For the third Outer Wilds mod jam, all entries had to take place in a shared solar system provided by the base Mod Jam 3 mod!

Mod Jam 3

The base solar system for the 3rd Outer Wilds mod jam. Install jam entries separately to play!

The jam is over! The judges played through the submissions, discussed them, and voted on them. This concludes the third Outer Wilds Mod Jam!

The following sections contain all the information originally included in this jam page, when the jam first started.

Welcome to the 3rd Outer Wilds Mod Jam! In this jam, you have 11 days to create a story mod for Outer Wilds, following the theme given below.

Unlike previous mod jams, this one will have a very specific restriction: You must use New Horizons to create ONE planet where your story mod will take place. However this isn’t an NH-only jam; You are encouraged to use custom code to add new gameplay mechanics to your planet! Read the OWML docs to learn how to create your mod, and read the New Horizons docs to create your planet.

Lastly, all mods will be set in the same solar system. To achieve this, they must all depend on the Jam 3 base mod.

The theme is community

You decide how to interpret the theme. Make sure you read the rules and the judging criteria. Remember that if your entry does not implement the theme your entry cannot be considered for judging.

Amounts in USD. All winners will also get a special role on our Discord server.

Note: cash prizes will be given via PayPal only. No other methods will be supported.

❔ Your mod must depend on the Jam 3 base mod for compatibility. While this will handle the most obvious issues, you should keep compatibility in mind when implementing your mods features. For example, you cannot change the length of the time loop.

🪐 Your mod must use New Horizons to create one planet which will be the setting for your mod. You can use multiple NH configs to create things like hidden dimensions, man-made satellites in orbit, or quantum states, so long as the mod is centered around your one planet. If unsure about what counts as another planet, ask a jam organizer!

🛤️ Your mod can only have utility mods as dependencies. For example - Slate’s Shipyard, VanillaFix, etc.

⏱️ There must be at least one release uploaded to GitHub within the jam deadline. You can make as many releases as you want, but releases made outside the deadline won't be considered. Do not overwrite releases, as this will change the upload date of that release.

🙋 You can only contribute to one submission. You can't submit multiple mods, or submit one mod solo and one in a team, or participate in multiple teams.

👮 All submissions must follow the Mobius Digital Fan Content Policy.

🛠️ You can use any assets you have a license to use. Besides using assets already available in the game, you're allowed to use assets you find (models, textures, sounds, etc), but you must be careful to understand and follow their licenses, just like you would in any open source project. And of course, these assets must also follow the digital content policy mentioned above.

After the jam deadline has ended, we will play each submission and review them based on the following criteria:

💭 How well does it follow the theme?

💅 How polished is it? We will value quality over quantity. One highly polished feature is better than 20 unrelated mechanics, and one highly polished location is better than 20 empty locations.

👤 Overall opinion. The judges are (allegedly) people, so the review process will be mostly driven by personal opinion. The judging criteria are guidelines we'll use while reviewing the submissions, they're not strict rules or values to be fed into a formula.

❔ Since all mods will add planets to the same star system, your mod should work with all other entries enabled!

These guidelines can change depending on how the jam is going.

TL;DR: Upload a mod during the jam period, and give it the jam tag when submitting to the mod database.

To participate, you will need to submit a mod to the Outer Wilds mod database. Read the OWML docs to learn how to make your mod . If you are using New Horizons, read the New Horizon docs to learn how to make your addon.

Upload a release within the deadline

You must upload a release of your mod within the jam deadline. It's OK if you submit the mod to the database after the deadline is over, as long as a valid release was uploaded within the deadline.

If you're using the template package the getting started guide has, you can create releases easily by following the publishing your mod section of the docs.

⚠️ Be careful not to overwrite releases, as this would change the upload date. Always upload new releases separately.

If you upload new releases to your jam mod after the deadline has passed, those releases will be ignored. The most recent release that was uploaded within the deadline will be your submission.

Use the jam tag when submitting to the mod database

When you submit your mod to the database, you will need to include the jam tag, together with any other tags that make sense for your mod.

Another submission requirement will be explained once the theme is announced, check back then!

You are allowed to form teams as you wish. But we'd prefer for teams to be on the smaller size (2-3 people), because otherwise we might not have enough submissions to make the jam interesting.

Prize rewards will be split equally among all team members, no exceptions. That means you will get half the prize if you're on a two person team.

If you're looking for a team, join our Discord and ask around there.

Join our Discord server if you have more questions, or just wanna discuss anything related to the jam, modding, etc. We have a #jam-chat channel specifically for this. Also make sure to go to Channels & Roles at the top of the server and get the Jam role, so you can be notified of jam updates.