ONE WEEK · ONE THEME · ONE RESTRICTION
Jamference is a game jam built around one idea: making games with AI, out in the open. You get a theme up front, a surprise restriction at the starting bell, and one week to ship something playable. The week after that, everyone plays and rates what everyone else made.
JAM + INFERENCE = JAMFERENCE
Everyone starts from the same two prompts and ends up somewhere completely different. That's the fun part. Build solo, build with friends, build with a model in the loop. As long as something playable exists at the deadline, you're in.
The full week is there to make it easier to take part, not a bar you have to clear. Your game can be one prompt or a full week of work, a tiny toy or something huge. Just make something fun. New to jams? This is a good one to start with.
Join the Discord server if you have questions, want to hear the restriction the moment it drops, or just want to hang out with the other jammers.
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THEME Great Works of Art |
RESTRICTION No Text |
This time the jam is a gallery. Pick a painting, a print, a sculpture, a tapestry, a whole movement, and build a game around it.
The dream: games that look like they walked straight out of a museum. A platformer painted in the swirling brushstrokes of The Starry Night. A puzzle game cut from Hokusai's woodblock waves. A roguelike crawling through the margins of a medieval illuminated manuscript. A pointillist shooter built one Seurat dot at a time. Borrow a great artist's style and make it playable.
But any take on great works of art is fair game: a heist in a gallery after dark, a restorer fixing a ruined fresco, a portrait that keeps changing when you look away, a game about the artist rather than the art. The theme is a launchpad, not a leash. Nobody is checking your homework against a definition.
A NOTE ON PUBLIC DOMAIN
If you put an actual artwork in your game (the image itself, a scan, a crop, a texture made from it), it needs to be in the public domain. A good rule of thumb: if it was made before 1923, you are very likely fine. Mona Lisa, The Starry Night, The Great Wave, Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Garden of Earthly Delights: all yours to use.
Styles are different. Nobody owns cubism or surrealism, so you can make your game look like a Picasso or a Magritte. Just don't drop the newer paintings themselves into your game. When in doubt, check, and credit the original artwork on your page either way.
RESTRICTION: NO TEXT
Your game can't show any text. No menus with words, no dialogue boxes, no tutorial pop-ups, no labels. Everything the player needs to know has to come across through art, animation, icons, sound and how the game plays.
There are two small exceptions. First, controls: a key prompt or an on-screen button can say Space, E or WASD. Labels only, never explanations, so no "Press Space to jump". Second, your game's title or logo can appear, for example on a title screen. Ideally, though, keep text to a minimum: show the controls with icons, or let players work them out.
Speech is fine. Voice acting, a narrator, characters chattering, AI generated voices: all allowed, as long as none of it shows up on screen as written words. That means no subtitles either.
This is about the game itself. Your itch.io page can have as much text as you like.
And unlike the theme, the restriction is mandatory.
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WEEK 01 Build week The restriction drops at the open. Seven days to make and submit. Submissions close hard at the deadline, and whatever is uploaded then is what gets played. |
WEEK 02 Rating week Everyone plays everyone. Score the four categories, leave people some real feedback, and the averages decide it at the end of the week. |
1 AI must be part of the build REQUIRED
This is the rule that defines the jam. AI has to be genuinely involved somewhere: code, art, audio, writing, level generation, design ideation, or as a live system inside the game itself. "I used it for a variable name" does not count; we are looking for AI doing real work. Tell us what you used and where.
2 The restriction is mandatory REQUIRED
The theme is optional inspiration. The restriction is not. Incorporate it, and be ready to explain how in a sentence.
3 Build it during the jam week
Games must be made inside the one week build window. Existing projects, prototypes you have been sitting on, and last month's abandoned build are not eligible.
4 Reused assets are fine if they are yours to reuse
Your own libraries, your own engine, your own tooling, licensed asset packs, AI generated assets are all allowed. Just make sure you have the right to use them, and credit anything that needs crediting. Any artwork you use directly must be in the public domain (roughly, made before 1923).
5 Keep it broadly safe for everyone
No NSFW content, targeted harassment, or hate. If your game contains anything intense, such as horror, gore, flashing imagery or heavy themes, flag it clearly on your submission page.
6 Be nice
This is a place to make games and have fun. Give constructive feedback and don't bash anyone for how they use AI.
7 Disclose your team
Solo, duo, or squad, all fine. Just list who did what, and say so if you are contributing to more than one entry.
Any game that does not follow the rules may be removed from the jam without warning.
"Great Works of Art" is there to spark ideas. Only the restriction is compulsory. Skipping it will not disqualify you, but Theme is one of the four rating categories, so a game that ignores it will score lower there.
Yes, if it is in the public domain. Roughly, that means it was made before 1923. Credit the artwork and the artist on your page.
Go for it. Art styles and movements are free for everyone. You just can't use the newer artworks themselves.
Any of them. Coding assistants, image and audio models, agents, local models, whatever you have got. Combine them freely.
Yes, briefly, on your submission. No essay required; a short list of tools and what each one did is plenty.
You can do both, and plenty of people will. But rule 1 still stands: AI has to be part of how the thing got made or how it runs.
Whatever you are fastest in. Unity, Godot, Unreal, Bevy, plain HTML and JavaScript, Twine, a spreadsheet with delusions of grandeur. No restrictions.
Any genre, any platform. Web builds get played the most, so if you want ratings, a browser version helps enormously.
It is recommended but not required. A web build gets played and rated far more than a download, because most people rating are clicking through a long list of entries. If you can only ship a downloadable build, that is still a valid entry.
Yes. Each one is judged on its own merits, and each needs its own submission page.
Bug fixes are fine, and encouraged if something is broken enough to block play. Adding features, content or art is not, because everyone should be rated on the same build. Keep the deadline version playable all week and label any post jam version clearly.
Fun, AI use, Polish and Theme are averaged into a single score. Highest average takes it.
Get in touch in the Discord or the jam community tab as soon as you can. Late submissions are handled case by case; the earlier you say something, the more we can do.
Bragging rights, a leaderboard, and a pile of games that did not exist a fortnight ago. The real prize is finding out what you can ship in a week with AI riding shotgun.
We will be hosting jams every two weeks. Keep an eye out for the next one!
GET INVOLVED
COMMUNITY AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
RESTRICTION
No Text. Nothing written on screen except bare control labels and your game's title or logo.
SUBMISSIONS
Open all week, closing hard at the deadline.
