This is just a fun little game jam hosted by a small-time YouTuber. It's open to anyone who wants to join, all levels of game-development ability, solo devs, and teams. As with the previous jams, you can use any tools and assets you have the commercial rights to, whether you want to make your game in RPG Maker using artwork from OpenGameArt.org, or you want to make all your art from scratch and code the entire thing, engine and all, in Assembly. Or anything in between those extremes.
This is the sixth b3agz Jam. If you want to see how the previous jams went, you can find them here!
You can also check out the Discord server if you want to talk about the jam with other entrants!
THE THEME WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT THE START OF THE JAM!
The winner of the jam will be decided by b3agz and any of his fancy content-creator friends he can rope into helping out. The community winner will be decided by you guys, the participants, rating each other's games.
The winner of the jam will receive a $100 cash prize. This could cover your Steam page fee... or you could blow it on novelty dolphin shirts. We won't judge. The top community-voted entry gets a $50 cash prize. Prizes will be paid out through PayPal; please bear this in mind before entering. If you don't have a PayPal account (and can't get or borrow one) and there is no way I can get money to you from my PayPal account, you will not be able to collect your prize. You can also choose to have your prize money sent to a charity of your choice if you wish. The only restriction is that I must be able to send the payment using PayPal.
You will also get a winner's "laurel" to show off if you decide to take your game further. You can use this in promotional content, on your Steam page, etc. Just a small way of showing off that your game won a jam.
Generative AI for asset creation is strictly prohibited in this jam. That means art, music, models, etc. I'm not interested in debating the ethics of gen-AI usage; if you don't like this restriction, there are countless other jams you can join.
So what IS allowed?
AI can be used for ideation (eg, chatting to ChatGPT about your game premise/idea), and things like code completion are also fine. There is no explicit ban on "vibe coding" (mostly because we can't enforce it), but just know that it is very much against the spirit of the game jam. The point is for YOU to make a game, not Claude.
You can use any game engine or game-making tools you like as long as you are legally allowed to make your game public and freely available.
There are no restrictions on what platforms you build your entry for. However, bear in mind that your game is going to be voted on by the other participants. If you only release one build, and it's for macOS, you're going to miss out on a lot of votes from people who can't play your game. I would recommend doing a web build wherever possible to make it easy for everyone to play your game.
You do. There is no expectation that we can do anything with your game other than play it in a YouTube video or Twitch live stream. It has to be free and available to play during the voting window if you want to have a shot at winning. After that, you can take it down, put a price tag on it, enter it into other jams (that allow pre-made games), or do anything else you might want to do with it.
The overall winner is decided by b3agz and any jam judges; the community winner is determined by participant and contributor ratings. There are a few different categories to vote on, and the winner will be the entries with the highest overall scores. In the event that the community winner is tied, the prize will be split.
As soon as the jam ends, your submission will be locked during the voting window. During this period, you can make changes to your jam page, but you will not be able to upload new builds. Participants are encouraged to go play each other's games and leave honest ratings (and feedback if you can). At the end of the voting period, build uploads are unlocked. TIP: You can set up your page and even upload builds at any point through the jam; you will only be judged on the build that is live when the jam ends. Don't leave it until the last second to upload!
There is a theme, and it will be announced at the start of the jam to prevent people from making their whole game before the jam even starts!
As mentioned above, not incorporating the theme will reduce your chances of winning. However, the theme is not a requirement for entry. If you think your game is so amazing that it can win without any points in the theme category, or you just don't care about winning, feel free to ignore the theme. The real goal of the jam is to get people to make games.
b3agz is a small-time YouTuber who makes videos around game development aimed at beginner (sometimes creeping towards intermediate) developers, and game-related video essays. You can find the channel here.
The best way to find out more is by joining the Discord server and heading over to the #b3agz-jam channel.
