The jam is over! The judges will now play through the submissions! Thank you to everyone who participated!

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

Welcome to the 4th Outer Wilds Mod Jam! In this jam, you have 16 days (inclusive) to create a story mod for Outer Wilds, following the themes and restriction given below.

You are encouraged to use New Horizons to create your mod! 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 planets, settings, dialogue, etc.

The jam has ended!

The themes are Escape/Isolation and the restriction is Minimal Text!

> To follow the restriction you must use alternatives to regular dialogue and translatable text such as: environmental story telling, slide reels, vision torches, language barriers, and alien symbols. Ship logs are unrestricted. Using a piece or two of dialogue or text to start/end the mod is fine.

You decide how to interpret the themes, and must follow the restriction. Make sure you read the rules and the judging criteria. Remember that if your entry does not implement at least one of the themes your entry cannot be considered for judging.

The prize pool for each jam is made up of contributions from our community! If you'd like to contribute to a jam, please let us know!

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 can only have utility mods as dependencies. For example - New Horizons, 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.

🪐 You are strongly encouraged to use New Horizons to make your mod. NH will simplify actions like creating ship logs, planets, and base-game props. It will also help prevent incompatibilities between mods.

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(s)?

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

👤 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.

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

Here is some advice on how to make a successful jam entry!

Do not overscope! You might feel like you have all the time in the world to make your entry, but remember that a smaller, polished entry is better than a huge, completely broken entry! As a rule of thumb, remember the "Rule of 3". Three tasks to complete a specific objective is usually a good balance of variety and scope. On a macro level, you could three small mysteries required to solve your main mystery.

Remember your ship logs! They are incredibly important, even if you feel your mod is simple enough to not need them. You never know what the player will think is important or will forget. You don't want a judge getting completely lost on where to go in your mod if you want to leave a good impression! Note that ship logs should be one of the last things you do.

Remember base game mechanics! If you are putting the player in an area without easy access to the ship, don't forget to give them sources of fuel and oxygen. If you have a timed event happening in your mod, be sure the player has access to a campfire so they can speed up time while waiting for it. These things are super easy to add to your mod, and very noticeable when they aren't there!

Get Git set up at the beginning of the jam, not the end. You need to learn how to upload to Git, since this is required for you to enter. Not only that, but you should be using Git the entire time - Always back up your work!

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.

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. 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.