The Lost Cartridge Jam

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What is the Lost Cartridge Jam?

The Lost Cartridge Jam is an annual game jam where game designers, writers, composers, programmers and other creatives from all over the world spend 72 hours creating a Lost Cartridge Game from scratch!

A Lost Cartridge Game is a game that's been designed to embody the unique gameplay formulas of vintage games, and stylized to look like one too. It's a game that looks and plays like it might've been lost in a drawer for decades only to be rediscovered in the present day.

The game jam is arranged by Astrojone - a game design studio and community that promotes Lost Cartridge Design. This purpose of this game jam is to encourage more people to try to create Lost Cartridge Games.

The jam begins on Dec 4 at 00:10 UTC (Dec 3 at 7:10 PM EST)!

How it works

Check out the rules before starting (they're very simple!).
Sign up for the Lost Cartridge Jam on the Itch.io game jam-page.
Make the game from scratch, alone or with a team (you can use Discord to find people to work with).
Submit the game via the Itch.io game jam-page.
If you have any issues, join the Discord or check out the FAQ. There are always people willing to help!

Prizes

The winner will receive the official digital trophy ribbon, their name in the Lost Cartridge Jam hall of fame, and these retro-styled games:

More prizes may be added throughout the jam.

Need more info? Check out the FAQ.

Rules

Want to know what the official rules are? Here are the specifics:

Preparation Choose a platform that was released before the year 2000, and plan out an idea for a game that's supposed to look and/or feel like it was released on that platform. It helps to analyze other games from that platform for gameplay- and aesthetic ideas. You can form a team if you want to. Also, keep things SFW.
Development Once the game jam start has been announced, you're free to start developing your game. From that point on you have 72 hours to finish and submit it. You're free to use third party assets, but the game will be judged only on originally created content. Be sure that you have permission to use any third party assets, and that you credit their authors accordingly! Also be sure to include a text file listing any third party assets used.
Submission You must submit your game to the Itch.io game jam-page before the deadline. Make sure that you have either an embedded browser build or a self-contained Windows 10-compatible build that can run without additional dependencies.
Judgement The games will all be judged by a panel of retro game designers and vintage gaming persons based on the categories "Quality of Design", "Quality of Aesthetics", "Adherence to Platform" and "Going the Extra Mile". The categories are weighed equally on a scale of "modest", "satisfying" and "outstanding". The decision will be based only on original content, even though third party assets are allowed. Judging can take up to several weeks depending on how many games that have been submitted.
Legal We reserve the right to change any aspect of this jam if necesssary, for instance in order to resolve unforseen issues. The prizes are given out at our own discretion and volition and are not to be seen as payment or compensation for any submitted games.

FAQ

Commonly asked questions:

I don't get it, what's a Lost Cartridge Game? It's really just our term for retro-styled games that place emphasis on mining old school games for their best gameplay- and design formulas, and also faithfully capturing their platform aesthetic. We invented the term to make a distinction between games that borrow retro elements on a surface level (e.g. having pixelated graphics), and games that more deeply try to induce the feeling of playing a great old school game. That's all there is to it.

Do I need to share the game's source code? This is common practice in many game jams, but in this case no, you do not need to share your source code.

How exactly am I supposed to make a Lost Cartridge Game? Exactly how you choose to make your game feel like a Lost Cartridge Game is up to you. Analyze your favorite retro game and isolate what you think made it great. Use those learnings to make your own game. Choose a vintage aesthetic if you like. You can even make gimmicks surrounding your game too, like making it look like it's being run in an emulator or an MS-DOS window. The better and more believable your game is, the higher the score you'll receive. Just remember to plan your time accordingly, and focus on the categories that play to your strengths!

What exactly does the category "Going the Extra Mile" mean? This is a category reserved for anything that is noteworthy and counts towards your game being a Lost Cartridge Game even though it might not fit into the other categories. This could - for instance - be vintage marketing materials, a game manual or cover art. Just remember to plan your time accordingly, and focus on the categories that play to your strengths!

How is "Adherence to Platform" determined? This category means that the more your game adheres to the limitations of your chosen platform, the higher its score will be in this category. For instance, making an actual NES game is going to score higher in "Adherence to Platform" than a game that's just been stylized to look like a NES game. On the other hand doing so takes time, which means that the other categories may suffer. Plan your time accordingly, and focus on the categories that play to your strengths!

Does the entire team need to join Itch.io? You only need one Itch.io account to submit the game, whether that's your personal account or your team account.

Will an additional theme be announced when the jam starts? There'll be no theme announced when the jam begins. Making a Lost Cartridge Game can be challenging enough in itself, so we'd like to give people as much freedom as possible.

How do you prevent people from cheating? There's no surefire way to prevent cheating, so on some level we need to trust that people are being honest in their submissions. That said, we do allow participants to plan and prepare their game prior to the jam start. This means that you're free to write an abstract, high-level design doc and experiment with your engine of choice before the jam begins, but that the actual game design, development and asset creation has to be done during the actual jam.

Are NSFW-themed games allowed? Unfortunately not. We want this game jam to be fairly appropriate for most ages.

What exactly am I allowed to do before the jam begins, and what am I not allowed to do before the jam starts? This can seem confusing, but essentially the rule of thumb is: if you're practicing something to increase your skills (e.g. learning an engine or application), or if you're preparing for your game on an abstract level (e.g. coming up with gameplay ideas or what theme you're going to have) then you're in the clear. If you're thinking of designing characters, writing a plotline, coding the game or making graphics on the other hand, then that's the kind of thing that you'll have to wait with until the jam officially begins. This includes writing code or music in one form, with the intention of transpiling it into another format once the jam starts. If you need further assistance then you can always join the Discord chat. We'll be happy to help you there.

Am I allowed to make an actual game from an old platform, like a homebrew game? You sure are! Just make sure that you follow the rule of including a Windows executable with your game (or turning it into a browser build). The former would mean that you'd need to find an emulator that you're allowed to include with your game, and list it as one of your third party resources used. If you need help with this then feel free to join the Discord chat. We'll be happy to help you there.

Do I have to choose a platform that uses cartridges? Not at all. You can choose any platform that was released before the year 2000. "Lost Cartridge Game" is just a term.