The jam handbook: entering and running a jam

How do you enter a jam?

Find the jam’s hub thread in the events forum. Its tag tells you what phase it’s in, and the first paragraph of the post tells you the theme, the dates, and where to submit.

Post your entry in the jam submissions forum, tagged with that jam’s tag. A jam called One-Verb Jam uses the tag one-verb-jam. If you can’t find the tag, the jam hasn’t opened submissions yet, or you’re posting in the wrong forum.

Format the post the same way you’d format any showcase entry: title is the game name only, attach a screenshot to the first message, and open with a paragraph that says what the game is, what state it’s in, and what feedback you want. Posting your game covers the exact rules the site reads to build your card, and the same rules decide whether your jam entry gets a real screenshot or a “pending” placeholder.

How much game should you actually build in 72 hours?

Pick one verb: something the player does over and over, like push, hide, translate, or herd. Skip anything that needs more than one interacting system to explain. Everything else in the jam goes into making that verb feel good instead of adding a second one.

Build greybox first. Get the verb working with boxes and placeholder art before you touch a single final asset. A jam entry with polished art and a broken core loop loses to a grey box that works, because voters play for thirty seconds and feel the loop or they don’t.

Cut the tutorial. You don’t have time to build one, and a jam player won’t read it anyway. Teach the verb with the first ten seconds of level design instead: put the player somewhere they can’t help but try it.

How does voting work?

Once a jam moves to its voting phase, entries get judged by emoji reaction. React with the jam’s vote emoji on the entries you want to support; the exact emoji is posted in the jam thread when voting opens.

You cannot vote for your own entry. Organisers tally results with /jamvotes tag:<jam-tag>, which counts reactions on every post carrying the jam’s tag, so a vote only counts when it lands on the actual submission post, not a reply or a screenshot posted somewhere else.

What do winners get?

First, second, and third place get a placement tag applied directly to their submission post. That tag is what the site reads to award a medal on the showcase card, and it’s what puts the game on the podium at /jams/ once the jam is archived.

There’s no prize beyond that here: no cash, no reserved store feature slot. The medal and the podium are the record, and past winners stay visible there long after the jam itself is archived.

How do you run a jam as an organiser?

Running a jam is one thread and one tag, moved through four states.

1. Create the hub thread in the events forum. The title is the jam name only, no dates, no “announcement”, no emoji: One-Verb Jam, not One-Verb Jam - Sign Ups Open!!. The first paragraph is what the website reads as the jam’s summary, so write one paragraph, 20 to 35 words, covering the theme or constraint, the dates and duration, and where to submit. Full rules, judging criteria, prizes, and FAQ go below that paragraph, with links on their own lines.
2. Create the matching tag on the submissions forum, named like the thread: One-Verb Jam becomes one-verb-jam. Entrants can’t submit correctly until this tag exists.
3. Move the lifecycle tag as the jam progresses: upcoming, then active, then voting, then finished. These tags are for members browsing Discord. The website cares about one thing only, which is whether the hub thread is archived.
4. Close it out. Run /jamvotes tag:<jam-tag>, apply the 1st/2nd/3rd place tags to the winning submission posts, post results in the jam thread, flip the tag to finished, and archive the thread.

Going deeper

A theme that generates variety is a constraint, not a genre. “Make a platformer” narrows every entry toward the same handful of mechanics. “One verb,” “no combat,” or “the player is the antagonist” branches instead: a jam full of one-verb entries still produces a puzzle game, a horror game, and a racer, because the constraint shapes how a genre gets built rather than picking the genre for everyone.

Vote counts reward whoever already has the biggest audience in the Discord, not whoever made the best entry. If you’re organising and want the podium to mean something, add judging that vote counts don’t capture: scope discipline, meaning did the entry ship what it promised or leave half of it cut; theme interpretation, meaning did the entry actually use the constraint or bolt it on afterward; and feedback given, meaning did the entrant play and comment on other entries during the voting window. None of that needs new tooling. It needs an organiser reading entries and writing a paragraph about each one before the tally closes.

Jam entries get picked apart year-round in the AI Game Dev Org Discord’s feedback forum, not just during a voting window, so bring yours there once submissions open.