LOSPEC JAM 2 HAS BEGUN!
Restrictions
Introducing the LS16, an 8-bit home console! The space age is yours!
console design by Ty.mp3
Console Specs:
your entry must fit these specifications!
256x224 Resolution
16 color palette
8 Button Controller
- 4-Way Directional Pad
- A/B Buttons
- Start/Select Buttons
Optional Specs:
- 2 Player Support
- 4-channel sound chip, with any combination of Triangle, Pulse, Saw, and Noise Generators
- 3 Built-in fonts: BM Space, BM Japan, 04b03 (free to render with the built in font chip)
- 16x16px sprites, up to 64 on screen at once
- 16x16 tiles, used on up to 4 background layers, can scroll independently horizontally/vertically
- unlimited 256x256px image textures
Assets Repo:
The palette and fonts and more are available in our assets repo, which anyone is welcome to contribute reusable assets to during the jam:
https://github.com/lospec/lospec-jam-2-assets
That's it! Get workin on your entry, and make sure to have it submitted by May 31st!
Lospec Jam 2
Welcome to Lospec Jam 2! This is a sequel to our first jam held in 2021, which was quite successful. Unfortunately it was a bit too ambitious and required a lot of work, resulting in there never being a sequel... until now!
If you're not familiar with Lospec, we're a website dedicated to low-spec art forms such as pixel art, voxel art, chiptune and more, most known for our pixel art palettes list.
Jam Restrictions
Lospec Jams center around creating things for an imaginary video game console. This means you will be given a set of restrictions which your submission must follow. There may be some additional suggested restrictions, but they are not required. There will be no theme, that is up for you to decide!
Required restrictions:
- Palette - a strict palette will be chosen for the jam. Colors are not allowed to be mixed, post processing effects are not allowed
- Resolution - a strict resolution must be used for all submissions
- Control scheme - for games and apps, an imaginary control scheme will be determined by the console design, your game must use only controls that could be mapped to these inputs (but you don't have to use all)
Optional restrictions may include drawing limitations, sound chip specifications, or other low-spec restrictions.
The exact restrictions will be announced at the start of the jam.
Submission Types
Lospec Jam is not just about games! You can create and submit the following things:
- Games
- Apps
- Animations
- Standalone Artwork (submitted through discord)
Community
Come join the Lospec community on our discord! Here you can post about your game and get feedback, see what others are creating, and find team members to work on your projects!
Join our discord: https://Lospec.com/discord
In the onboarding questions, check off you want to see the Lospec Jam Forum (or click Channels and Roles to find it there)
Teams
We allow and encourage teams of any size! You're also welcome to fly solo!
Winners are expected to split their prizes fairly amongst the contributors.
Assets must be created during the jam, but you may commission them either for real money or our community currency, or do trades.
You are welcome to participate in multiple submissions! You may also offer your services to multiple teams, for example making music or designing logos.
Judging
Judging will be done by a panel of Lospec selected judges, voting on the following criteria. The top submission of each type will be crowned winner.
Fun/Useful/Engaging
- Fun (if the submission is a game) - how fun your game is to play
- Usefulness (if the submission is an app) - how useful your app could be (either in the fantasy world where this console exists, or in real life as an app)
- Engagement (if the submission is an animation) - how interesting and enthralling your animation is to watch
Please note this is not about originality. You don't need to invent a new genre, just make something good.
Artistry
This will be solely based on the quality of art within your submission, including all visual and auditory contributions, and how well they work as a whole.
Polish
How complete and finished, well rounded and polished your submission feels. We want to see submissions that accomplish what they set out to, and deliver a complete product, rather than over-ambitious projects that have potential but feel incomplete.
Rewards
There are no physical real world rewards for Lospec Jam (yet!), but we do offer prizes in our virtual currency, Pikzels, which can be traded and used on the Lospec Discord. This currency can be traded on the Pikzel Marketplace (a forum within our discord) for custom art or palettes, server perks, virtual goods, or whatever you wish to trade it for! This currency is mostly given out as rewards for taking part in art collaborations.
Best Game - 1000P
Runner Up Game - 500p
Best App - 500P
Runner Up App - 350p
Best Animation - 500P
Runner Up Animation -300P
Best Art - 250P
Judges Pick - 250P
Game/App/Animation Participant - 50p
The reward currency will be sent to the submitter of the project, and can be distributed amongst their team however they think is fair.
Submission Rules
- Must Follow Strict Restrictions - must follow the mandatory restrictions announced at the beginning of the jam
- Must Be Safe For Work - must not contain nudity, gore, hate, or anything else that's generally offensive
- Must Be Legal - can't contain anything illegal, including copyrighted characters, graphics and symbols
- Assets Must Be New And Original - all assets must be created during the jam by jam members, nothing premade can be used (except for code libraries)
- No AI created/assisted assets allowed - all assets must be created by human beings
- Must be web based - your game should be able to be played via a web browser, for ease of judging. many game engines offer web export now
Submitting
Submissions for Games, Apps and Animations should be done here to this jam.
Art submissions will be handled separately and should be submitted on the Lospec Discord, on the Lospec Jam 2 thread in the collaboration channel.
You will also be asked to include a studio/team name with your submission, so think of one ahead of time! This could be based on your unique combination of team members, or decided by the team leader.