Hosted by RetroCrow and Hack Club

WATCH THE VIDEO

The MFG Gambler's Jam is an 8-day game development jam (December 5 to 13) hosted by RetroCrow and Hack Club.

Come hang out with us, find a team, share progress, and ask questions in the Mace Face Games Discord. If you're a teenager, you can get prizes & find other teenage game devs by joining the Hack Club Slack!

Theme

The MFG Gambler's Jam has a primary theme, and an optional secondary theme:

• The main theme is the same for everyone. It will be revealed in a video when the jam starts :)
• The GAMBLER's theme comes from the super badass MFG Gambler's Jam slot machine™. Once the jam starts, you/your team can pull the lever to spin the slot machine, and get to pick between three random themes! This slot machine will open when the jam starts.

Rating

You'll be rated by your fellow Jamblers on five categories: enjoyment, creativity, theme, visuals, and audio. Theme means how well your game uses both of its themes, so raters can see your secondary theme on your entry.

The more games you rate, the more people will play your game. It's kind of like blackjack, if blackjack had ratings and was played on itch.io. And it was a game jam. Anyways

The organizers will select the finalists, and RetroCrow will play them all on stream to pick the winners!

Prizes for teenagers

Any teenager (13-18) who makes a game can pick a prize, regardless of ranking! Hack Club is a nonprofit for teenagers who build projects, and they're providing a range of prizes for making a game:

See the full prize list

If you're a teenager, check the "I'm a teenager" box when submitting, and enter your email + any teenager teammate's emails. You'll get an email with a link to verify your age and pick your prize.

On a team? Every teenager on it needs to meet the requirements to get a prize. Your game also has to be open source: put the code on GitHub or similar and link it from your game's description.

We review every game: the bar is low, but low-effort games and plain tutorial games won't get a prize. Click here for requirements & more info.

Not a teenager? You can still join and win! This jam is open to everyone, even the old and frail.

Rules

• Make your game during the jam, around the main theme (and the secondary theme if you decide to do so).
• Your game must run on web or Windows with no setup. Retro has to be able to play it.
• No generative AI for art, audio, writing, or code. This is a jam about making things, so make the things!
• You can work alone or in a team of any size. We've seen 40-person teams. It's always chaos, and we love it.
• Credit what you didn't make. Asset packs and pre-existing code are okay, but you can't make assets specifically for the jam before it starts. Credit everything you didn't make in your game's description! If you use an uncredited tileset from the front page of itch, I will find you
• Fake money only! No real-money purchases, payments, or links to real gambling sites.
• Keep it appropriate: if you wouldn't show it to your grandma, don't submit it. No NSFW, gore, or hateful content.
• You'll have 24 hours after the deadline to fix bugs. After that, file uploads will lock!
• Submitting gives RetroCrow and Hack Club permission to play your game on stream or in videos (Duh)

FAQ

Can we spin the slot machine again?

Nope, one spin each!

How does the SBMFGGJSM™ (the slot machine) work if I'm on a team?

Only one person on your team needs to spin for a theme. Everyone else can click the slot machine and enter that teammate's itch username to use their theme.

What engine can I use?

Any engine, as long as the game runs on web or Windows with no setup.

I've never made a game.

Perfect! Come say hi in the Discord and find a team :)

Will my game be played on stream?

Some non-finalist games will be played on stream, but it will be random!

Can I submit more than one game?

Yes!

Is block coding allowed?

Yes, but games made with block coding or visual scripting (e.g. Scratch, Blueprints, GDevelop events) aren't eligible for Hack Club's teen prizes!

Is this legit?

Yes! Hack Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 81-2908499) backed by partners like GitHub, AMD, NASA, FUTO, and Proton, and its finances are public. Hack Club has run programs like this for years, including a bunch of game jams.

Gambling is an addiction. We do not condone gambling!

Questions? Ask in the Discord in #game-jam, in the Hack Club Slack in #jame-gam, or email augie@hackclub.com!

With that being said,

LET'S GO JAMBLING!!!!!