The theme is "Trash!" Stay up to date by joining the Indie Game Dev Beginners Discord Server!
Welcome to Indie Game Dev Beginners! We are a community of new game developers looking to encourage each other and facilitate learning. This week-long jam will take place in July 2026 and aims to gather the community of beginners together to make some great games! The winner gets the coveted "Game Jam Winner" role on our Discord server, as well as their own emote!
The community will rate the games based on these criteria:
- Fun - did you enjoy the game?
- Creativity and Theme - did the creators adhere to the theme, while still bending the idea in a creative way?
- Visuals- how does the game look?
- Audio - how are the sound effects and music?
Basic rules:
- TEAM: Your team must be composed of "beginners" (see q&a below). You can work alone or with as many teammates as you want.
- TIME LIMIT: Your game must be made fully within the time window of the jam.
- After the deadline, gameplay/content updates are not allowed (like new levels, weapon balancing, music, etc.)
- After the deadline, minor fixes are allowed (like bug fixes, web support, graphics settings, etc.)
- ASSETS: You can use any free assets that you are licensed to use.
- You must include links to the external assets that you've used in your project page.
- Please try to keep the content of your game mostly original. If your art or programming skills are lacking, try teaming up with someone on our Discord server!
- ENGINE: You can use any game engine/programming language you like, as long as:
- Your game can be played with a keyboard and mouse.
- You can submit a file to itch.io, or include a link to a trusted website (such as Scratch).
- It is highly recommended (thought not required) to make your game playable in the browser, as you will receive significantly more ratings.
- CONTENT: Keep games appropriate for a general audience. Mild blood and gore is fine. No nudity, no triggering topics like suicide or ongoing armed conflicts.
- AI: Generative AI is only allowed for text-based content generation (like code, ideas, text dialogue). Audio and visual content generation is not allowed (like music, textures, voice lines).
Q: What counts as a beginner? A: For the purposes of this jam, the definition of "beginner" is very broad. If you feel like a beginner, then you're a beginner. But as a rough guideline, a beginner is someone who hasn't released any commercial game products, has less than 5 years of experience, and is not employed in the game development industry. Our intention is to keep it fair while not excluding people who genuinely want to participate, so help us fulfill that!
Q: How do I form a team? A: First, you should go to the #looking-for-team channel in the Discord server. Then, after you have found good teammates, choose one person to be the submitter. The submitter should include the rest of the team as "contributors" when submitting the project to itch. This will allow the contributors to participate in the voting. Only the submitter needs to click "join" on the jam page.
