As I think @fos1 was alluding to, the Winter TADS Jam 2021/2022 was an IF competition calling itself a jam. And as @bg says, ParserComp used to be a jam calling itself a competition. Other than that, you’re probably right – IFWiki has nearly 500 competition pages, but the word “jam” only appears a handful of times.
Based on past use it would hardly merit its own category, but it seems to be used more now. We came up with Jam as an alternative to Competition to try to include events that produce games rather than winners (like IF Arcade, IF Progressive and IF Whispers), but maybe they’re not all jams either and we should have an “Other” category after all…
The event type also determines what the infobox says, on the actual wiki page for the event. Right now, for example, the infobox for The Annual IF Competition page labels it as “Competition (series of events).” Do we want the infobox to say “Competition or Jam” instead? Or are we talking about having a “Competition” category and an “Other” category, in which case the infobox would still say “Competition”?
A game jam is an event where participants try to make a video game from scratch. Depending on the format, participants might work independently, or in teams. The event duration usually ranges from 24 to 72 hours. Participants are generally programmers, game designers, artists, writers, and others in game development-related fields. While many game jams are run purely as a game-making exercise, some game jams are contests that offer prizes.
You’re right, of course. I should have remembered that, because I won the first one.
Just checking back, I see that all the Adventuron game jams were called that, even though they were competitive. There was also the brilliant Cryptex Jam 2021, IF Speed Jam #1, Infocom Tribute Jam, Winter 2021/2022 TADS Jam and probably others.
Each entrant could choose whether they wanted to have their submission rated by judges or not, and everyone chose to (except me, since we stated in the rules that organizers could not have their submissions judged).
How would you describe the XYZZY Awards? I’d be happy lumping them in with Competitions, but are they really something else? Currently IFWiki calls it a “popular-choice award” but has XYZZY Awards as a sub-category of Competitions.
I’ve entered a handful of Game Jams on Itch.io. Infrequently, because I can’t imagine achieving anything worthwhile in under four weeks (I have a day job). Jams are most often only a week in duration, or less.
I think the concept of Jams is there to develop the tooling and engine ecosystem around Game Development. It reinforces the offer of Game Development courses, that a new student can produce a work in a short space of time thanks to the maturity of authoring systems.
I can’t be about fostering complex storytelling, or nurturing longlived narratives, or there wouldn’t be such an emphasis on newness.
The archetypal superstar Game Jam entry is a creatively naive offering which maximally embraces the presentational opportunities of the sponsored platform. I don’t see how it could be anything else, given the short timeframe.
