Congratulations to everybody who participated! It looks like we have a lot of intriguing entries, so well done everybody :)

Even if you didn't manage to create a full game, you should be proud - this is a particularly technical challenge, after all.

This means there are games to play!

Even if you didn't enter, I suggest you take some time to play the games these excellent folk have made! As always, if you can, please provide them with some of that lovely, juicy feedback. A bit of encouragement wouldn't go amiss either :)

There's still time, sort of

If you haven't yet finished your game, don't panic! This is a casual jam, so entries will be left open for a few days yet. Do try to get it done soon, though: the longer you leave it, the less chance people have to play your game!

What's next then?

We have a bunch of exciting stuff coming up.

11th Alakajam! 26-28th February

The biggest event of 2021 so far: theme voting for the 11th Alakajam! will start in early February, with the actual jam taking place on the weekend 26-28 February. Don't miss it!

Alakajam hackathon, 1st & 8th February

An informal hackathon with @wan, @toasty and others will take place over at Github on the 1st and 8th of February, in the evening Central European Time. If you're interested in fixing bugs, polishing pages or just hacking on your favourite niche magical game jam site, ask in the Alakajam discord or on IRC.

That's right! From the 4th to the 31st of January, we're having another Kajam event. Your mission is to make a game that uses ray casting in some way, graphical or otherwise.

But what is ray casting?

In 3D graphics, ray tracing is a rendering method in which "virtual light rays are "cast" or "traced" on their path from the focal point of a camera through each pixel in the camera sensor to determine what is visible along the ray" (Wikipedia article). For a resolution of 320x240, that would be 76800 rays each frame! Ray casting is an optimised version of Ray tracing where only one ray is required for each column of pixels, which means only 320 rays each frame! This is the technique used in classic games like Wolfenstein 3D!

So I have to write an esoteric retro 3D renderer?

I encourage you to give it a go, but it's not required! There are plenty of other reasons why you might "cast rays" in a game. The same ideas are often used in physics simulations, AI, and sometimes seemingly simple operations, like checking if a player can jump. So please feel free to use your imagination! If it involves rays, we're happy :).

But what is a Kajam?

Kajam competitions are month-long events in which people make a small video game focusing on a specific aspect of game development. They're a perfect opportunity to learn, experiment and level-up your gamedev skills!

Detailed rules here.

Some relevant links:

• Retro FPS ray casting tutorial at lodev.org
• Ray-Casting Tutorial For Game Development And Other Purposes by F. Permadi
• A ray casting renderer in 265 lines of JavaScript
• Different uses of ray casting in Unity (interesting even for non-Unity devs)
• AI ray casting in general

I managed to release Minimum Damage today, and only a couple of days late! I'm actually really happy with the end result: pretty much everything is amateurish, crass and probably broken, but unlike my other games it looks intentional.

This is the first time I've created music for a jam game, but it's been a hugely positive experience. In particular I found it a real relief to work on the music, and get away from the screen (or at least, the IDE) for a while. I've found - like with graphics - that having some concrete assets, no matter how tacky, in place really motivates me in the soul-crushing twilight that is the end stage of game jams. It also took the game in more imaginative directions than I think it could have gone otherwise.

In addition to the music, I'm quite happy with the original idea. For one thing the graphics were simple enough that I could implement them very quickly, allowing time to think about more important things. The execution is imperfect, but maybe I can work that out at a later stage.

So thanks, @Tijn, for hosting this jam! I certainly learned something.

I may come to regret this, but I had an idea to create a sheet music bullet hell game. After an hour or so of hacking I got this far.

Most of the basics are there; it just needs some simple collision code and then I can get started on the squishy bits.

P.s. Yes I'm aware that isn't a minim >__<

The tournament is on, people! Let's get moving!

We've released half of the games so far. So focus on these for now, and we'll release the other ones soon!

So what are you waiting for? Get playing!

Time to warm up those digits for some button mashing, people, because there's a tournament coming up soon!

How it works

For two weeks, from 12th-27th July 2019, everyone is invited to play and post high scores on a selection of games which have been submitted to the site. Using screenshots as proof, players can compete in those games' leaderboards for points.

For each game, players are awarded a number of points for being in the top 10, as per the table below. The players with the highest total scores are shown on a global leaderboard throughout, and at the end we'll announce the winner and runners up.

Check out the previous leaderboard to see the current title holders! :)

We need your games!

You might be wondering, which games? Well, good question! If you've submitted a game on alakajam.com which has high scores and might be suitable, let us know—simply fill out this form. Before the tournament begins a small number of games will be picked. The more accessible the better (so cross-platform and web games are preferred), and we try to have a nice blend of genres. Remember, this is a great opportunity to have your games played!

Hey everybody. I was browsing through this list, and thought it might help to inspire some other poor soul.

Good luck in your games, everyone!

RIP Galois :'(

The tournament is over!

We hope you all had fun (we certainly did). So a huge thank you to the brilliant people who created the games, and as ever, congratulations to the very talented winner, @M2tias, the runners up, and, well, all you magical chums who joined in too.

So what now? I'm hungry for more…

Starting tomorrow we have the 7th Kajam, hosted by our very own @voxel! Then from 31 May-2 June we have the 6th iteration of our flagship event, the 48h jam known as the 6th Alakajam! Join us all tomorrow for more gaming magic :).

The tournament enters its final weekend

What better time to hone your skills and smash some records? The leaderboard is tight and there's everything to play for. Come on people! You have until 23:59 on 31st March to submit your scores!

The 3rd AKJ Tournament begins!

It's time for the 3rd AKJ Tournament, folks! From the 15th to 31st of March 2019 we'll be playing and competing at six games which have been submitted to jams on this very site. You can see the tournament rules here.

Quiet! Gimme the games!

Below you'll find the games we'll be playing this month, along with their owner and the jam they were entered for. We have some real gems this time, so make sure you don't miss out and play them all! :)

Game	Author(s)	Genre	Jam
Nonomino	thomastc	Dynamic puzzler	6th Kajam
The Lost Beans	dollarone	Caffeinated platformer	Coffee Jam
Illustrious Escape	M2tias, Juutis, bradur	First person teleporter	5th Alakajam!
You are the Grimoire	Aurel300	Rapid-fire genre mashup	5th Alakajam!
Shinobi Blocks	dwemthy	Tetris/platformer love child	4th Alakajam!
Electric Tango	laaph	Shocking Olypmian apple picker	6th Kajam