This jam is now over. It ran from 2023-09-08 17:00:00 to 2023-09-18 17:00:00. View results

An open ten-day challenge to create a game prototype featuring checkpoints!

All skill levels are welcome from beginner to professional. New to this whole thing? Never made a game before? Play some jam-winning games to see where you can be after several jams of practice. 


About Us

Hosted by 8 Bits to Infinity: a game development community dedicated to improving creative and technical skills through rapid iteration and honest, critical feedback. Join us on Discord, check out our website, and take a look at our past jams and challenges.


The man behind 8 Bits to Infinity is Retro Indie Josh (aka Joshua McLean): gaming content creator and music producer. Check out his game music (free for you to use in jams and commercial projects!) and YouTube.


Co-hosting this jam is Vimlark, a YouTuber and game jam enthusiast who posts videos on YouTube to help with game development and showcase the awesomeness of game jams. Check out his games and join his Discord.

Mechanical Focus (Required): Checkpoint

Make a game which features checkpoints. You can get away with simply having them, but try to make them a critical or interesting part of the game, or work in an unusual or unexpected way.

Theme (Semi-Optional): Cross Paths

The theme is optional, but remember Theme/Limitation counts for 1/6th of your Community Choice score. Also, the theme can be a great way to come up with ideas if you're stuck!

You are free to interpret the theme however you like. Will characters cross paths? Will paths literally cross? Or will crosses path? (Whatever that means...)

Remember that more creative options will generally score higher, but don't go too far out of the box that the theme is unrecognizable.

Judging and Prizes

You (contributors to any game entered into this jam) determine the Community Choice by voting on games after the jam concludes. Check out the Ratings Guide for how to interpret categories and tips on good star ratings.

Vimlark will showcase his favorites, the winners, and various highlights including games using diversifiers (see below) in a video on his channel after the jam concludes. RetroIndieJosh will also highlight his favorites in another video.

The highest overall rated game will be the winner and placed in the list of 8 Bits to Infinity jam winners.

Rules and FAQ

See the Jam Rules and Jam FAQ for more details.

Jam Specific Rules

  • No limitations on:
    • Graphics
    • Audio
    • Engine/library/framework, programming language, and other tools

Challenges/Diversifiers (Optional, but fun!)

Vimlark will feature games using diversifiers in the highlights video! You can use as many of these three diversifiers as you like.

In a Song: A single session of the game takes place in the duration of one piece of music. Like a rhythm game, but not necessarily a rhythm game. The gameplay can be unrelated to the music, but wouldn't it be better if it was?

Shapely: All graphics are made from simple flat-shaded single-color shapes. Get as complicated as you like with the polygons, but limiting to simple squares, circles, and triangles would be extra cool.

  • If you're working in 3D, the allowed shapes are sphere, cube, pyramid, cone, and cylinder. These should still be single-color flat-shaded objects but of course lighting is allowed, otherwise it won't look 3D! But avoid colored lighting because that may disqualify your entry for the diversifier.

Hope that helps, and good luck on the jam!

Two Buttons: All gameplay uses at most two buttons. This could be left and right, jump and shoot, right and jump, or any other pair of actions, each mapped to a single button. You can get creative with button holds and a "both buttons" option but it's more pure to stick to two actions.

Schedule

  • Development (main jam): 8 September (1pm ET)
  • Community Choice voting: 18 - 25 September (1pm ET)
  • Winners and ratings announced: 25 September (2pm ET)
  • Vimlark Stream: TBD
  • RetroIndieJosh Stream: TBD
  • Vimlark Results/Highlights Video: TBD
  • RetroIndieJosh Favorites Video: TBD

Submitting

  • WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU UPLOAD AND SUBMIT EARLY.
    • You are allowed to modify your game page, including files, until the deadline.
    • You are allowed to edit answers to your submission questions (through your submission page) until the deadline.
  • Step 1: Click the Join Jam button at the top of this page.
  • Step 2: Make your game.
  • Step 3: Create a game project page on itch and upload your game files. See this documentation for help.
  • Step 4: Submit the game to the jam. After uploading your game, return to this page and click "Submit Your Project" at the top.
    • Be prepared to answer a few questions about your entry when submitting. You must answer all of these questions honestly and completely before the deadline.
    • Submission time is a hard deadline. No late submissions will be accepted.
    • Although you cannot modify files after the deadline has passed, you are still free to edit your game page. But note it is a violation of the rules to link to an updated version created after the deadline, and your entry will be removed.