i dont have a tracker and wont know how to use it by the time the jam starts, so could I use FL studio?
One of the main parts of the challenge is learning the tracker. other participants will be doing the same. We'll all be stepping outside of our comfort zone to learn the specific tracker given for the jam and making music to the theme. Using a DAW like FL Studio will only be done in future jams where I assign a SoundFont and specify that its allowed. For this coming jam, that will not be the case.
Check out /jam/chiptune-jam-1 to see how we approached learning FamiTracker for that one! Don't be afraid to use the jam to learn tracking, that's the point of this jam! We won't be using FamiTracker for Chiptune Jam #2 but all trackers are pretty similar to each other, so you can use it to get practice.
One of the rules of the jam is to provide the tracker project file as well so we can examine how each tune was tracked. Its a really fun time on stream and I highly recommend you take part!
TLDR: No. Using the given Tracker is required.