After a week of voting, the results of the first monthly competition are out! Congratulations to the podium ;) And thanks to all who took part in playing & reviewing the games.

The next Kajam will start this Friday evening (7pm UTC), i.e. on December 1st. Our first guest host will be @dollarone, announcing the theme once again as the event launches. See you this week-end!

Congrats to all the entrants of the 1st Kajam!

This first event proved to be intimate with just 4 entries. I hope that even those of you who could not complete their games in time still had fun, and maybe learnt about game feel in the process! I've left the submission form open for late entrants.

Now for the little surprise: Game voting is open to everyone having an Alakajam! account. Curious to see how juicy our games turned out? Try them and leave a rating! And don't forget to review @HuvaaKoodia 's unranked entry as well ;)

The results of the tiny competition will be revealed this Sunday, 7pm UTC as usual.

Particles! Tweens! Screen shakes! Flashes and explosions!

For the 1st monthly Kajam, your mission – if you accept it – is to make a small game and push its juiciness to 11, by adding all these little details that make a core gameplay super satisfying.

That includes not only visual & audio feedback but also, gameplay-wise, how tight and clear the controls are – in particular for action-oriented games. See the bottom of the post for a list of resources!

Schedule

• Oct. 13th - Nov. 19th: The jam. You have around one month to work on your game and submit your entry! (see also the event rules). Note: You are allowed to submit your in-progress entry to let people know you are entering, then edit the page later.
• Nov. 19th - Nov. 26th: The rating phase. For one week, all entrants will rate how juicy the other games are – and that's it: no Overall, no Originality ratings, just Juiciness!
• Nov. 26th: The definitive rankings of the most juicy games are announced :)

Have fun! Don't forget to share tips & progress reports with the community throughout the month.

Resources

Videos

• Juice it or lose it by Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho (see also their Juicy Breakout demo game)
• The art of screenshake by Vlambeer's Jan Willem Nijman
• Secrets of Game Feel and Juice | Game Maker's Toolkit by Mark Brown
• Game Feel: Why Your Death Animation Sucks by Nicolae Berbece
• Mechanically Speaking series by [game array]
• Super Mario World Camera Logic Review by Shaun Inman

Articles

• Squeezing more juice out of your game design! by Nathan Lovato
• Game Feel: The Secret Ingredient by Steve Swink
• Pushing Buttons by Mick West (Cowboy Programming)
• Game feel Wikipedia article

If you have a link to add, please share it in the comments.

Missing Alakajam! already? Fear not! In-between the main competitions we will run longer, more relaxed events. Kajams are month-long jams where the goal is to practice a specific aspect of game making.

The theme of each Kajam will not be elected by votes, but instead chosen by a host picked every month. For this first month I will be that host, announcing the topic on October 13th! (UTC evening). If you're interested in the topic, you'll have a whole month to work on a small game and submit it to the competition.

Detailed Kajam rules

In-between the main Alakajam! events, we're planning to run smaller, but regular events to help the community practice various aspects of game development. Kajams are month-long events, hosted by community members, where we focus each time on a different, specific aspect of game making!

The topic of the first Kajam will be announced at the start of the event, soon after the 1st Alakajam ends (hint below!).

Until October 13th comes by, feel free to check the detailed event rules, and follow us on Twitter or Reddit to stay tuned.