WIP 11: WAGDIE Game Jam

ABSTRACT

Organize a week-long game jam competition that challenges the artists, musicians, designers, and developers within the community to come together and produce small proof-of-concept video games featuring WAGDIE content with prizes for the community's favourite creations.

MOTIVATION

As the community continues to seek new avenues to present the WAGDIE experience, and opportunities to generate saleable WAGDIE products, video games are a fantastic but currently underleveraged opportunity. Operation of a game jam would provide some lightweight prototyping chance for a variety of different titles that could be further developed.

RATIONALE

The community has showcased its ability to coordinate and create interesting and unique works, and a game jam competition would foster that spirit, and channel it into the production of several new potential game products that could be further grown into full releases. Through this process, community members interested in taking up such a project would have the opportunity to collaborate with other members, test their design theories, and work with the IP before comitting wholly to a major development.

SPECIFICATIONS

The following will be required to execute this proposal:

• Scheduled calendar window for the actual game jam
• Public "Looking for Group" channel in the Community Discord
• Team registration page via itch.io or Google Form
• Submission portal via itch.io or Google Form
• Token gated judging / voting channel in Community Discord
• Jam theme defined and tweeted by Keepers of WAGDIE Twitter
• Participation rewards (POAPs and WAGDIE) [thanks @poof]
• Prizes for winners (USDC or other)

IMPLEMENTATION

These are the steps to accomplish this proposal:

PRE-VOTE

1. Within Conclave, determine best week for game jam
2. Within Conclave, determine prizing and participation rewards
3. Within Conclave, determine operators responsible for Discord requirements
4. Within Conclave, determine Keepers of WAGDIE assistance to announce theme
5. Proposal voting / approval via decide.fateofwagdie.com

POST-APPROVAL

1. Open "Looking for Group" channel in Community Discord
2. Open team registration portal via itch.io or Google Form
3. Announce game jam competition via Keepers of WAGDIE / Discord
4. Await game jam commencement date
5. Open submission portal via itch.io or Google Form
6. Announce game jam commencement via Keepers of WAGDIE / Discord
7. Await game jam conclusion date
8. Collate all game jam submissions in judging / voting channel within Discord
9. Announce game jam conclusion and game availability within Discord
10. Await judging period closure
11. Announce winner(s)
12. Distribute prizes

TIMELINE

After discussion of details and proposal adjustments within conclave, once brought to proposal approval vote, the process for the game jam should take approximately 4 weeks. Two weeks from announcement to allow teams to coordinate / schedule appropriately, one week for the actual game jam, and another week for adjudication.

OVERALL COST

Pending conclave discussion regarding additional participation rewards, the only associated cost to this proposal are the prizes for the winning entries.

This proposal suggests $5,000 for the winning entry, $2,000 for the second place, and $1,000 for the third place as a means to encourage the best products within the community, and as a potential attractor of exterior talent. A total of $8,000 USDC would be expended at these rates.

SUMMARY

This is a powerful way to generate incredible, playable, prototype WAGDIE products that could later be leveraged into more complete releases with or without The Conclave's support. Using the format of game jam to spark development and new project concepts within the WAGDIE community, as well as attract developers who are not currently participants to explore the project for the sake of the game jam.

OPTIONALITY

While I believe this proposal can stand on its own merits without any addition, it is possible to coordinate an extension to it that would see the completed game jams released on Steam as Early Access titles under a WAGDIE Games publishing account with revenues returning to The Conclave and contributing developers. Interest and details should be discussed and confirmed within The Conclave before this proposal moves to voting.