Spooktober Visual Novel Jam

The Spooktober VN Jam is an annual event where in the month of September participants create a visual novel themed around Halloween and/or a "spooky" or horror theme, in any genre (e.g. drama, but also comedy is allowed). Entries are judged and prizes are awarded to winning participants in October, after the jam's main (creation) phase is finished. The name "Spooktober" references October 31th (Halloween).

The jam is run and strongly promoted by the DevTalk VN developer community, and general awareness and preparations for the jam start months in advance. The jam's official itch page allowing participants to join is usually published about 1 month prior to the start. In 2021 Spooktober VN Jam became the first and so far only itch.io VN jam to produce more VN entries than NaNoRenO in a given year.

History

The first Spooktober VN Jam took place in 2019.

Overview

There are two main phases to Spooktober, one being the creation phase, and an additional phase, where the jam promotes its creations and encourages people to "celebrate the spooky season" by playing its entries while the entries are being judged. The availability of VNs to play during the Halloween-themed time is the reason why the creation phase is in September. Only in its first 2019 iteration did the jam's creation phase take place in October.

Preparation Phase

This natural phase of a jam consists of preparing for the "Creation Phase". Participants may sign up, form teams and do other typical activities allowed by the jam rules. Restrictions apply, such as for the creation of final in-game assets. In the DevTalk server two Meet and Greets are organized to facilitate team creation and recruitment. In this phase participants are encouraged to clarify open questions in regards to jam rules.

Rules

The jam's main rules are:

• work on final assets can only start within the jam period
• adherence to theme of Halloween, horror, etc.
• free availability of VN for the judging period
• no NSFW content / appropriate content warnings

Creation Phase

This is the "main" phase of Spooktober, taking place during September. Participants create, finish and must submit the VN to the jam page before the end of the submission window. Late submissions may be allowed on a case by case basis, but are not eligible for judging or prizes.

Playing and Visibility Phase

After the jam submission period is finished, the playing and visibility phase begins. At the same time that the judges start their process (see Judging Phase), DevTalk promotes and facilitates post-jam activities in the context of Halloween throughout the month of October. These are encouraging playing and commenting on entries, hosting or highlighting people's Let's Play streams, encouraging reviews, and working to increase the overall visibility of the jam and its VNs.

Judging Phase

The judging phase also starts after the jam submission period is finished. Judges download all submissions as they are at the time of the jam's end, and disregard any updates to the VNs made between the end of submission period and announcing of results, to ensure fair treatment of all entries. Judges play and exchange views on submissions privately, and do not publish any preliminary results.

The judging approach is dependent on the number of expected submissions, and it is possible that not all judges will play all VNs. The judging process may involve individual shortlists, or splitting submissions between the judges. Once a consensus on the winners is achieved, the results are published on the jam page, and announces though various other channels.

There are no set overall judging criteria, however each year judges will introduce themselves and present their personal focus points and judging values, e.g. focus on emotional impact, self-expression, or overall cohesiveness.

Year	Judging Team
2019
2020
2021	Nai, Arimia, Chloe, TundraFlame, Fra

Categories and prizes

The prize categories for Spooktober may vary from year to year. In addition to a "grand prize" awarded to the top three VNs, secondary prizes in various categories may be awarded. The amounts and types of prizes can also vary from year to year, even in the same category, as they are often dependent on sponsorship agreements made for that year. Prizes can be monetary, or license keys for software.

Judge Favorite

This is the most prestigious Spooktober award and is given away by the judges for the "best overall" VNs in the form of a "top three" ranked order. This award serves to highlight standout titles rather than ordering all submissions, therefore no accompanying further or expanded ranked list is published.

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019	Not It
2020	Therapy with Dr. Albert Krueger	Last Meal at Cafe Mori	Night of the Lesbian Vampires
2021	StillWater	Stardander Revenant	Romancing Flesh

Itch.io Favorite / Public vote

This is the result of the public voting system. The system follows the itch.io 5-star system, and is calculated with the top result being the highest average score, regardless of the amount of ratings received. This overview lists the top three places only.

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019	Halloween Hearts + Bliss Cafe		Not It
2020
2021	Mitra	The Case of The Serialized Killer	Up All Night: Rumination

Thumbnail

Award for the best thumbnail image on the submission's itch.io page.

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019
2020	Therapy with Dr. Albert Krueger	Bewitched Hearts	Oh! Terry!
2021	DUFE: Masquerade

Logline

Award for the best log line (1-3 sentences with what the visual novel is about).

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019	I'm A Love Interest In my Childhood Friend's Halloween Story
2020	Up All Night	Devil's Door	Play Dead!
2021	Wolfskin's Curse

Monster / Costume Design

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019
2020	What Grows in the Night	House	Last Meal at Cafe Mori
2021	Romancing Flesh

Best Cinematography / Scene Presentation

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019
2020
2021	Romancing Flesh

Motif

Awarded for the best recurring motifs in submitted visual novels.

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019
2020
2021

Best Unity Submission

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019
2020	Soft Drizzle: B-Track
2021

Best Human / Voice Performance

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019
2020	Nick Chang
2021	Paradoxxxical

Best Monster Performance

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019
2020	MAHO Cody
2021

Best Live Streamed Performance

Year	1st place	2nd place	3rd place
2019
2020	Tundra Flame
2021	Project Flawesome