During the last week, over 200 theme suggestions have been submitted and almost 9000 votes have been cast.

Now the second round of theme voting starts: Shortlist voting! This means theme submission is no longer possible - instead, the ten most popular themes from the first phase will be available for everyone to rank. Drag and drop the themes into a ranked list in order of preference.

If you have not done yet, also feel free to create an "I am in" Post. What tools are you using? What is your setup like? Did you take part in previous gamejams? Tell the community a little bit about you and your goals for the upcoming 3rd Alakajam!

Finally, in one week, the jam kicks off! Exciting!

The 3rd Alakajam is happening from June 22nd to 24th. But first we have to find a theme! You can now submit themes you like and vote for the themes of other participants. All you have to do is to create an account and start to submit and rate themes.

The voting process

For one week (starting June 8th) you can submit up to three theme suggestions and rate theme suggestions from others either positively or negatively. After one week, on June 15th, theme submission will be closed. The top ten themes will then be made public and everybody can rank them in order of preference

The final theme will be announced with the launch of the jam (at Friday June 22nd, 7pm UTC), live on stream.

Things to do right now

• Create an account if you don't already have one
• Write an "I am in" blog post - tell us who you are, what tools you use or what themes you like!
• Check the detailed rules and the support thread
• Join us on Twitter, Reddit or on IRC

Well I am definitely in! Might try joining forces and do a team game this time…. or just solo it? hmm

Do you know what time it is? It is soon time for the 3rd Alakajam!

The 3rd Alakajam will take place the weekend of 22-24th June.

What is an Alakajam you might wonder? Well, the idea is simple: Make a game, from scratch, in just a weekend. You can do this on your own, or in a team, You can be a seasoned pro or a total beginner.

If you like video games and are motivated to create your very own game, keep reading!

The 3rd Alakajam is kicking off very soon! But first we need to decide on a theme, which we do with a process where people can submit their own themes and vote for all other submissions. Once we are closer to the jam, we will crop the list to the top 10 suggested themes, and there will be a final theme voting phase. The final theme will be revealed on stream just as the 3rd Alakajam starts! Excitement!

The full schedule is listed below:

Schedule

Rules

There are three 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 restrictive for them, or simply did not finish their game in time.

See the full rules for the Alakajam.

How to enter

All you need to do to enter is to create an account on this website, and publish your game before the deadline. There are actually two different deadlines: the solo and team competitions ends after 48 hours and the unranked jam ends after 72 hours.

A lot of participants also post an "I am in" blog post presenting yourself or your team at some point 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!

Please spread the word about the 3rd Alakajam - the more we are, the merrier! And of course: good luck - and have fun!

Right, I've brainstormed some ideas and decided on The Chosen One™.

I am making a two-player board-game-style tactical medieval warfare game with smoke screens. Infact, the game is called Smoke Screen!

I've played some prototype games on paper (with temporary "units") and I think it could be quite fun. Simple to learn and hopefully with enough tactical options to make it interesting.

I don't have the full 48h due to other commitments, so my main goal was to complete something. Hopefully this is small enough to get something done.

Here's a very early mock-up:

Alakajam, I am IN you!

Warm up your mikes, prepare your Sfxrs, and set your volume to 11 on this new instalment of Kajam!

This time we will be focusing entirely on sound effects. Audio feedback, explosions, pew pews - you name it!

Sound design and sound effects in games are perhaps less celebrated than beautiful graphics and tight controls, but it can really change the experience of a game. Music can be very important but sound effects can make a game memorable and immediately send you back to a certain situation when you later hear the sound.

Let's put the focus on sound effects and see how that affects our games!

Schedule

• Dec. 1st - Dec. 24th: The jam. The goal is simply to make a small game while focusing on Sound effects. Make your game over an evening or during the entire period - work solo or in a team. There's little to no rules - just a chance to practicing your soundcraft. If you're curious though, feel free to check the event rules.
• Dec. 24th - Jan. 1st: The rating phase. For one week, all entrants will rate the Sound effects of the other games. Like on the first event: no Overall ratings, we'll only judge Sound effects.
• Jan. 1st: Start the new year by discovering which games had the most effective Sound effects!

Resources

List of free game sound sites
Wilhelm Scream (did you know there's also a Howie scream?)
Trusty old Sfxr and related as3sfxr, Chiptone, and jsfxr
Tutorial on how to use the libs above
Bfxr, Sfxr's younger brother
Wavosaur
Intro to Web Audio API
Tips for sound design in games
Bobby Prince (id software) on Sound Effect Design
Zachary Quarles (also id software) on game audio design documents
Excerpt from "The Complete Guide to Game Audio"
Sound Effect Fonts!
The story behind Batman’s fight graphics (OK, going off on a tangent here…)

Good luck! And have fun!

Right - we are way over halfway and while the game IS coming along, this is usually the point where I start questioning my life choices, or atleast the scope of the game.

This time I've really really (honest) tried to go for a smaller game, but there's always the temptation to add stuff - even before the core gameplay and art has been done. I'm trying not to do this. The excellent news is that my team-member from my crowdforge post has come through and already sent an excellent and extremely fitting song for the game!

Meanwhile I've been trying to produce some art, it's hard, but it's coming along, slowly. There's still lots more to do, and animations, ideally - oh dear, animations are time sinks, aren't they?

Speaking of art, I expect there will be a lot of cauldrons in the games we make for the first alakajam. I've made one, and I even animated it:

Good luck tomorrow everyone!

Just in time! Now where's that magic theme preview button?

There are some cryptic hints about the theme on twitter. I've been trying to decipher them. Here's my ideas

Hint: for this week-end, North Korea diplomacy sims are getting less likely

I think this means "You Are The Bad Guy" is low in the theme list.

Hint: Low stock value for platformers having Tim Cook host keynotes & collect coins

Apple…coins…hmm closest match is "industry" perhaps?

Final hint: Stealth games with torchlights don't sell well these days. I repeat, torchlights are not hype

This has got to refer to "Light the way", right?

What do you think? Have I been played by the puzzlemaster?