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[allurious]

Hey, TIGSource!

I wanted to let you guys know that Asylum Jam is happening again this year and I'm really excited to be running it for a second time.

What is Asylum Jam?

Asylum Jam is a 48 hour game jam set for the spooky month of October, taking place from October 31st to November 2nd 2014. The purpose of this jam is for individuals or teams to create a horror game on any platform or of any type that simply follow the following stipulation, inspired by an article by Ian Mahar:

1.) You should not use asylums, psychiatric institutes, medical professionals or violent/antipathic/’insane’ patients as settings or triggers.

This jam is to show that you can still create a great horror experience without using inaccurate stereotypes of those who suffer from mental illness, or the institutions that support them in diagnosis and recovery.

Why?

The horror genre is amazing and I think there's a lot more to be explored by our medium, especially with the rise of VR and new tech. Setting aside common or harmful tropes to dig deeper into the genre makes you be more creative with your design, and Asylum Jam is a positive vehicle for that.

How was 2013's event?

We had around 360-400 participants and roughly 70 games created during our event, and there are some really cool things that came out of it. We had procedurally generated 3D horror games in Unity, we had Twine text adventures, we had visual novels made in Ren'Py - the whole spectrum, and it was fantastic. You can play all of 2013's games here.

Further readin':
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2013/oct/07/asylum-jam-mental-health-video-games
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-09/03/asylum-jam
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/worth-jamming-asylum-jam/2300-8080/ (triggering content, this is a warning)

Where do I participate?

We're partnering with Gamejolt to host the online portion of the jam this year, but like last year, we're also organizing some physical locations around the world. Last year we had one in the USA and one in Italy, and this year we're hoping to do more and have some on the way in Europe already. If you're interested in helping organize one, please email us at [email protected]!

If you want to join a remote group, or need someone else to help you out, check out the Looking for Group document for the 2014 event.

There are also a bunch more exciting things we're hoping to announce over the next week or so, so stay tuned! If you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask here or ping an email over to the above. Hope to see you there!