Gamedev.js Jam 2024 start and theme announcement!

The Gamedev.js Jam 2024, fifth yearly edition of an online competition for web game developers , starts NOW! You have exactly thirteen days (between April 13th and 26th) to build an entry (solo or in a team) on a given theme (announced just below) and submit it through Itch to win a whole lot of prizes. Don’t forget about the extra challenges (Open Source, Phaser, NPC, and js13kGames) with dedicated prizes as well!

Theme

This year’s theme is… *drum roll*… POWER!

As always you are free to implement the theme as you like: it can be political or military power, or can be interpreted as in electricity, so you can run out of power or need it to do certain things. You can create powerful characters who rule the world or fight crime by punching bad guys in the face. Or others having peaceful life who focus on recharging their batteries. All up to you how you go with it - unleash your creativity!

Partners

Let’s thank our Partners who are supporting the existence of this competition. Those are:

• Platinum : OP Games
• Gold : GitHub, Phaser Studio, Arcadia
• Silver : AddictingGames, Poki
• Bronze : Enclave Games, js13kGames

It wouldn’t be possible to run Gamedev.js Jam 2024 without them!

Challenges

There are four unique challenges this year:

• Open Source by GitHub
• Build it with Phaser by Phaser Studio
• NPC by OP Games
• js13kGames by Enclave Games

All are optional , so you can ignore them, join any given one, or try doing multiple at once. If you do check them out, remember they offer extra prizes and the best games will be selected by dedicated experts!

Prizes

The list of prizes for the winners (selected by voting from participants themselves):

• 5 × GDevelop Gold license for 12 months
• 5 × Jsfxr Pro Solo lifetime license
• 10 × Jump Tracks game license
• 10 × PlayCanvas Personal plan for 12 months
• 10 × Pyxel Edit editor license
• 5 × Athena Crisis game license
• 2 × Construct 3 Personal license for 12 months
• 5 × WebStorm IDE license for 12 months
• 5 × How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself ebook
• 5 × Zenva Academy subscription for 12 months
• 5 × CodePen Pro Starter account for 12 months
• 13 × CSS Battle Plus account for 6 months
• 5 × Kronnect individual asset
• 10 × World of Turtle game license
• 10 × Aseprite editor license

Make sure to check the Places section to know which criteria wins what.

We also have prizes for given Challenges:

• Open Source : 10 GitHub Copilot licenses for 12 months and $600 in GitHub Shop vouchers
• Build it with Phaser : $1000 and 10 Vampire Survivors bundles (game + 3 DLCs)
• NPC : $1000 and potential publishing deal with Arcadia
• js13kGames : 13 Badlucky t-shirts and 5 framed posts

Experts

Our experts will focus on judging the challenges and picking the winners: Michelle Duke (Open Source), Richard Davey (Build it with Phaser), and Paul Gadi (NPC). The results of the js13kGames challenge will be based on the overall standings. Also, two experts will provide their top5 favourites from the challenges they are assigned to: Emanuele Feronato (Build it with Phaser) and Taufik Sani (js13kGames).

Join the fun!

Join on Itch, visit our Discord if you want to team up with other participants or just chat, share your progress with the #gamedevjs tag on X/Twitter, subscribe to the Gamedev.js Weekly newsletter if you haven’t already, and… build a cool game - good luck and have fun!