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! Winter MelonJam 2023 will take place December 27th 4:00 PM PST (December 28th 12:00 AM UTC), and the game jam will end on December 30th 3:59 PM PST (December 30th 11:59 PM UTC), with a short grace period.
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.
Check out our website for more details!
Important -- PLEASE READ!
Our game jam is being hosted on Itch, and we will not accept submissions from Devpost.
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!
Prizes
Advanced 1st Place
* Wolfram Award (Year of Wolfram | One and Wolfram | Alpha Pro) per team member
* 1 Aseprite key
* 2 licenses to any Wes Bos course
* $270 cash/gift card
* 1 PyxelEdit key
* Zorin OS Pro
* 2 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Megapack
Advanced 2nd Place
* Wolfram Award (Year of Wolfram | One and Wolfram | Alpha Pro) per team member
* 2 licenses to any Wes Bos course
* $220 cash/gift card
* 1 PyxelEdit key
* Zorin OS Pro
* 1 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Megapack
Advanced 3rd Place
* Wolfram Award (Year of Wolfram | One and Wolfram | Alpha Pro) per team member
* 1 license to any Wes Bos course
* $170 cash/gift card
* Zorin OS Pro
* 1 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Megapack
Intermediate 1st Place
* Wolfram Award (Year of Wolfram | One and Wolfram | Alpha Pro) per team member
* 1 license to any Wes Bos course
* $170 cash/gift card
* 1 Aseprite key
* 1 PyxelEdit key
* Zorin OS Pro
* 2 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Deluxe Pack
Intermediate 2nd Place
* Wolfram Award (Year of Wolfram | One and Wolfram | Alpha Pro) per team member
* 1 license to any Wes Bos course
* $150 cash/gift card
* 1 PyxelEdit key
* Zorin OS Pro
* 1 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Deluxe Pack
Intermediate 3rd Place
* Wolfram One Personal Edition & Wolfram Alpha Pro (based on # of team members of other winning teams)
* 1 license to any Wes Bos course
* $130 cash/gift card
* Zorin OS Pro
* 1 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Deluxe Pack
Novice 1st Place
* Wolfram Award (Year of Wolfram | One and Wolfram | Alpha Pro) per team member
* 1 license to any Wes Bos course
* $140 cash/gift card
* 1 Aseprite key
* 1 PyxelEdit key
* Zorin OS Pro
* 2 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Deluxe Pack
Novice 2nd Place
* Wolfram Award (Year of Wolfram | One and Wolfram | Alpha Pro) per team member
* 1 license to any Wes Bos course
* $120 cash/gift card
* Zorin OS Pro
* 1 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Deluxe Pack
Novice 3rd Place
* Wolfram One Personal Edition & Wolfram Alpha Pro (based on # of team members of other winning teams)
* $100 cash/gift card
* Zorin OS Pro
* 1 Advanced Leaderboard Creator Leaderboards
* 1 IGDA Membership for 1 year
* Leading Learners EdTech Resource Bundle/Expansion Pack
* 1 Cartoon Coffee VFX Deluxe Pack
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Manu Bhat
Former Cupertino GDC President
Mirek Stolee
COSMOS instructor and PhD student at University of Central Florida
Ethan Soo
AR & VR Developer and Cupertino Game Development Club co-founder
Patrick Wang
SWE at Roblox and Cupertino Game Development Club co-founder
Anooj Vadodkar
Webmaster at SGDA
Ryan Lee
former Cupertino GDC president
Jihong "Yuuki" Min
M.S. AGPM, Pixel Artist, Indie-dev
Jeff Daul
Sr. Game Developer at Nerd Ninjas
Kerry Zhang
Incoming Mission Design Intern at Respawn, Co-Director at DogPunk
Felix Fei
Third year undergraduate at USC Games, Dogpunk Studio Co-director
Ziyang Zhang
Current student game developer in the Game Science and Design program at Northeastern University
Ryan Niu
Computer Science Master’s Student at USC
Anderson Liu
Lead Unity Developer at Community Based Literacies
Rian Shinozaki
Independent game developer
Saahil Gupta
Game Developer at University of Pennsylvania
Gabriella Martinez
USC Graduate
Ed Slee
Associate Gameplay Engineer at Neureal
Harrison Roberts
Producer at Cryptozoic Entertainment
Jared Skold
Independent game designer & project lead
Elsa Liu
Independent game developer and game user researcher
Celine Tang
Director of Free Will at USC Games
Nathan Huynh
Games and Playable Media M.S. graduate student at UCSC
Steph Ng
Advisor at USC Immersive Media Lab
Larry Li
Game Developer, Grad GSND Student at NEU
Afraz Zackria
Technical Designer, Independent Developer
Alex Parrotto
Game Designer at Sour Lemon Studios
Claire Hu
Narrative systems designer at 31st Union
Jeremy Sachs
Graphics programmer at Ethereal Engine
Yitong Hu
Technical Designer at EYES OUT
Zaven Kazandjian
Associate Gameplay Engineer at Blizzard Entertainment
Darryl Kay
Lead Producer at Revolving Games
Ariel Li
Illustrator, Concept Artist, and Game Art major at USC
Haocheng Liu
Technical Game Designer, Interactive Media MFA Candidate at USC Games
Kevin Zhan
MS games design student at Northeastern and ex Software Engineer
Jai Bhagu Dodechani
Game Designer at ALTGames Lab
Roger Wang
Undergrad at UIUC, aspiring indie game dev
Judging Criteria
-
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.
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
Tell your friends
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.