Generally speaking, game jams enforce restrictions on participants, like a certain theme, time limit, game engine, game genre, or even all of the above. The upcoming O2A2 2023 – Visual Novel Jam is a bit different, as depicted by its full name: Only One of Any Asset.
With the jam lasting ten days, crunch (hopefully) won’t be a thing, something further helped by way of the rules/limitations. See, much like prior iterations of Only One of Any Asset, you’re only allowed to use one of, well, (almost) anything – except words. You can put up to a thousand of those into your visual novel. Actually, why don’t I paste the list below instead?
- one sprite / one character / one pose (multiple expressions without change in pose are okay)
- one background / one place / one time of day
- one illustration (in place of the one sprite and one background)
- one thousand words
- one background sound file (either one music track or one ambient background noise)
- one sound effect
- one voice actor
- one piece of menu background art
- one main project (submit only one entry where you are the creative lead/director or owner of an account. You may participate in other teams as a different role)
To (hopefully) avoid any confusion… here’s what is allowed/unrestricted, as well:
- themes / genres (e.g. romance, horror, comedy)
- suggestive/explicit or violent content (so long as such content is tagged appropriately on the game page)
- using Creative Commons, similarly licensed free-to-use, or paid assets (this time we’re strongly suggesting that you avoid CC assets that include the Noncommercial or -NC license part!)
- usage of solid color backgrounds (all white, black, or other)
- programming and scripting effects
- minigames, so long the main portion of your entry can be considered a VN (e.g. point and click, fill in the blank/Madlibs, etc. all OK!)
- special effects / movement / zoom / animation (such as blinking, lipflap/mouth movement, sparkles, moving side to side, etc. Complex frame-by-frame animations that would change a significant portion of an image are not allowed.)
- custom GUI assets like buttons, text boxes, textures and other elements
- price point of completed entries
- submitting your entry to other jams (as long as you follow the rules of those jams!)
- language your game is in, you’re free to write your game in a language other than English as long as it’s equivalent to one thousand words
- omake/fandiscs and fangames are welcome. However, if you do not own the IP, please do not steal assets from the source material
Just in case… rules, because there are a bunch of those too (please don’t break them):
- submitting partial works e.g. demo, Part 1 of x, etc… Self-contained prologues are okay!
- submitting unfinished works or placeholder pages for future uploads
- submitting entries that promote bigotry and hateful conduct, or are otherwise made in bad faith
- using non-GUI assets (sprite, BG, audio, etc.) from a larger project of yours
- using illegal assets (pirated/stolen, or you do not have a proper license for)
- using engines or programming in a manner that would make hybrid games (e.g. a half VN/RPG hybrid that features exploration, due to the assets required to make a functional RPG with an overworld map)
Adding to all that, you’d do well to stop by the website – linked below – and read up on what is not allowed, seeing how any entry that disregards the rule will be removed. It would be a shame to spend an entire week working on something, only to be unable to participate. So play nice and join the DevTalk Discord if you’re feeling social and/or are in need of assistance. Last but not least, the dates: July 21st to July 31st.
Remember, there can be only one… of each!
(Screenshot source: O2A2 2022 – Visual Novel Jam’s Still Shining.)
