BASIC Game Jam in January

We've often mentioned on the show that DOS Game Club came to be because a bunch of nerds met in a game jam community. If you haven't heard about game jams, Wikipedia has you covered.

While we've covered the outcome of game jams in the past, we've never hosted our own, despite the fact that several of our club members started their own game jam website years ago. But this is all about to change!

To remedy this situation, we decided to host a DOS BASIC Game Jam! Many of us started out programming on various BASICs (in GW-BASIC or QBasic on DOS or in case of some of our ancients in Commodore BASIC, Sinclair BASIC or Locomotive BASIC), so we thought this would be an accessible, on-topic and extremely nerdy thing to do.

What, When and Where?

The goal of the jam is to make a game in BASIC that runs on DOS (that means it can be any of the interpreted BASICs for DOS or one that compiles to DOS). There is no theme or genre you have to stick to, and the rules are very relaxed. You have all of January to make your game and upload it.

In February, we are going to make the Jam submissions the subject of the club: Members get to play all the games and eventually we'll talk about all of them in the podcast episode for the month.

As mentioned earlier, some of our friends made their own Game Jam Site, Alakajam! It has gotten a bit quiet over there as participation in their jams sadly has dwindled over the years. But this is exactly where we are going to host our BASIC Jam. In order to participate, you'll need an account on the site and submit your game to the event by the end of January.

Alakajam is a non-commercial project and the creators have no interest in using or selling your personal information, just in case you're worried about this kind of stuff.

Need Help?

Of course this jam is not only for BASIC veterans but also for beginners (it's even in the language's name)! Since BASIC is a bit obscure these days (mild understatement), it can be difficult to find good introductory material. If you are stuck or just want someone to take a look at your code and give a few hints, feel free to post about it either on our forums, the Alakajam blog or our IRC.

Rules

We have written down the exact rules on a separate page.

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