Hello, and welcome to the home of the game jam for libre games, LibreJam! At the beginning of every other month, the jam begins, with a unique theme being released to add extra challenge. Participants have two weeks to develop and publish their game, working solo or in teams. Once time is up, all games are published to the site for others to view, and ratings are opened for seven days, before a winner is announced.
Rules
- All code and assets must be provided under an FSD-approved license. Any software required to run the game must also be available under an FSD-approved license.
- Content must be appropriate and safe for work (no hate speech, no harrassment).
- Games must fit the theme in some way.
- Important mechanics must be developed within the duration of the game jam. For example, you are not allowed to submit a "match 3" game without adding any unique mechanics to it. You are, however, allowed to reuse code and assets, so long as you are adding new value to them through your new mechanics.
Submissions
Once your game is finished, you can submit it to the jam here on jamgaroo. Please include a link to the code repository of your submission and give a brief description of your game and instructions on how to run it. Also create a branch or tag with the version of the game, which you want to submit. Note that the submissions will be publicy viewable in the sumissions list, and others will be able to reply to it with their own comments and feedback.
Ratings
Anyone can submit ratings for games, not just jam participants. Ratings are accepted until the end time given at the jam page, after which ratings for all games are tallied and winners are announced.
Socialising
Come and chat with us in the #librejam IRC channel on Slashnet. Here you can brainstorm, team up and chat about development! If you have a question about the jam, come and chat in the IRC channel.
Guidelines
In addition to the above rules, there are some guidelines that you might want to keep in mind while developing your game. These are not mandatory, but they're generally good advice for helping you create an end product which is fun for everyone:
- If you are submitting your game in a language other than English, please consider providing an English translation as well.
- Write a build script which makes compiling your game from source easy. Many people are using devices with different software or libraries. As a result, it is often necessary for them to compile your game from source in order to play it. Creating an easy to use build script not only helps expand your audience, but it is also good software development practice in general, and reflects well on your competency as a programmer.
- Allow players to rebind the controls. Not everyone uses a standard "QWERTY" keyboard layout. Permanently setting your game controls to common combinations like "WASD" can make life very difficult for such players.
- Describe your game in your submissions readme. This will improve your chances of receiving feedback.