Welcome to the 7th Kajam!

From the 1st of April until the 28th of April, everyone is invited to create a game! There are only a couple of rules, covered here.

Details of the theme are in the announcement video above! I encourage you to make a game that can be played on genuine hardware of the era, but that's completely optional! Interpret the theme however you like, just remember to have fun.

Some suggested resources for anyone interested in making a game for genuine 1996 hardware:
Gameboy development
PlayStation 1 development
Tapegro: write DOS games in javascript!
Nintendo 64 SDK
Sega Saturn Jo-Engine

A few people have asked how to actually DO alakajam recently, particularly wanting to know how to submit their game, so here's a basic guide:

1. Sign up for a free account on alakajam.com! That's this website, you're already there 👍!
2. Pick which category you would like to enter. Your choices are:
   • SOLO: 🧑‍ The traditional gamejam where you work ALONE to make a game within 48 hours, creating your assets from scratch.
   • TEAM: 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Identical to SOLO but you can collaborate with teammates to create your masterpiece within 48 hours.
   • UNRANKED: 👽 A whole extra day gives you 72 hours to make your unranked game. Almost anything goes, and you can even continue work on a project you previously started.
     The full details of what's allowed in each category is available on the rules page.
3. 🚦 When the jam starts, the theme will be announced here on the website, in the discord channel, the irc channel and on the alakajam twitter account.
4. Make your game, adhering to the 📜 jam rules 📜 and incorporating the theme into your game in any way you like. If you're entering the SOLO or TEAM categories, your use of the theme will be one of the categories your game will be judged on.
5. Submit your game before the deadline! ⚠️You don't upload your game to alakajam.com ⚠️. Instead, you need to host the game somewhere else, such as dropbox, google drive etc. My recommendation is itch.io, which lets you create a free store page for your game, hosts the game for you and can even accept payments if you decide to charge for your game later on. Once your game is uploaded, you link to it from your game entry page on alakajam.com.
6. Vote! Making a game for alakajam is only 51% of the fun. Once the jams have finished, the voting and feedback phase begins and typically lasts for a couple of weeks. Your game will be played by other entrants and they will be able to rank it on various criteria, such as graphics, audio, etc, as well as leaving feedback comments 👍👎. You can do the same for their games too, and the more games you vote on, the higher your karma score. The higher your karma score, the nearer to the top of the entry list your game will be displayed, which means more people are likely to play it. If you don't vote on other entries, your game is not likely to receive enough votes to get a score in the final step.
7. Ranking results! After the ranking period has ended the votes are all added up and a score is given to your game. If your game places in the top three for any of the category you will receive an amazing 🏆 virtual trophy 🏆 and be the envy of all your friends.

READY TO RACE. Actually I might have to work that weekend but I'm pulling out all the stops and doing whatever it is you do with the nitro to get everything done in advance.

Haven't decided what technology I'm going to use but I'm hoping to put together some basecode so I can get off to a 'ROLLING START'

My only tip to everyone is to have your development environment set up in advance to avoid any stress or chaos during the jam.

Finally, I'm looking forward to a fair, sporting and above all, FRIENDLY competition between the entrants with lots of cooperation and constructive feedback

Making some progress

Since the jam ended I've been stuck on 4kbps internet and haven't managed to play many entries because everyone uploaded huge, presumably AAA quality games filled with high res textures and lossless format six hour soundtracks. I'll keep trying to play more, but would really appreciate it if you could take five minutes to try my entry https://alakajam.com/2nd-alakajam/137/garden-of-statues

I'm sure on your fancy non throttled internet connection it'll be but the work of a moment to download and open the game. Please enjoy your time in the garden, because there's more to it than it may initially seem

i missed the inaugral jam but hope to be able to join this one, harass me on twitter to make sure i do ;)