I wouldn’t normally post about something like this so early, but it’s cool. If you judge game jams on their potential to create interesting works, then the Procedural Generation Jam wins by hoping to ride the wave of interest in “making stuff that makes other stuff” towards a slew of fascinating games, tools and toys.

If you judge game jams on your ability to join in with minimum effort, then the Procedural Jam wins again by also livestreaming an afternoon of talks from experts, including Hazel McKendrick of No Man’s Sky, Mark Johnson of Ultima Ratio Regum and Fernando Ramallo of Panoramical.

If you’re judging game jams based solely on their name – the only correct way to judge game jams – then Proc Gen Jam wins with a final knock-out, each word sharply launching off the tongue like a vicious magic spell.

Though technically I suppose they call it Proc Jam. Ach! There are two ways to enter:

Make a game with procedural generation in it.

Maybe a Twine adventure with randomised character personalities? Maybe an action-RPG where each player gets their own procedural theme tune? Maybe an old-fashioned world-generator for a strategy game? Create a game for #procjam using the optional theme (announced at the start of the jam) and include a procedural twist in there somewhere. Make a tool that generates stuff to help game developers. We already have amazing tools like sound effect generator SFXR, music generation like Abundant Music, or random sprite-grabbers like Spritely. What other tools could we make to help people generate cool things for the games they make? Maybe a corporation generator for cyberpunk cities? A tool for generating alien alphabet fonts? A library that automatically generates enemy ships for space shooters?

I’m an awful programmer with no experience, but the most fun I’ve ever had in Game Maker has been trying to procedural create things. Here is a dumb face generator I made in an afternoon:

If I can do it badly, then you can do it better. ProcJam is 50 days away and I’ll post a reminder nearer the time, but for now, mark November 8th in your calendar and keep an eye on the site for more information.