Month of Horror is a casual horror game jam, open to any game engine and style of horror game. Simply put, make a horror game based on the jam's Theme, using whatever tools you want. There are also optional Bonus Challenges for those who want more guidance. Hopefully, by the end of the game jam, you'll have something playable you can be proud of!
You can also join the jam's Discord server!
Conventional means are not always sufficient to reveal the answers one seeks. Sometimes, the magical Art of Divination is needed to uncover the truth, with many possible methods available. These include reading tarot cards, casting runes, contacting the spirits of the dead or otherworldly entities, scrying glimpses of the possible future or the distant past in a pool of water or a crystal ball, as well as countless other forms of divination.
It's not so simple, however. Magic is always fickle and dangerous, no matter how careful one thinks they are. The ritual might go horribly wrong and dark forces might be attracted to the diviner, leaving them at the mercy of entities that they might be seeking answers from or unwittingly summon through their careless tampering with the arcane forces.
Perhaps the protagonist of your game will soon learn that, after they delve deep into the mystical Art of Divination!
1) Paranormal Investigator: The game's story is about the protagonist using some supernatural means to investigate a mystery.
2) Divination Magic: The game includes some game mechanics related to divination (for example, needing to consult tarot cards in order to divine the past or the future, scrying locations through a crystal ball or a pool of water, casting runes in order to determine connections and relationships between people and objects, using a spirit board to contact the dead etc.)
3) Change Their Fate: There's a part in the game where the protagonist is supposed to prevent some foretold future event from happening.
You can only start working on the actual game project after the jam's submission period starts, but you can start planning and creating/gathering assets and other resources before that time.
This is a casual game jam, so premade assets are allowed and you can reuse some code from past projects if you want. However, don't go overboard with it. In order to comply with the spirit of the jam, the bulk of the work on your game should be done during the game jam itself.
AI-generated assets are not allowed.
There's no restriction on the Engine, Libraries or Framework you can use to develop your game. Feel free to use Godot, Unity, Unreal Engine, Game Maker Studio, Construct, Adventure Game Studio, Ren'Py, RPG Maker or anything else you want.
AI-generated assets are not allowed. To be clear, there cannot be any AI-generated assets in the version of the game you submit to the game jam.
Text to Speech programs that don't use generative AI, such as SAM TTS, are allowed to be used.
Yes, you can.
Yes, you can form a team. There's no limit to the amount of team members your team can have. You can also work on multiple games or be a part of multiple different teams.
Your game has to be a horror game or at least contain significant horror elements. It doesn't need to be outright scary, so long as it can even remotely be considered one.
We tend to give games the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this, so don't worry about it too much.
This is a game jam, incomplete games are totally fine and expected. You are encouraged to work on your game even during the Rating Period.
Follow itch.io's Terms of Service and tag your game appropriately. We also advise all jam submitters to include content warnings in their games whenever it seems necessary.
You need to incorporate the Theme into your game in some way. It's completely up to you how you interpret the Theme, so long as it's obvious that you've at least made an effort to follow it. We aren't too strict with it and creative interpretations are encouraged.
Yes, the Bonus Challenges are totally optional and serve mostly to guide people who need that extra guidance. It's up to you if you decide to implement them or not.
There has to be some kind of free version of your game made available for the duration of the both this game jam's submission period and also its rating period. It could be a free demo version or the game itself being made free for a limited time. This requirement no longer applies after the game jam ends.
This jam accepts late submissions during the Rating Period. A Late Submission Thread will be set up in the jam's Community tab once the submission period ends. Anyone who wants to submit their game to the jam after the submission period ends will have to put a link to their game's project page in said thread and will receive a reply with a Submission Link that will allow them to submit their game to the jam.
After the Rating Period ends, the Community tab will be closed and no further late submissions will be accepted.
1) Follow itch.io's Terms of Service.
2) Follow the Terms of Use of any assets you use in your game.
3) Have fun!
Art by: Kazu
