Visual novel jam statistics

The two simplest statistics for a jam are the number of entries and number of participants, which can be determined directly from the jam pages (on itch.io).

For the purposes of statistics the numbers to take are the officially visible ones on the itch page, immediately after the jam is completed. Aside from the specific jam restrictions that influence the amount of people who can join, there are additional caveats to these numbers, such as:

• one VN submitted to multiple jams (either as the same version, or updated version of the original)
• not all team members joining the jam officially
• itch page displaying a number that doesn't correspond with the amount of visible entries (usually 1-2 entries off, e.g. the page may have 3 VNs visible, but the counter states 4 entries
• entries which don't follow the jam rules, but have been missed or are being tolerated by the jam hosts, which can lead to significant differences when counting "manually", e.g. 105 (official) vs. 91 (manual count) entries in NaNoRenO 2020 as appeared in the article What VN statistics tell us by mikey
• jams which allow the submission of pages without a link to a playable entry, these count towards the number of entries (at a later stage after the jam period they may indeed feature a playable entry)
• over time creators may choose to delete their games and pages, leading to innacuracies when revisiting old jams
• for any more nuanced statistics such as determining partial or full completion, and any qualitative features such as inclusion of voice acting, game length and similar, each entry must be examined and/or information gathered from the creator's pages, which will necessitate some level of editorializing and bias (e.g. what constitutes a "demo")

Below are the main VN jam statistcs (current year is highlighted):

Most entries in a single jam

Rank	Count	Jam
1	185	NaNoRenO 2022
2	***	Spooktober 2022
3	115	SuNoFes 2022
4	112	Spooktober 2021
5	106	O2A2 2022
6	105	NaNoRenO 2020
7	96	O2A2 2021
8	88	NaNoRenO 2019
9	88	NaNoRenO 2021
10	77	WinterJam 2021
11	75	NaNoRenO 2016
12	71	NaNoRenO 2018
13	69	SuNoFes 2021
14	68	NaNoRenO 2017
15	66	YuriJam 2017
16	62	SuNoFes 2020
17	56	YuriJam 2016
18	56	OtomeJam 2022
19	55	YuriJam 2018
20	51	Valentine's Jam 2021

Most participants in a single jam

Rank	Count	Jam
1	965	SuNoFes 2022
2	891	NaNoRenO 2022
3	***	Spooktober 2022
4	678	SuNoFes 2021
5	535	Spooktober 2021
6	465	WinterJam 2021
7	450	NaNoRenO 2020
8	439	NaNoRenO 2017
9	394	NaNoRenO 2021
10	373	YaoiJam 2022
11	368	SuNoFes 2020
12	330	NaNoRenO 2019
13	325	YuriJam 2017
14	320	TyranoJam 2017
15	259	Valentines Jam 2021
16	259	YaoiJam 2021
17	251	YuriJam 2018
18	235	NaNoRenO 2019
19	224	OtomeJam 2022
20	196	SuNoFes 2017

Cumulative VNs per jam

Rank	Count	Jam	Includes
1	836	NaNoRenO	2022
2	306	YuriJam	2021
3	298	SuNoFes	2022
4	222	O2A2	2022
5	176	YaoiJam	2022
6	171	Spooktober	2021
7	100	WinterJam	2021
8	97	Otome Jam	2022
9	94	TyranoJam	2022
10	61	NonbinaryJam	2022

Most participants per year

Year	1st	2nd	3rd
2022	SuNoFes (965)	NaNoRenO (891)	Spooktober (***)
2021	SuNoFes (678)	Spooktober (535)	WinterJam (465)
2020	NaNoRenO (450)	SuNoFes (368)	YaoiJam (198)
2019	NaNoRenO (330)	YuriJam (177)	YaoiJam (84)
2018	YuriJam (251)	NaNoRenO (235)	YaoiJam (123)
2017	NaNoRenO (439)	YuriJam (325)	TyranoJam (320)
2016	NaNoRenO (178)	YuriJam (166)	YaoiJam (105)
2015	YuriJam (103)	TyranoJam (41)	NaNoRenO (39)

Most entries per year

Year	1st	2nd	3rd
2022	NaNoRenO (185)	Spooktober (***)	SuNoFes (115)
2021	Spooktober (112)	O2A2 (96)	NaNoRenO (88)
2020	NaNoRenO (105)	SuNoFes (62)	Spooktober (44)
2019	NaNoRenO (88)	YuriJam (37)	BarJam (19)
2018	NaNoRenO (71)	YuriJam (55)	Ren'Py Jam (27)
2017	NaNoRenO (68)	YuriJam (66)	TyranoJam (44)
2016	NaNoRenO (75)	YuriJam (56)	YaoiJam (19)
2015	NaNoRenO (34)	YuriJam (33)	TyranoJam (33)