After a long discussion it was discovered that many Americans do not know the term "Fortnight" and confused it with the name of a popular video game. I have a confused background and had just assumed everyone knew the word, but I thought it was archaic and only used in books like "Lord of the Rings" or other situations where you want to sound like the old times. Other people told me that the word "fortnight" was a perfectly normal word in perfectly normal usage.

For those who don't know, fortnight is a word that means two weeks.

Where does that leave us? Well, we intend to keep providing an event where you can submit anything you are working on, whether from a game jam or your own deep dark secret project that will only be released when absolutely perfect, and have this event so that the community can comment on and critique games. We won't even be strict about the two weeks part, which might be additional reason to drop the "fortnight" moniker. However, what ever the name, the idea will continue.

But, in the interest of community feedback, what do you think? If you have an account on mastodon, go over and vote what you think about the name change! Comments on this will be read! https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@alakajam/112197934222212646

Or you can leave a comment on this post if you wish!

The Feedback F…… will start on April 12th and continue for two weeks until April 26th. We will open the submissions before this time, and you can even submit feedback before (or after!) this time, but those are the official dates. Be polite, be nice, be critical, and we'll provide some resources on how do that effectively. You are welcome to submit anything that still fits in to the alakajam rules. If you are submitting a commercial project, please allow for a way for alakajammers to play for free, whether by temporarily setting the price to zero or giving out keys or however you can.

Get your projects ready for public consumption! This is coming soon!

Looking forward to another Kajam, thought I'd sign up a little early and make sure it's in my calendar. Bummed I was unable to join the most recent alakajam, so now I have to wait in jam-jail until May.

Hopefully the theme will be something retro-friendly, I haven't done any 'modern' gamedev in a few months now - old consoles and computers are better (and people will say 'wow this runs on DOS? so cool!' and ignore the fact that the game is awful).

Also I'm hoping we maintain a no-AI or 'all AI content must be declared so voxel can downvote it' stance on jam submissions. I'm only interested in playing things made by the alakajam community, not content fever-dreamed by water and energy guzzling ML platforms trained on stolen content, thanks!

The jam is up! Well done everybody. Give yourselves a pat on the back and take a break.

But who won?

Check out the results! Congratulations to the winners, and to everybody who participated. Game jams are hard, and you all did great.

What's up next?

In April, we have Feedback Fun Times 2024! An event where you can show off what you've been working on, and get some of that delicious, constructive feedback (as well as oodles of appreciation). Following that in May we have the 15th Kajam, a month-long event often for honing skills or working on taylored themes.

What's happening elsewhere?

You can follow the Jamician on Twitter or Mastodon to keep up-to-date with the goings on in the community, or join us on Discord.

Got this puzzle platformer going. Feels like a decent base to build on in day 2. Just gotta add levels, polish and audio until the time's up.

Floating tech islands in the sky will be the backdrop for my take on the classic lunar lander/space taxi concept.

Let's see how this works out…

After a few stumbles, the 19th Alakajam is now open! Make your games! You have until February 25th until sometime in your local time zone (I can't handle time zones) to write your game and submit it! If this is not enough time, or you just don't want to stress, or you want to follow the unranked rules instead of the jam rules, you can go until February 26th!

There are several bits of advice that are traditionally given to game jammers. Advice I like:

• Don't forget to sleep
• Drink enough water
• Have fun!

Advice I recognize as necessary but I don't like:

• Know your tools
• Keep the scope small

On the topic of keeping your scope small, I recently watched a TED talk featuring OK GO about why you might want to keep your scope small. They even do the math! It starts out with a song too.

Advice that is sometimes given but I think should be given more:

• Learn things! Just remember that learning takes time, and you don't have a lot of time in a jam
• Let your inner creative monster out! If you can fit your crazy ideas in to 48 (or 72) hours, do it!

In any case that was much more of an introduction post than I had intended, I probably forgot to write all the important things, welcome to the 19th AKJ, and have fun everyone!

Dear game developers,

It is with great sorrow that we see the modding Kajam come to an end. While there were… not quite a lot of great mods created, let's give a big cheer to everyone who participated! 🎉🎉

We are thrilled to announce that Alakajam is coming back bigger and better than ever! We are excited to announce that the next Alakajam will be happening on February 23rd-25th.

What is Alakajam?
Alakajam is a game jam where gamers come together to create unique games in just one weekend. The competition is fierce, and the games are amazing!

Theme submission will be opened up soon, as soon as I figure out the correct buttons to press!

Theme submission: now. Don't forget to submit themes that you don't hate!
Theme selection: Feb 20th-23rd. Don't forget to vote for the themes you hate the least!
Jam start: February 23rd
Jam end: February 25th
Extra day for unranked jams: Feb 26th. If you didn't finish on Sunday, take an extra day!
Play and rate games: Feb 26th-March 11th.
Where: this website, also our discord channel
Who: everyone
Why: for the glory!

So, mark your calendars and get ready to join the fun. We can't wait to see what you create!

If you have any questions or need more information, please feel free to contact us at the email, but really we respond better on the discord channel. Let's make some amazing games together!

The Theme for the fourteenth Kajam is “Modding”. This relaxed, month-long event will start on the fifth of January 2024 and last until the fourth of February 2024. There will be no ratings for this Kajam.

What does “Modding” mean?

Video game modding (short for "modification") is the process of alteration by players or fans of one or more aspects of a video game. This can include full conversions, gameplay changes, changes to the game’s content, e.g. textures, maps or configuration files.
While a lot of developers aim at building their own game from scratch, many have started out by modding their most favorite game.

This Kajam is all about modding.
Pick any of the games you enjoyed playing and get creative. Can you add a new quest to that RPG? Or add a new map for players to enjoy? Perhaps there is a character model that you always wanted to see in that game? Or you can create a new gameplay system for any of the classic games? Let’s have some fun while creating and playing mods together!

What are the rules?

For this Kajam you can work solo or in a team.
You have four weeks to create and submit your entry, starting on the fifth of January 2024, ending on the fourth of February 2024.
Every game that you can legally mod is allowed and the use of third party assets is also allowed. You can even mod any of your own games!

Detailed rules here

Now, start your engines and join this Kajam!

All good things must come to an end, and tonight the 11th Alakajam Tournament is finished! Congratulations to Juutis for getting the most high scores!

If you want your game considered for the next tournament, please check the box indicating such when you submit a game to an Alakajam event!

Coming next on 5 January 2024 will be the 14th Kajam! So enjoy the winter break and we will back in the new year!

Your poor tournament is stressed and has lots going on, but I played lots of games looking for the most fun games for this tournament! These games may have flaws but at least they are fun. We've only got three but I could only dedicate so much time to finding them. I apologize to those that when I tried to play your game it promptly crashed, because I know it worked on your computer.

In any case, we are off! Go get that high score! Don't let the higher scores intimidate you!