Summer 2019 CS 410/510 Rust Game Jam

A "Game Jam" is an event in which games are built quickly and often judged competitively. A Game Jam usually is themed: entries are judged partly on how well they fit that theme.

As a member of our class, you are welcome to submit to our Game Jam. That said, please get your project in solid shape before even considering this. The project is the majority of your course grade, and is way more important than this Game Jam.

Deadline

Submissions are open now, and will close Saturday 17 August at midnight Pacific Time. Late submissions are not eligible for prizes, although I'll happily look at them.

Theme

For the Summer 2019 CS 410/510 Rust Game Jam the theme is… Low Effort. "Low Effort" could mean a lot of things about your game, for example:

  • A familiar game.
  • A short game.
  • An easy game to play.
  • A game that looks deliberately (deceptively?) shoddy.

Get creative with the theme!

Rules

For this Game Jam the theme is more than just about the game itself. You must put low effort into the development of the game:

  • Maximum two hours of total coding time.
  • Maximum two hours of prep time prior to starting to code.
  • Simple clear code is preferred to "fancy" stuff.
  • Minimal commenting and testing is acceptable.

Your game must be written in Rust. A minimal amount of Javascript browser glue is acceptable, although a Rust web game is unlikely to be low effort for most folks.

Submission

The source code of your game must be made public in a repository such as Github or Gitlab under an open source license. Post a link on the class Slack under #gamejam when you are ready to have your game judged.

Judging

I will be the one and only judge of submitted games, unless I ask someone to help. Here are the criteria I will use, in no particular order:

  1. Fits the theme.
  2. Effort is not too much.
  3. Is simple clear Rust code.
  4. Is fun to play.
  5. Creative / original, but not too much.

I will score each game on these five categories, and select my favorite among the highest-scoring games. I will not share scores other than the winning score: the judging process is confidential.

Prizes

First Prize will be awarded a novelty USB keychain drive. This drive is … a place you can put a small amount of stuff.

Second Prize will be a lovingly-crafted Certificate of Participation. This will be awarded to all participants that complete the challenge.

Finally, everyone who completes the challenge will be awarded Extra Class Credit. To be clear, this credit isn't worth much. Extra credit will mostly be used to raise borderline grades: I suspect most who participate will have a solid course grade already. Please don't make this a major reason to enter: it's "nice to have" and that's about it.

Fun

Please have fun with this. If it isn't fun, don't do it, and don't feel bad about not doing it. A Game Jam isn't for everyone, so don't feel obligated to do something unpleasant during the last week of the quarter.

If you've read this far, get out there and start slacking!

Last modified: Tuesday, 13 August 2019, 12:17 AM