Together with our corporate overlords RoboVM, itch.io and indie darlings Robotality we are happy to announce the first ever:

lib GDX JAM

powered by

Theme Voting

A few weeks ago we released the human #libGDXJam theme generator to the public. What followed was a chaotic period of theme generation, pixel-arting, (mostly) civil discussions and co-op gaming, all within a single Google spreadsheet!

The result of the human theme generator are 184 more or less viable themes. Time for you folks to boil it down to a mere 5 themes! Pick your most beloved 5 themes until the 11th of December here:

The final 5 will be up for another voting round from the 16th to 18th of December, the day the jam starts.

The Jam

The jam will be held from December 18th to January 18th. Here are the rules:

The 10 Rules of Jamming

You must use libGDX to create a game that fits the theme You may work alone or in a team. Only one submission per person/team is allowed You may use pre-existing code, e.g. libraries like Ashley, or your own code libraries You may use pre-existing art, e.g. assets from OpenGameArt, or your own art You may use external tools like Tiled or Overlap2D You must not re-skin an already existing game or prototype! You must submit your game before the end of the 18th of January via the jam’s site on itch.io (to be made public :)) You must publish the source of your game, e.g. to GitHub You must submit your game to the itch.io libGDX Jam page before the end of day January 18th, UTC-12! If you want to win one of the sponsored prizes, you must tweet about your game and document its development, using the hashtag “#libGDXJam” and the handles “@robovm” and “@robotality”

Let me expand on rules 10. First of all, you can participate in the jam without following these rules! In that case, you will not qualify for the prizes though.

Documenting your progress is a great way of sharing your experience, and an invaluable tool for others to learn. Making a bit of noise on Twitter is also a great way to give back to our sponsors. Chaining those 2 things together via rule 9 is my evil overlord plan to make everyone happy.

Here are a few examples of tweets:

Progress screenshot of my #libGDXJam entry <url> @robovm @robotality

New dev log entry for my #libGDXJam game <url> @robovm @robotality

For the dev logs, we want quality first and foremost! Progress screenshots, descriptions of problems you ran into and their solutions, streaming and so on is what we want to see! Just mindless spamming will not get you anywhere.

Prizes & Judging

We are happy to have RoboVM and Robotality as sponors for the following prizes:

Grand Prize: Mac Mini, sponsored by RoboVM Silver: iPad, sponsored by RoboVM Bronze: iPod Touch, sponsored by RoboVM For 20 random submissions: Steam keys for Halfway, sponsored by Robotality For another 5 random submissions: libGDX Jam t-shirt, by yours truely 🙂

To qualify for any of the prizes, you’ll need to follow rule 10 as outlined above. Judging works as follows:

The community can vote on itch.io from the 19th of January to the 2nd of February

The Grand Prize will be awarded to the entry with the highest community votes on itch.io. This way the highest quality entry will win!

will be awarded to the entry with the highest community votes on itch.io. This way the highest quality entry will win! The Silver and Bronze prizes will be awarded to the entries with the best mixture of dev logs and tweets and community votes. Our sponsors and the libGDX core team will pick these entries. This should motivate people to make some noise on the web and document their progress for the greater good of the community!

will be awarded to the entries with the best mixture of dev logs and tweets and community votes. Our sponsors and the libGDX core team will pick these entries. This should motivate people to make some noise on the web and document their progress for the greater good of the community! The random awards guarantee that everyone has a chance to win a prize!

The winners will be announced on the 3rd of February!

Timetable

Theme Voting round 1 Nov. 22nd – Dec. 11th Final Theme Voting Dec. 11th – Dec. 18th Jam Dec. 18th – Jan. 18th Judging Jan 19th – Feb. 2nd

Stay tuned for more info and the official reveal of our itch.io jam page!