Goal

This is the GoedWare Summer Jam, a relaxed three-weekend community edition organized by GoedWare. It is not a flagship numbered jam and it is not a strict special constraint edition. This edition is all about experimenting, finishing, sharing and supporting each other.

The goal of this Summer Jam is to let you:

• Create and finish a small game within the jam period
• Learn something new by trying a new idea, tool, genre, engine or workflow
• Experiment in a low-pressure summer format
• Share your progress and your finished game with the community
• Play other participants' games
• Give useful feedback and help others improve

The jam runs for around 16 calendar days across three weekends. This gives you more room than a short weekend jam, while still encouraging a small and finishable scope.

GoedWare:

Links to other GoedWare Game Jams  #1  #2  #3  #4  #5  #6  #7  #8  #9  #10  #11  #12  #13  #14  #15  #16  #17 |  COMMUNITY |  BOSS BATTLE |  ZERO UI |  HALLOWEEN  #2 |  CUTSCENE  #2 |  LIMITED COLOR |  LIMITED SHAPES

Rules & Requirements

• Open to All: Anyone, regardless of experience, is welcome to participate!
• Itch.io Account Required: An itch.io account is needed to join the jam and submit your entry.
• Engine Flexibility: You can use any engine or framework you like. Unity, Godot, Unreal, GameMaker, GDevelop, custom engines and other tools are all welcome.
• New Game Project: Your submitted game should be made during the jam period. You may use existing tools, templates, assets, plugins, snippets, workflows or libraries if you have the right license and credit them where needed.
• Theme: Your game should connect to the announced theme. Creative, funny, strange or indirect interpretations are welcome, but the connection should be understandable.
• Submission Deadline: You cannot edit your submission after the deadline, so submit your game a few hours early to avoid last-minute problems.
• Team Participation: Teams are allowed, but we recommend keeping teams to 4 members or fewer. Prizes are awarded to the team as a whole, not to each individual member.
• One Entry Per Participant / Team: To keep the jam focused and manageable, each participant or team may submit one entry. Use the extra time to polish your idea, keep the scope small, play other games and give useful feedback.
• Music and Fonts: Any music must be royalty-free or copyright-free and properly credited. Fonts from the internet can be used as long as you have the appropriate licenses.
• Assets: You may use assets you already own, such as those from the Unity Asset Store, Unreal Marketplace, asset packs or other sources. Make sure everything is properly licensed and credited where needed. Avoid infringing on copyrights or trademarks.
• No NSFW Content: Games must not contain nudity, hateful language or offensive visuals.
• Fair Voting: Any attempt to manipulate voting will result in removal from the jam.
• AI Assistance: AI tools may assist with coding, writing, planning or asset creation, but your game's design, creativity and core implementation should be your own work. Check the FAQ in the community section for more details.
• No Devlog Award: Devlogs are welcome, but there is no separate devlog award in this edition.
• No Easter Egg Challenge: This Summer Jam keeps the format light and focused.

Submission & Judging Criteria

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 / Engagement: Is the game fun, accessible, engaging, and does it provide a smooth experience?
• Creativity / Experiment: Does the game try something interesting, unusual, risky, clever or new?
• Art Style / Visuals: How cool, clear, fitting or eye-catching does the game look?
• Audio / Sound Design: How well do music, sound effects and audio feedback support the game and atmosphere?
• Theme: Does the game fit the announced theme in a clear, creative or surprising way?

There will be a Jury Ranking where our panel will choose the Top 3 Jury Winners from the Public Top 15. This keeps the jury selection connected to the community results, while still allowing the jury to reward strong overall games.

The Community Favorite is the game ranked #1 in the public results.

After the jam, there will be a rating period where participants can play and rate each game. Remember to leave constructive feedback. This is more helpful than just a rating and helps other participants discover your game! 😊

Note: To be eligible for prizes, each game needs a minimum number of ratings, currently set to 10 ratings. Playing, commenting and rating other entries will also increase the chances of your own game receiving ratings.

In our game jams, voting is restricted to submitters only. This decision was made after some teams in previous jams downvoted all competing entries. Team members are still welcome and encouraged to leave comments of course.

*We reserve the right to remove any entries with clear vote manipulation.
**Minimum rating requirements may be adjusted based on the number of participants.

Prizes / Awards

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

Let's start by saying that if you press the 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 anything else, but we do have some real prizes for the winners also 😉.

This is a relaxed summer community edition, so the prize structure is smaller than our main flagship GoedWare jams. The focus is still on creativity, learning, finishing, sharing and feedback.

Jury Ranking Prizes

• #1: €100 gift card
• #2: €50 gift card
• #3: €25 gift card

Public Voting

• Community Favorite: €50 gift card, awarded to the public ranked #1 entry

Special Awards

• Feedback Award: €40 gift card, awarded to the participant who provides the most helpful, detailed and constructive feedback on other entries during the rating period. This award values participants who go above and beyond with thoughtful comments, tips, and encouragement to help fellow developers improve their games.
• Bold Experiment Award: €25 gift card, awarded to the winner of the Creativity / Experiment category.

About the Awards

The Jury 1st Place, Jury 2nd Place and Jury 3rd Place will be chosen by the jury from the Public Top 15. The jury will look at the full experience, including gameplay, creativity, theme, visuals, audio, clarity and overall enjoyment.

The Community Favorite celebrates the entry most loved by the participating community.

The Feedback Award exists because playing and helping others is part of this jam. Good feedback can help another developer learn, improve and feel seen.

The Bold Experiment Award is linked to the Creativity / Experiment rating category. It rewards a game that tries something interesting, unusual, risky, clever or new.

Discord

Winners receive a special Discord role in the GoedWare community 😁.

NOTE:

• Prize winners 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 participants from Brazil, Madagascar and India: unfortunately, no gift cards are possible for amazon.com.br and amazon.in, so amazon.com gift cards will be used instead.
• Game-related prizes are awarded to the team as a whole, not to each individual team member. The Feedback Award is awarded to the selected participant.
• Jury ranking prizes stack with Community Favorite, Feedback Award or Bold Experiment Award.
• Because organizers may know the theme in advance, organizer entries are not eligible for prizes. If an organizer entry wins a prize position, the prize will move to the next eligible entry.
• 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!

Bonus Prizes from Our Supporting Sponsors

In addition to the main prizes sponsored by GoedWare, we also have bonus prizes generously provided by our supporting sponsors. These sponsors help make the jam even more exciting by offering extra rewards for the participants!

A big thank you to all our supporting sponsors for contributing these additional prizes and helping make this event even better!

Current Supporting Sponsors:

CraftPix.net is an online store and resource specializing in providing high-quality premium and free 2D game assets for game developers, indie studios, and hobbyists.

CraftPix.net will sponsor the following prizes for the top 3 in the public & jury ranking:

• 1-year Craftpix Membership

Tips

In my experience, here is what can help you make something strong during a game jam:

• 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 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 simple. A small game that feels finished and polished is usually stronger than a large unfinished idea.
• Try something new. This Summer Jam rewards experimentation, so do not be afraid to try a strange mechanic, unusual genre or new workflow.
• Browser games get more plays. If you want more people to actually try your game and vote on it, consider submitting a WebGL or HTML5 browser version. Many players prefer not to download files during a jam, so browser games tend to get significantly more attention and feedback.
• Resources. Check out the resources thread Free gamedev resources (art, music, sfx, vfx, models etc.) in our itch.io community for useful free gamedev resources.

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

FAQ

Also check the latest updated FAQ in our community.

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. Browser builds are recommended if you want more players and ratings, but downloadable builds are also allowed. Try to provide at least a Windows version if possible.

Question: What assets can I use?
Answer: Your submitted game should be made during the jam period. You may use existing tools, templates, assets, plugins, snippets, workflows or libraries if you have the right license and credit them where needed.

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

Question: Can I submit more than one game?
Answer: No. For this Summer Jam, each participant or team may submit one entry. The jam is longer than usual, so use the extra time to finish, polish, play other games and give feedback.

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

LEGAL

• Anything you make during the GoedWare Summer Jam is your property. GoedWare claims no rights or ownership of your game.
• Any game submitted to the GoedWare Summer Jam may show up in GoedWare YouTube videos, livestreams, social media posts, community posts or websites without your express permission.
• By participating, you confirm that you have the legal right to use all code, assets, music, fonts, tools and other materials included in your game.
• GoedWare reserves the right to remove submissions that contain NSFW content, hateful content, offensive visuals, stolen work, malware, illegal content, spam, vote manipulation or content that does not fit the spirit of the jam.
• Prizes, gift cards and sponsor rewards may be subject to regional availability, platform restrictions, delivery limitations or other conditions outside GoedWare's control.