In Game Jam, you’re a game designer trying to make three games: A bloated masterpiece, a reliable gateway game and a mass market cash cow. Your goal is to make the most money you can from these games, as well as win the critical esteem of your peers: the much coveted game of the year award.

In the first part of the game, players will draw three idea cards and play two of them into one of three different rows each turn. Each of these idea cards has a number and a suit and represents a particular theme (e.g. zombies), a mechanic (e.g dice combat) or component (e.g. sand timer). Each theme card bears a unique piece of box art inspired by classic games and each mechanic card features a brief but clear definition.

Using a poker style ranking system, better combinations of ideas score more but each row must also be a higher rank than the one below it. If the players fail to achieve this, they go bust and make no money from their rows. Since the players can’t move ideas cards between rows once placed, they must make careful choices about what combinations they attempt to make. To help them, they can also play up to one development card a turn. Each of these lets them directly manipulate their cards and break game rules to make the most money and win the first part.

In the second part, players may pitch one of their rows as a game to the other players. It must have a title and include all four idea cards in the row in some way into its description. Players will then vote on the game they liked the best and the game with the most votes wins the game of the year award, and the second part of the game. To have the best chance at winning overall, players must weigh-up their investment in maximizing the score of their rows vs how useful they will be for their pitch, if they choose to make one.

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