Game Parade, the week-long game jam created and organised by Games Jobs Live (otherwise known as the truly excellent Colin Macdonald) is back for its fourth iteration in Spring 2022.
If you’re not yet aware of Game Parade, it’s a game jam with a significant difference. It offers students, graduates and game developers in the early stages of their career the chance to make something new for a panel of games industry judges.
Judges are drawn from a wide range of the UK’s leading studios – many of which are actively recruiting – giving participants the opportunity to get themselves noticed by potential employers.
Game Paraders are also given digital certificates and badges they can include in their online profiles and portfolios to highlight the fact they’ve taken part in Game Parade.
You can see the whole official
Applications Open
The latest Game Parade takes place in just over one month. Submissions will open on March 13th at 19:00 (UK time) to March 20th at 23:59 (also UK time).
Who can join?
Anyone! From every part of the world, of any age. Game Parade allows teams and solo developers: show your skills, have fun, enlarge your portfolio! The organisers suggest teams to have no more than SIX members, it may become tricky to manage larger ones.
Theme
The overall theme for the game jam will be revealed on March, 13th. If you have any ideas or suggestions for the theme, let Colin and the team hear your ideas here.
Tools And Tech
There are no restrictions on tools, software, asset/sound packs you can use during the jam (it’s up to each developer/team to ensure they have the legal right to use them. On submission, you’ll be asked to declare and list any packs used. The organisers encourage teams to build as much from scratch as they want – that’s the fun of a jam!
Submission
The projects need to run on Windows or within a web browser. You can support other platforms, but ensure one of the two above to make the wider audience play your game! On submission, you’ll be asked to provide a link to download and inspect your project’s source code. That’s not part of the evaluation process, but some judges may wish to do so.
Categories And Judging
The Games Parade community plays and rates games to assign the Best Game Award. Participants are also encouraged to provide their own ratings for the other categories, which for the Spring 2022 Game Parade are:
- Best 2D Art
- Best 3D Art
- Best Art Direction
- Best Game Design
- Best Itch Page
- Best Level Design
- Best Narrative
- Best Original Audio
- Best Solo Game
- Best Story
- Best Use of Audio
- Best Use of Theme
- Best User Interface
- Most Commercially Viable
- Most Fun
- Technical Accomplishment
Ownership And IP
Every game and content submitted to the jam page remains the property of the developer/team which created it. Game Jobs Live will never claim any ownership. But by taking part you give permission to Games Jobs Live to show any submission in videos and livestreams for judging, promotion and marketing purposes.
Join The Discussion
There is an official Game Parade Discord server which can be used to look for teammates and find support before and during the jam. The organisers encourage teams to write daily progress reports to underline the challenges and the solutions encountered during the jam. This helps the judges understand more about each team and how each individual team member worked across the course of the jam.
Join In
To find out more and sign up for Game Parade Spring 2022, visit the game jam’s official Itch page.
