GGJ2021

Main Theme

Lost and Found

https://v3.globalgamejam.org/news/theme-global-game-jam-online-2021

Core Exercise (Sponsored by Manticore Games)

Use the Core Games platform to create your game. Special Opportunity: This Diversifier will also be prized with a pool of US$10,000, awarded by a panel of judges from around the games industry!

Destination: Happy Place (Sponsored by Unity)

Make a game that includes the journey or process (a location, an activity, an idea, people, and so on) to get to a place or state of mind that makes you happy.

Creating a PlayFab-ulous Game Loop (Sponsored by Microsoft)

Identify the best strategies for your game loop using PlayFab Experiments. The PlayFab Experiments feature helps you identify the best strategies for your game by helping you run multiple concurrent experiments and ensure statistical trustworthiness.

Virtual Wallet (Sponsored by IGDA Foundation)

Use the Web Monetization API to make a web game that uses an alternative revenue model (learn how to do this here).

Unlikely Allies (Sponsored by Virtuos)

Your game must support multiplayer crossplay between Mobile and PC.

It’s You + Me, Kid (Sponsored by Carina Fund)

Create a game designed for families to play together that secretly features maths.

The Possibilities are Endless (Sponsored by Endless)

Create a fun-first educational game—a game that captures the attention of kids but also educates around a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) topic.

The Feels (Sponsored by Sony Interactive Entertainment)

We would like to encourage projects to come up with designs that take advantage of controller feel, game feel, and/or an emotional and honest personal story.

Elevate (Sponsored by NextNav)

Create a game that uses vertical location (Learn more about vertical location, watch the webinar for ideas, and get the NextNav SDK or Unity Plug-In).

Accessibility

A11yversary*

Celebrate 10 years of accessibility diversifiers at GGJ by copying the features of Team Epic Wedgie’s game from 2011 - include a tutorial, no reliance on sound or color alone, and one button controls.

*In 2011 the Orlando site ran an accessibility challenge, that was the first time accessibility had been properly considered at GGJ and was the precursor to the accessibility diversifier category. The game that won it was by a team called Team Epic Wedgie, so this challenge is to implement the same feature set that they did in their GGJ game 10 years ago

Kitchen sink

Players have a choice between at least three different types of input device (e.g. keyboard, controller, mouse, eye tracking, potatoes)

Spinal Tap

The game has separate volume sliders for different types of sound effects (e.g. footsteps, gunshots, ambience, engine, tyres)

Art

Are we ASCIIng too much?

All the graphics in the game must be represented by ASCII.

Double Take

Have moments in your game that have a different meaning when seen from another angle (like an ambigram).

Photograbetry

Go for a walk, collect/photograph 3-5 found objects, incorporate them into your game.

Get to the point

Your in-game artwork should be in a Pointillist style.

Audio

Theme Song

The tutorial for your game is in the form of a song

Wilhelm

The characters in your game can only communicate by screaming (Bonus points if dialogue options give varying degrees of screaming!)

Vocalise

Every element (UI + gameplay) in your game is voiced by synthesized speech or a narrator.

Code

RNG

Randomize Something that traditionally would not be randomized (e.g. jump height, starting location, hat, zoom level, gravity)

LOLCODE

Write your game in an esoteric programming language.

Design

Moving the goalposts

The win condition of the game changes in some way each time it is played

Murphy’s Law

Design a game where the goal is to fail in as many different ways as possible

Duetto

Create a game of twos: for two players, playable with two keys, using 2 sounds, 2 colours, 2 shapes, etc.

Smells like Success

Design a game you can play with your nose

How many of you are in there?

Make a game where the character is controlled by multiple players.

Narrative

Fake News

Create a game that focuses on the topic of disinformation in some way; creating it, preventing it, managing it, etc.

Games are for Everyone

Give traditionally underrepresented group(s) a voice in your game through characters, narrative or design.

Starlight

Your game world is inspired by stars and constellations.