The Reciprocity Game Jam

Theme will be revealed this Friday!

FAQs

1. "What is a game jam?"

- a creative, accelerated event where individuals or teams design, develop, and publish a playable video game from scratch within a strictly limited timeframe, usually 24 to 72 hours.

2. "Why is this game jam called Reciprocity?"

- One of the main reasons we are organizing this game jam was to bridge the gap between the skillsets of us Ethiopians as game developers and that of the rest of the world. Best way to do that in our opinion was to give the contestants 6 months to learn, plan, design, and implement their entries while at the same time sharing their experiences and learning from each other, i.e "reciprocating".

3. "Why does it last 6 months? Why not 2 days to a week?"

- The biggest hurdle most of us organizers faced in all the game jams we took part in is that we were always unable to learn a new tool, skillset or try experimental ideas within a 48 - 72 hour timeframe. Going out of our existing knowledge base always ended up in a disaster as our final submissions were often underbaked as a result of mismanaged short time. To solve this issue, this game jam will last enough time such that nobody will feel rushed and be in survival mode while working on something that should be considered as a hobby.

4. "Are there prizes?"

- No. The aim of this game jam is to make videogames and get better at the craft. It was initially planned to be held among 8 friends but we decided it'd be more fun if we had more competition. That being said, if a sponsor is willing to cover the costs of a prize they have in mind we will gladly assist their charitable spirit in any way.

5. "How will the winner be decided?"

- So as to avoid getting review bombed by a public audience, whether its positive reviews left by friends and family who haven't even tried the game or negative reviews from people who are being toxic, the game jam submissions are going to be evaluated and ranked by select judges that won't be participating in the game jam.

Ground Rules

- no ai except for code assistance
- no ai generated assets like textures, models, music, anything artistic at all
- fully ai generated code is discouraged
- ai generated game design is discouraged, come up with something yourself

- we will have a meetup (not mandatory) and a "Devlog" every month or so to check progress, teach each other what we did so far, and help each other out wherever needed

- since one person cannot have the knowledge to do everything, alliances/teams are allowed (each team can have a maximum of 2 people inside of it so that the jam is fair for those that are going into it solo)

- after jam submission, all the games are going to be reviewed by a panel of judges picked from already-existing video game studios and other outlying figures