:   The winner in this category will receive a $50 gift card.

#Innovation:  The winner in this category will receive a $50 gift card.

#Audio / Sound Design:  The winner in this category will receive a $50 gift card.

*Jury ranking prizes will stack with the public prizes.

# Easter Egg Challenge

 

During our 5th Anniversary Edition we held this challenge for the first time and we thought it would be fun to keep this extra prize during this new Game Jam edition:

We will give away an extra fun prize  on top of the prizes that are already there for the cutest, smartest, funniest, cleverest, etc. Easter Egg in your games.  It may be a joke, a super power-up, a short-cut or whatever. But most of all, let it fit the game and give the user a sense of awe.

We will add a separate spoiler channel in Discord and a thread in the community where people can tell about their found Easter eggs and what they thought of them. The judges will then determine the winner based on all the experiences.

While submitting your game, there will be a separate field where you can fill in how people can find your Easter egg. After the Jam we will share this info with everyone so everyone can find and enjoy the Easter eggs in all your games.

PRIZE: That remains a surprise, but we suspect you'll definitely appreciate it 😁!

Discord

All the winners get a fancy Discord server role 😁.

* Because the organizers already know the theme in advance, we will merely be participators. If one of us gets voted to be winner of a category or the overall winner, prizes will be awarded to the next person instead.

** The prizes may change a little bit before the Game Jam starts, but will mostly contain the content as it is shown now. Once the Game Jam has started the prizes will not change anymore!

In my experience, here is what you need to do if you want to win one of the top spots:

  • Make your game easy to understand for new players. This is a super common trap a lot of game jam games fall into.  Start thinking about your tutorial or how you want to teach your mechanics right from the beginning!
  • Usually it's a good idea to make your game not too hard to win. People spend roughly five to fifteen minutes on each game. In most cases they won't have enough time to reach a super high level of mastery. Keep that in mind when balancing the difficulty.
  • Quality over quantity. Keep your game super simple! This is important in this jam but every bit of extra polish can really make your game stand out in a short jam like this.
  • Take risk. The winning games are usually those who were brave enough to try something completely new and crazy (while also following the other three tips above). 

Obviously there are exceptions to all rules but still, I hope it helps. 😊

Some resources to help you started.

Question: What is the theme? 
Answer: The theme will be announced when the jam begins.

Question: Does my game have to be a certain format?
Answer: No, but remember that not all users have Windows/Mac/Linux devices. Browser based is a good idea to get as many people playing your game as possible and try to make at least a Windows version.

Question: What assets can I use? 
Answer: The vast majority of code must be written during the jam, but you can use whatever art and audio assets you have the legal right to use.

Question: Can I submit a game that I already started on?  
Answer: No, it is required that all participants make the entirety of the game in the time provided.

Question: Is there a Discord I can join? 
Answer: Yes, click here to join.

  • Anything you make during the GoedWare Game Jam is your property. GoedWare claims no rights or ownership of your game. 
  • Any game submitted to the GoedWare  Game Jam may show up in a GoedWare YouTube video, Social Media or website without your express permission.