The Alakajam! competitions let people make a video game from scratch in a week-end, then play and rate each other! All games are made around a theme chosen by the community.

Divisions

Anyone can enter in any of the following divisions:

• Solo, in which you make a whole game alone in 48 hours ;
• Team, in which any number of persons can gather to make a game in 48 hours ;
• Unranked, a more open division which grants about 72 hours to finish the game. Useful for those not interested in the competitive aspect of the event, or feel like the rules are too restrictve for them, or simply did not finish their game in time.

The jam always starts on a Friday, 7pm UTC.

Rankings

After the jam, Solo and Team divisions will be ranked separately through community voting: any person who entered the event will be able to play, rate and comment other people's games for two weeks, until the final results are released. On each game you play, you will get to rate six aspects of game making:

Rating category	Description
Overall	How much you liked the game in general.
Graphics	Your appreciation of all the visual aspects of the game. This can be opted-out if you want to (e.g. text-based game).
Audio	Your appreciation of all the sound-related aspects of the game. This can be opted-out if you want to (e.g. silent game).
Gameplay	Your appreciation of the gameplay, contents & balancing.
Originality	How original you found the game, its art and sound.
Theme	How well and how interestingly the game fit to the theme.

Unranked games won't get ratings but can expect as much plays & feedback as the others.

Submitting games

In order to join the event, all you need is to have an account and create your entry page when your game is done. Go to the Games tab of the event, and look for the Create entry button to get started. After creating your entry, you will be able to edit it, even after the end of the event.

Important: You must submit your game before the end of the jam! We leave an extra hour after the 48 hour deadline for everyone to submit their Solo/Team games, but after that the options lock down, and only the Unranked division remains available. Creating entries is completely disabled when the Unranked jam ends.

Note: Sharing the sources is not mandatory but appreciated.

What is allowed?

Solo/Team divisions

• Tools: All software is allowed without restriction. It is recommended though that your game engine supports targetting either HTML5, Windows or Linux, to make sure most contestants can play it.
• Code reuse: You are allowed to use/reuse any outside library or personal code made prior to the event, or code bits found from sources like StackOverflow or blogs. You can also prepare your project by initializing the sources in advance. However, you cannot work on a game you started before the event.
• Graphical asset reuse: You must make all your graphical assets during the event. Creative use of existing assets ("derivative work") is acceptable, as long as you list the original assets in your entry page, for the raters to appreciate. You are also allowed to use:
  • Third-party fonts and brushes ;
  • Procedurally generated assets ;
  • Your engine's default appearance for UI elements ;
  • Pre-made game author & engine splash screens.
• Audio asset reuse: You must make all your audio assets during the event. However, you are allowed to use:
  • Any existing sounds for SFX or as short samples for music, including drums and other sampled instruments ;
  • Assets created from sound generation or speech synthesis tools.
• Post-jam changes: From the minute the jam ends, you are not allowed to add any features, assets or contents to your game. While you're supposed to have properly tested your game, stuff happens, so we do allow to:
  • Package or improve the packaging of your game ;
  • Port your game to other platforms ;
  • Fix bugs ;
  • Fix balance issues or annoyances but only if they're so terrible that people can't properly finish your game.

All third-party assets listed above are allowed as long as you have the license to use them. Check the licensing terms and in doubt, consult the author.

Unranked division

Since there is no ratings involved, the rules are much more relaxed. While the ranked divisions are only made for video games, card & board games are allowed here. The only rules are:

• You cannot work on a game you started before the event. You can however use any assets you made beforehand.
• All third-party assets are allowed as long as you have the license to use them.

Note: For best feedback, it is advised to let people know what you did/did not make during the jam.

In case of doubts…

Obviously, those rules don't cover every scenario (for instance you may realize the music volume is super low, or in-game instructions are wrong, etc.).

…So in those cases where you want to do something but it's unclear if you can, or not doing it seems unfair, do it, and mention what you did in your game description. After all, this is a completely informal competition, there's no prizes involved, we're just here to make games and have fun!

From September 22th to 24th, a competition we be held to make you complete a game, from scratch, in just 48 hours! Want to know how things will be run? Keep reading.

Schedule

• Sep. 8th - Sep. 22th: Theme selection phase. You will get to suggest ideas for what the theme of the week-end will be. Then you will be able to vote on all the other ideas.
• Sep. 22th - Sep. 24th: The actual competition! As the theme is announced at 7pm UTC, you have 48 hours to finish your game, either solo or as a team, to be part of the official competition.
• Sep. 22th - Sep. 25th: The unranked jam! If you needed more time to finish your entry, or just want to have people play your game without the competitive aspect, this is your chance. All entrants have an extra day to complete and submit an out-of-competition entry.
• Sep. 24th - Oct. 8th: Game testing & voting phase. For two weeks, all entrants will be invited to rate and post comments to other people's games.
• Oct. 8th: The results are released!

Rules

The detailed rules are available under the Help tab:

Alakajam! competition rules

How to enter

If you're interested in joining the 1st Alakajam!, either in the competition or just for having players & feedback, all you need is to create an account here, so you can start voting on themes when the time comes. And of course for submitting your entry during the jam :)

By then, you can also publish a blog post presenting yourself and your plans for the event. Will you join solo? With friends? With what techs? Let us know!

To stay tuned, you can of course follow the event either on Twitter or Reddit.

Before the event

Until the event starts, all you can do is create blog posts. Feel free to introduce yourself or the game you plan to make/submit.

Submitting a game

Once the event starts, you can submit any game you worked on this year. You can use this event as a game jam, making and submitting a game especially for it, though there is no particular "theme" to follow.

It's okay if the game is unfinished, closed-source, made as a team, we don't mind either if the game was started before 2017. The only requirements are that the game must be yours.

Exchanging feedback

Any comment you post on another entry will count towards increasing your Feedback Score. That score is used to determine in which order games are listed on the event. You will get notifications if someone wrote a comment on your entry or answered your comments using @-based mentions.

After the event

Newcomers will no longer be able to submit games, but you can still exchange feedback after the event ends.
There will be no judging or ranking or the game, but instead as a reward, videos will be made of all the entries and posted on YouTube.

Alakajam! is a brand new gamedev community created by Ludum Dare veterans. We're currently hard at work towards hosting a first competition, that will take place for 48 hours during the 22-24 September week-end. It will be organized not unlike Ludum Dare or itch.io jams:

• A theme selection phase will be held a couple weeks before the event starts
• When the theme is announced, you will have from Friday 8pm GMT to Sunday 8pm GMT to make a game, either solo or as a team
• Community ratings & feedback will then take place for a couple weeks, until the final rankings are released :)

Stay tuned for more announcements around the event, either on Twitter or Reddit!

All the gameplay videos planned for the Feedback Fortnight! entries are now online. You can browse them at:

We had a lot of fun playing through these, and hope you'll find interesting feedback in watching them.

It's now time for the team to focus on the website development (theme voting teaser), so we can have the September competition run as smoothly as possible. See you then!

Dear Ludum-darer,

You just stumbled on Alakajam!, a new site made by @wan (creator of Feedback Friends) with the help of other Ludum Dare veterans.

Because the world always needs more game jams, we're building this sort of spin-off community with the goal to organize regular gamedev events:

• Alakajam! competitions, taking place over a week-end a bit like Ludum Dare, except that start/end times will be more suited to European timezones.
• Kajam! month-long events, inviting people to learn and experiment around a specific topic.
• And finally Feedback Fortnights, to show off projects made outside of game jams.

 > The 1st Alakajam! competition will be held 22-24 September!

If you're interested or just want to stay in the loop, you can follow us on Twitter or Reddit. You're also welcome to our IRC channel where were discussing how to reinvent the game jam formula, and of course where we're organizing the site development.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to Alakajam!

The 1st Feedback Fortnight has just reached is deadline, congratulations to all who took part! For this very first event we'd like to thank everyone who joined the community, be it by submitting a game, sharing feedback on the site or simply hanging out on our little IRC channel. Not mentioning code contributors (@dollarone, @thomastc & @toasty) who are now part of the team whether they want it or not ;)

Anyway, this is of course just a start, so here is the roadmap for the weeks to come:

Feedback Fortnight videos & discussion

As you already know, we started making videos of each game, and you can expect the remaining ones to appear within the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, you're invited to go try the other games and exchange feedback. The more comments you make, the bigger your Feedback Score is, the bigger your chances are to get comments in exchange!

1st Alakajam! competition: 22-24 September

Now that the site is up and running, the next step for Alakajam! is to host a first real competition. It will take place for 48 hours during the 22-24 September week-end, and will have features not unlike the ones you may know from Ludum Dare or itch.io jams:

• A theme selection phase will be held a couple weeks before the event starts
• When the theme is announced, you will have 48 hours to make a game, either solo or as a team
• Community ratings & feedback will then take place for a couple weeks, until the final rankings are released :)

Stay tuned for more announcements around the event, either on Twitter or Reddit!

Behind the scenes: site updates

The development of the website will be in flux throughout the summer, with the implementation of everything required to make that competition take place. We also hope to release cool features like adding games from outside events to your profile, turning it into a cool portfolio of all your past jams if you want.

If you're interested in helping, the site is made with NodeJS and hosted on Github where issues await any volunteers.

Thanks for reading, and see you later!

Today is the final day for joining the Feedback Fortnight! After that it will be too late for adding new games, but it will still be possible for everyone (even if you didn't enter) to play and provide feedback to the submitted entries.

As a reward for those who took part in this first, experimental event, we started making videos of each submission, in which we play the game for the first time (as an exemple see the video below). So if you haven't already, join us and post any game you worked on this year!

I finally updated our Evil Triad game. What took the most time was to replace the copyrighted art with… ehem… characters that closely resemble copyrighted art ;) Have fun discovering them as you collect the cards!

Play "Evil Triad"

Prerequisites

• Windows
• Skype
• TigerVNC (desktop sharing)
• Audacity (sound recording)
• Open Broadcaster Software (screen recording)
• Handbrake (video conversion)

Recording setup

How each part is recorded:

• Host desktop: Sound & video is OBS (XXX It also probably records the remote voice)
• Host voice: Audacity
• Remote voice: Remote's Audacity

How the host hears:

• Host desktop: N.A., it's his own desktop
• Remote voice: Skype

How the remote hears:

• Host desktop: TigerVNC
• Host voice: Skype

When first launching the recording:

1. Windows: Make sure the Microphone recording device is enabled
2. OBS: Mute the microphone channel, only record the desktop. Check the target video resolution & destination.
3. Skype: Use the Microphone as the recording channel. Start the convo & share the screen.
4. TigerVNC: Share the screen with the partner, who should be able to hear the desktop (…and maybe his own voice)

On each game:

1. Launch the game, lower its volume to keep the voices clear.
2. OBS: Edit the scene to add the game window,
3. Audacity: Start recording the Microphone on both PCs
4. OBS: Start recording

Editing

• Convert the video to a smaller file with Handbrake (MPEG-4 codec)
• Gather the audio parts and master them with Audacity if needed
• Edit the video, layer the voices on top of the vid, cut as needed, add in the jingles
• After rendering at high quality, run the video through Handbrake again to get a smaller file to upload