My name is Josh Bycer and I run the site and channel Game-Wisdom. I specialize in talking about game design and covering varieties of games, especially indie titles. Over the past 7 years of running things, I have played and covered thousands of games. With the channel now over 10,000 subscribers, I wanted to start doing something special to raise awareness for it and to give more indie developers a chance to create something and get their name out there.

Theme: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."

Rules  

• teams should be no more than five people and you are free to organize on the Game-Wisdom discord.
• The game jam period will run for no more than 10 days, entries not in by midnight will be disqualified.
• All game jam games must be submitted via Itch, I will not accept email links to Google Drive or dropbox.
• Prototypes can be as short as you want, but a prototype should require no more than 30 minutes of playtime. While judging, if a game does exceed the 30-minute time limit, nothing past that mark will count for the game's rating.
• For the sake of showing these off on stream, please keep things SFW.
• You are free to use premade or store assets provided you have the license for them. 
• All prototypes must be made during the jam itself, you are not allowed to turn in an already-created game/prototype.
• If a game cannot be played at all due to browser issues, or files are being flagged by basic antivirus software before running, those entries will be disqualified. If your game has a problem during judging, you will be given a chance to fix it.

Grading

Games will be graded in the following categories and what they mean score-wise:

The Theme-- Does the game meet the theme of the jam and how clear was it?

• 1 - No idea how this game meets the theme
• 5 - The theme is front and centered and easily seen

Originality -- How original was the gameplay

• 1 - The game played like everything we've seen before 
• 5 - completely new gameplay for the respective genre

Gameplay -- How good was the overall experience to play?

• 1 - not enjoyable to play
• 5 - smiling ear-to-ear while playing

Performance-- Options menu, controls, UI/UX etc.

• 1 - The game is barely functional, if at all
• 5 - has full options, no bugs, slowdown, etc.

Aesthetics -- The look and feel of the game.

• 1 - It looks like someone just pasted asset packs into an engine and called it a day
• 5 - The art goes with the theme and gameplay perfectly

Completion -- Is there a full concept and beginning, middle, and end to the demo?

• 1 - The submission is over before it starts showing any real gameplay
• 5 - The demo shows off the theme, explores gameplay with it, and has a conclusion

All game jam concepts and game designs submitted will be owned by the respective designers, and any coverage done on Game-Wisdom will be owned by myself. All games played and judged by me will be archived on a showcase video on the channel with links to the respective games listed. 

Judging Details:

Judging will be done by me along with several judges. The judges will play the games on their own, and grade the games on the metrics I have listed above. Whichever game has the highest overall score from the judges will be considered the winner. After the jam period is over, I will give judges 14 days to play through the submissions (subject to change based on the number of submissions.)