The Jamician, mascot and protector of our community, has recently challenged his evil twin known as the Jellymancer… And lost ownership of Alakajam! in the process. After some drama, this has just been confirmed by the Jamician themselves, concluding the controversy about the challenge results. In case you missed the events that led up to it, here is what was previously on Alakajam!

A disturbance in the jam

The 10th Alakajam! has been host to unusual announcements, starting with a mysterious tweet several weeks before the jam. When theme submissions started, surprise changes where made from the usual rules, with the theme submission limit raised to 10, in the name of "chaos". It became clear that Alakajam! had been broken into by a mysterious character.

The second phase of the theme selection saw 20 themes shortlisted instead of 10, with the list itself getting shortened one theme at a time as the jam got closer. The Jellymancer then decided the jam would have not one, but three available themes:

The Jamician's Challenge

During @DanaePlays and @Aurel300's jam launch stream, The Jamician took a chance at getting rid of his opponent, by challenging him to a gaming tournament. In the competition, three games from the jam would be played by everyone for a few days. The Jellymancer would compete in it, and commit to leave the community alone in case of a defeat… while victory would make him the owner of the jam.

When the tournament took place, the Jellymancer only posted modest scores and it seemed clear that the players had managed to beat him fair and square. But in the last moments of the competition — in an evil twist fitting of the Jellymancer — he posted much more skillful scores, including a controversial top spot at the Square Maps game.

His surprise victory triggered a lengthy investigation… Before The Jamician finally had to accept the victory of his opponent.

And this is how Alakajam! came to be… in the hands of C H A O S

Who would have guessed? It seems like the Jellymancer has outsmarted us, posting incredible high scores at the last minute to take over the top spot of the leaderboard! I do not know what this means for the future of Alakajam, but our new master has already started updating the website to match their taste.

While we wait to discover his next move, I'd still like to congratulate everyone who took part in the tournament and the event in general. We hope you had fun with this special 10th Alakajam :) Speaking of which, unless our new master decides otherwise, here's the dates for the next one:

The 11th Alakajam will be held on 26-28 February

The tournament of the 10th Alakajam has now started! From Thursday (October 8, 7pm UTC) to Sunday (October 11, 7pm UTC), everyone gets to compete on a selection of three games made during the jam. The competition is open to everyone having an Alakajam account, it is not restricted to the jam entrants.

Try you best to beat the high scores of your opponents… and in particular those of the Jellymancer, who is playing to possibly take over the entire Alakajam community from the hands of the Jamician (see video below in case you missed the launch stream).

After two weeks of playing, reviewing and rating games, the results of the jam are finally out! Congratulations to the winners… and of course to all of you who took the time to play and post comments on the jam entries: getting people to actually play and review our creations is possibly the best part of game jams :)

High score tournement

Speaking of tournament, we still have to deal with the Jellymancer, who has been challenged by the Jamician to a tournament (see video below in case you missed the launch stream).

The tournament will be held from Thursday (October 8, 7pm UTC) to Sunday (October 11, 7pm UTC), and will require you to beat the Jellymancer on his selection of games. The chosen games will only be revealed at launch! Depending on the specifics we may contact their author before the start, for instance to tweak their entry page or reset the game scores, in case there is a post-jam version of the game we can use over the 48h one.

See you then!

For the next two weeks, all entrants are be able to give ratings on other games. Take some time to play & rate games, and even better write some feedback about it! Getting constructive feedback is one of the best ways to learn and improve one's game design skills, so please dish it out in buckets. While people who didn't enter the event cannot rate games, they can still post reviews.

By rating & commenting (even on Unranked entries), you will gain Karma that will make your game more visible to others. A high Karma gives you more chances to get ratings yourself and reach the minimum of 8 to be classified. Otherwise, you will not get a final ranking!

On October 4th, at 7pm UTC the final results will be released and the winners crowned :)

Go go go! Play and rate games!

With the theme now revealed, the 10th Alakajam! has started! Good luck to all! And consider supporting high scores for a chance to be entered in the tournament following the jam.

Big thanks to @DanaePlays and @Aurel300 for hosting the awesome launch stream! If you missed it, you can still watch the replay on her Twitch channel. If you like The Elder Scrolls, you will also enjoy Danae's regular streams, where she usually goes exploring the huge world of Morrowind.

Submission times

The end of the jam is depending on whether you pick ranked or unranked. You can create your game page at any time during the jam (and update it any time after it's created):

• Ranked: September 20th 7:00pm UTC, which means you have 48 hours (+1 hour for late entries to create their page).
• Unranked: September 21th 10:00pm UTC, which means you have a bit more than 72 hours

Cool things to do during the jam

• Stream your development process. Join the event as a streamer from your dashboard to let everyone know about it, and possibly get featured on the front page during the week-end! This will also have the side effect to let you enter the streamer competition.
• Write a blog post: Share your thoughts on the theme, post your progress, images of food or gifs of cute animals. You can also free to use posts for advertising live jam streams.
• Come relax on the Discord server, tweet about #alakajam and/or follow the alakajam Twitter account.
• Initialize your game page early!

Everyone have a nice week-end, and see you on the other side ;)

The next edition of the Alakajam! event will start on September 18th.

During that week-end, the goal is to making a game, in a weekend. Teams or solo devs, beginners and professionals are all welcome to participate! There are two ways to approach the event:

• Enter the competitive jam (Solo/Team division) and make your game from nothing, to be ranked against every other contestant.
• If you prefer a more relaxed setting, maybe even want to work on your current long-term project, the Unranked division will give you an opportunity to get plays and comments, while discarding the restrictive rules.

Schedule

Theme selection

The jam

Dates	Phase	Description
September 18, 6pm UTC	Countdown stream	An official stream is held on Twitch to launch the event!
September 18, 7pm UTC	Jam launch	Start making a game solo or as a team, and simply submit it before the deadline!
September 20, 7pm UTC	End of ranked jam	The main competition ends here, exactly 48 hours after the start time. Submissions will remain open for an additional hour after the deadline.
September 21,10pm UTC	End of unranked jam	If you want to go for a relaxed weekend - or need more time - you can create a game in the 72 hours of the unranked jam.
October 4, 7pm UTC	Jam results	After two weeks during which all entrants are invited to play, rate and comment on other peoples games… The results are released and the winners crowned!

Game tournament

Rules

See the full rules for the Alakajam here.

How to enter

All you need to do is:

1. Create an account on this website
2. Publish your game before the deadline

A lot of participants also post an "I am in" blog post presenting themselves or their team before the event. Describe what tools and frameworks and engines you will use to create your awesome game! Which themes do you like? Let us and the community know!

If you can, feel free to spread the word about the jam - the more we are, the merrier! glhf ;)

The dates of the 10th Alakajam! are announced :) If you're a true hipster you can even join it now.

Alakajam! is soon reaching a pretty round number, will that mean anything special? Nothing particular is announced yet, but it surely is a chance to look back at the three year long history of our small but peaceful community.

See you on the 18-20 September 2020 week-end for that milestone event!