Theme

The theme for MelonJam 3 is CAPTURE! Remember to be as creative with your theme interpretation as you can! For example, you can make a visual novel about 'capturing' someone's heart, a 3D 'capture'-the-flag simulator, or a whack-a-mole game about 'capturing' sentient pieces of cheese. The more creative, the better!

Summary 

MelonJam 3 is a game jam that builds off of the success of both the original MelonJam and MelonJam 2, which both amassed over 150 participants and countless inspiring submissions.

What is a game jam, you might ask? It's just a hackathon dedicated to games specifically, and they're loads of fun! You don't need any experience at all-- even just following a few tutorials, with your own twists, is okay! MelonJam 3 will take place from July 23rd at 12:00 AM UTC to July 24th at 11:59 PM UTC.  Check out our website for more details!

Our core mission is to transform game development from a niche topic into something everything can learn to appreciate. As such, we HIGHLY encourage high schoolers and other novices to join this game jam! We will be offering dedicated prizes for these contestants as well as hosting workshops for beginners to create a welcoming environment.

Benefits

Everyone who submits a project will be given access to benefits worth thousands of dollars. We also provide many different prizes to the winners of this game jam, so be sure to sign up!

Questions

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask on our Discord server! Otherwise, we cannot wait to see all of the exciting ideas you have to offer! Good luck!


Note: All times listed are in UTC time, not PDT!

You may submit up to 3 hours after the official deadline(12:00 AM), but it will lead to point deductions.

• Gameplay
  How well the game squeezes out value from its mechanics. Good gameplay should give the player limitations, and give the player to opportunities to explore those limitations.
• Graphics/Polish
  How impressive the project looks. Objects of importance should be easily differentiable from other objects, and in general the game should be visually appealing.
• Game Feel
  How appropriate and appealing the controls feel (snappy platforming, impactful heavy attacks, etc).
• Innovation
  How “new” a concept in the game is (avant-garde graphics, new gameplay concepts, new interpretations or combinations of old concepts, etc.)
• Theme
  How well the game interprets the theme. The more creative the interpretation that still reasonably matches the theme, the higher your game's score in this category.