The Historically Accurate Game Jam is a twice-a-year game creation context themed around a bit of history. On the previous jams, we've covered the Cold War, the Fall of The Roman Empire, the Black Death (taking place at peak covid, of course) and Mythology - and you get to decide what comes next. History doesn't get enough attention when it comes to games, and the goal of this jam is to allow us all to have a bit of fun making games about the past.
THE THEME IS: YOUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY
We've revamped the theme selection process for this jam to deal with a bigger audience and to make it easier to understand:
ROUND ONE - Same as before, first you submit themes. However, due to the jam getting much bigger, each person can only submit two possible themes (last time selecting all the themes you liked took around 10 minutes), so come up with some good ideas!
ROUND TWO - Pick as many or as few themes from the list as you like! If you'd like to make a game about it, pick it.
ROUND THREE - The top 10 most liked themes from the last round are picked. You choose the two you like the most.
ROUND FOUR - The top two themes from round three are chosen, and you pick your favourite. The winner is the jam theme!
At the end of the jam, everyone rates everyone else's games to decide the winner and help us all learn what we did wrong and what we did right. Games are rated on six categories:
- Overall - your overall rating, what you would score the game out of 5
- Gameplay - how nice the game plays
- Graphics - how nice the game looks - this includes particle effects and anything related to the appearance of the game.
- Audio - how nice the game sounds, whether with music or sound effects
- Thematic Relevancy - how relevant the game is to whatever theme was picked and how well the theme is used. If a game only technically applies to the theme, it gets a lower score than one which fully embraces it.
- Historical Accuracy - how much the game is similar to the actual historical events
- No NSFW (sexual - this doesn't include gore unless it's really over the top) content.
- Other than self-made ones, you can only use free assets (e.g sound effects, music or art) and you must give credit where credit is due. If you make assets yourself before the jam, you can only use them if they're up on the internet free for everyone else to use as well.
- Teams can only include up to 4 members - any more would make it unfair.
- I didn't think I'd have to say this, but only submit games made within the jam period.
Who can enter? Anyone. There's no skill floor - the jam is about having fun!
How much effort should I put in? There's no point overworking yourself, so do what you feel comfortable with!
What game engines am I allowed to use? All game engines are allowed!
Can my game be about alternate history? Your game must start historical, but you can allow the player to do ahistorical things or have a narrative which can lead to ahistorical things taking place. Remember, your game will be rated on Historical Accuracy!
Can I reuse code? You can, but only if it's really basic - you can copy-paste a movement script to save time but you can't copy-paste an advanced shader script or a whole game system. The rule I'd usually follow is that you can only copy-paste if you could write the script without really thinking.
Where can I get in contact with the other participants? You can join the discord : https://discord.gg/adpFCTrWcd
I'm Having Submission Issues and can't get my game in on time! What do I do? Message me on discord. I'm It's Holmgang, then!#8092. I'll do whatever I can to help. Submission issues shouldn't ruin the jam for you.