🕹️ Welcome to the PS1 Nostalgia Game Jam!

Dust off your memory cards and fire up the CRT monitors! Welcome to the PS1 Nostalgia Game Jam, a creative challenge where developers come together to recreate the magical, blocky, and jittery era of late-90s gaming.

Whether you want to build a survival horror inspired by Resident Evil, a high-speed racer like Ridge Racer, or a quirky low-poly platformer like Spyro, this jam is all about embracing the technical limitations of the original PlayStation.

📜 The Rules & Constraints

To capture the authentic aesthetic of the fifth generation of consoles, all submissions must strictly adhere to the following hardware-inspired limitations:

📺 1. Screen Resolution

• Maximum Resolution: 640 x 480 pixels.
• Your game may scale up to fill modern monitors, but the internal rendering resolution cannot exceed 640x480. Lower retro resolutions (like 320x240) are highly encouraged!

🎨 2. Texture Limitations

• Maximum Texture Size: 256 x 256 pixels per texture.
• Multiple Textures: You are allowed to use multiple textures on a single 3D model, provided that every single texture asset used is 256x256 pixels or smaller.
• Texture Filtering: All textures must use Point / Nearest Neighbor filtering. No bilinear or trilinear smoothing allowed—keep those pixels crisp!

📐 3. Graphics & Aesthetics

• No Modern Lighting: Disable real-time shadows, global illumination, and smooth phong/blinn-phong shading. Use vertex lighting or unlit textures.
• The "PS1 Jitter" (Optional but Recommended): The PS1 lacked a floating-point unit for 3D coordinates, causing vertices to snap to a grid and textures to warp (affine mapping). Try to emulate this vertex wobble using shaders!

⚖️ 4. Submission & Legality

• Originality: You can use pre-made assets (models, audio, shaders) as long as you have the right to use them and they fit the restrictions.
• Team Size: Solo developers and teams are both welcome.
• Platform: The game must be playable on Windows or directly in the browser (WebGL).

🗳️ How the Games are Rated

Once the submission period closes, a public voting period will begin. Anyone who submitted a game (and the public) can vote on the entries based on the following five categories:

• ⭐ Authenticity (The PS1 Factor): How well does the game look, feel, and sound like a real PS1 game? Did it stay within the resolution and texture limits?
• 🕹️ Gameplay: Is the game fun, responsive, and engaging to play? (Even tank controls can be fun if designed well!)
• 🎨 Art Direction: How creative is the visual design within the 256x256 texture limits?
• 🎵 Audio & Sound Design: Does the soundtrack and sound effects match the era? (Think compressed audio, MIDI-style tracks, or 90s electronic music).
• 💡 Creativity & Theme: How original is the concept? Did the developers bring a unique idea to life despite the strict limitations?