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Game jams. They’re right here, they’re essential, and you need to participate. It’s not a secret that we love jams at itch.io. We host them, write about them, seek the advice of on them, and monitor them. Many members of our group be part of jams on the common, however there’s one factor we haven’t carried out with jams but: clarify why you need to be part of one.
If you’re not already conscious, recreation jams are restricted time recreation improvement sprints normally centered round a theme. These may be as obscure as Ludum Dare’s “Running out of power” or can focus on an engine like RPGmaker and power groups to suppose creatively inside onerous constraints.

But absolutely nobody could make an incredible recreation in only a few days, proper? Wrong. Dead fallacious. Many groups have crafted fascinating and useful tasks as a part of a jam. We’ll have a put up that includes a few of the gems from this previous weekend’s Ludum Dare up later this week, however many groups go on to shine their jam submissions and launch excessive profile video games like Titan Souls, Goat Simulator, and Superhot.
But again to the meat of this, why must you care about recreation jams? By all accounts they’re enjoyable. Struggling to make one thing work alongside a group is at worst a bonding expertise, at greatest a approach to be taught one thing new about your self and others whereas making a neat recreation. You even have the chance to fulfill new individuals. There are dozens of Facebook teams and websites like Crowdforge devoted to connecting individuals upfront of recreation jams.
There’s additionally the chance to develop. Game jams are the bottom stake to be taught a brand new ability. If your challenge seems somewhat damaged or janky, that’s okay! It’s onerous to count on AAA ranges of polish out of a small group over 2 days, so bugs are simply forgiven. You also can discover concepts that you just wouldn’t usually have time to dedicate months to!

There are tons of assets for individuals excited about getting in to jamming. We put up a put up simply final week cataloging a few of our favourite instruments, however there are scores of different suggestions and guides accessible. The group can also be recognized for being useful and supportive of newcomers and I’ve personally seen most of the extra well-known jammers supply assist and solutions on Twitter.
So what steps do you must take as a way to be part of a jam? The checklist could be very brief. Basically: Find a recreation jam, get some associates collectively, make a recreation. Hey, for those who’re multi-talented you possibly can skip the second step solely. Need extra assist? We have an inventory of the entire upcoming jams in a candy gantt chart.
There’s by no means been a greater time to hitch a recreation jam and it’s by no means been simpler to create one thing rapidly.
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