![Jupiter Hadley](/img/judges/2024/jupiter_hadley.png)
Jupiter Hadley
YouTuber & writer of Indie Games, lover of Game Jams, Co-host of IndieGameJams.com. Aiming to be the Queen of Indie Games. Also enjoys going outside from time to time and taking pictures.
js13kGames is a JavaScript coding competition for Web Game Developers running yearly since 2012. The fun part of the compo is the file size limit set to 13 kilobytes. The competition will start at 13:00 CEST, 13th August and end at 13:00 CEST, 13th September 2024. Theme will be announced on August 13th.
Read GitHub's tips and tricks article, check the Resources for tools, read the Blog,
buy swag at the Shop, and subscribe to the Newsletter - good luck and have fun!
Interested in some history? Check out the editions from previous years:
2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.
The competition is organized by Andrzej Mazur from Enclave Games.
I'm running this competition on my own
in my free time. I usually acquire prizes worth more than 30.000 USD and send special js13kGames t-shirts to top participants for free. With gadgets and stickers, every single year, with free shipping.
To help me keep it all going you can send a few bucks via the PayPal button below, thank you!
To be announced.
Share the love for web games and support the js13kGames competition!
See the Contact section for more details on how to get in touch.
YouTuber & writer of Indie Games, lover of Game Jams, Co-host of IndieGameJams.com. Aiming to be the Queen of Indie Games. Also enjoys going outside from time to time and taking pictures.
Professional game jammer with credits on over 150 games. Creator of many songs and a few books, as well as One Game A Month. Gamedev-in-residence at HomeTeam GameDev and dot big bang.
Richard is the founder and CTO of Phaser Studio Inc, the team behind the Phaser game framework and Phaser Editor. An avid gamer since the 1980s, he loves seeing how creative devs can become when forced into limitations such as 13KB.
Product Owner and Board Member of the Defold Foundation, overseeing development of the free and source available Defold game engine. Co-founder of Refold. Worked with mobile game development since before the smart phones. Enjoys old school games and traditional roguelikes. Strong believer in the power of open source development with more than 150 open source projects on GitHub.
CTO at GDevelop, creating the tools that will lower the entry to game creation and make it accessible to anyone. Passionate about improving the place and the image of video games in our world.
Joep leads the game developer operations team at Poki, the global market lead on web. Poki is on a mission to create the ultimate online playground: a place where players and game developers come together to play and create. Together with a growing 300+ game developer community, they're creating the new standard for web games. Interested in getting your creation out to millions of players or reading up on the latest web tech? developers.poki.com
Paul is CTO ⁄ Co-Founder of OP Games, focused on helping game developers successfully create decentralized games. He also leads the KERNEL Gaming Guild, a fellowship of the most talented builders in Web 3. He loves exploring the intersection of new technologies with game design, and believes that decentralization and shared virtual economies will revolutionize how we play games.
Victor is a software engineer passionate about design and the user experience. He thinks games are the ultimate user experience. Given that, they require feedback and early exposure, which is the best gift judges can provide to JS13kGames participants and what he's here to do!
To be announced.
To be announced.
js13k 2024 swag: ten original floppy disks with all js13kGames 2014 entries.
js13k 2024 swag: thirteen medals originally given to the 2023 winners.
js13k 2024 swag: twenty original VR cardboards from 2017.
js13k 2024 swag: forty original CDs with all js13kGames 2018 entries.
js13k 2024 swag: seventy original keychains from 2021.
js13k 2024 swag: one hundred original magnets and bottle openers from 2019.
js13k 2024 swag: one hundred original metal pens from 2020.
js13k 2024 swag: one hundred original coasters from 2022.
js13k 2024 swag: one hundred original metal pins from 2023.
js13k 2024 swag: one hundred original material patches from 2023.
js13k 2024 swag: one hundred new hologram stickers.
Five CosmoPirates game licenses, a comedy sci-fi roguelike deck builder, made by BlackMoon Design.
Five Phaser subscriptions: two Professional licenses and three Developer licenses for 12 months each.
Thirteen GitHub Copilot licenses for individuals for 12 months each.
Ten copies of Vampire Survivors bundle: a game by Poncle along with all four DLCs each available on Steam.
Twenty Jump Tracks licenses, a game based on 2018's js13k entry Off The Line by Bryan Perfetto.
Ten copies of Pyxel Edit pixel art editor by Daniel Kvarfordt.
Thirteen CSSBattle Plus accounts for 6 months each.
Thirteen Web Maker Pro accounts for 6 months each.
Ten PlayCanvas Personal plans for 12 months each.
Two Personal licenses of Construct 3 game engine for 12 months each.
Seven GDevelop Pro licenses - a no-code, easy game-making app.
Five Aseprite animated sprite editor and pixel art tool licenses by David Capello.
Five copies of How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself eBook by Matt Hackett.
Ten The Test of Insanity game licenses by Big Nuts on Steam.
Three Jsfxr Pro Solo lifetime license by Chris McCormick.
Three CodePen Pro Starter accounts for 12 months each.
To be announced.
To be announced.
There are four different categories, you can submit your game to any of them - it's up to you.
Full power of the hardware.
Handheld touch devices.
Virtual reality.
Incomplete creations.
There's a blog post about the Unfinished one which is a special category
for submitting incomplete, bugged, or oversized entries so they won't be judged.
All your code and game assets should be smaller than or equal to 13 kilobytes (that's exactly 13,312 bytes, because of 13 x 1024) when zipped. Your .zip package should contain index.html file in the top level folder structure (not a subfolder) and when unzipped should work in the browser. Don't overcomplicate building the zip package, it should unpack on any platform without problems. You can use tools that minify JavaScript source code.
The competition is focusing on the package size, but learning from others is also very important. Please provide two sources of your game - first one should be minified and zipped to fit in the 13 kB limit (sent via the form) and the second one should be in a readable form with descriptive variable names and comments (hosted on GitHub).
You can't use any libraries, images or data files hosted on server or services that provide any type of data - for example Google Fonts are not permitted (although you are allowed to ask users to live-load a web font to support some characters or emoji on devices that can't display them properly, but you have to make sure your game will work without them). Analytics and other stat-collecting scripts are also not allowed. All the game assets should fit in the package size limit (the A-Frame, Babylon.js, and Three.js frameworks are not counted towards the size limit, but you can use them only in the WebXR category). If you manage to shrink your favorite library below 13 kilobytes including the code itself, then you can use whatever you want, just remember about the 13 kB limit.
Main theme for the competition is announced on August 13th. It's highly advised to follow it in your game, because the judges will pay attention to that, but you can freely interpret the theme and implement it however you feel would be the best.
The competition starts at 13:00 CEST, 13th August 2024 and ends at 13:00 CEST, 13th September 2024. No submissions will be accepted after the end of the competition, although there may be exceptions to that.
You have to have the rights for every asset used in your game. Remember that the submitted games will be published and made available for everybody to see. On the other hand, you have the right to report any game publisher that will link to (or iframe) your entry on their portal without your permission.
Do not submit any old games or demos - you have a whole month to work on something new and fresh, this should be more than enough. Also, submitting Breakout or Flappy Bird clones taken out of a tutorial make no sense at all - try creating something at least a little bit more original. You can, however, use any available libraries and resources that are not yours, but you have the right to use them.
Your game must work and be playable in at least two browsers: latest Firefox and Chrome, but the more supported browsers, the better. There should be no errors - you can lose some points if your game is showing any errors in the console. Don't stress too much if there are any warnings, but if we cannot play your game, then it won't be accepted.
It doesn't matter if you're working alone or with your friends, just remember that the number of prizes is fixed, so you'll have to share your trophies with your teammates.
There's a special form to submit your game. Please remember that you have to provide two sources (see the Rule #2 for details) - a link to a public repository on Github and a zipped package. Participants are allowed to submit more than one game in the competition, though sending the same game as independent submissions targeting different platforms (for example separate builds for desktop and mobile) is forbidden.
Submissions will be checked manually and published after positive verification. This may take up to a couple of days, so be patient if your game is not yet online. I claim the right to reject any submission without giving a reason, although I hope I don't have to. I also have the right to update the rules of the competition at any time.
The voting among the participants will last for three weeks between September 15th and October 4th, winners will be announced on October 5th. Experts will give the games constructive feedback (one per game) during the same three week period - their comments will also be published on October 5th.
Remember to add prefix to your variables and create a namespace for your game when you save data to localStorage
as all the games on the server share the same memory when played in the browser. Also, be sure to NOT use localStorage.clear()
as it will wipe out all the data of all the other games. Manipulate the data you are sure is yours.
All the Server category rules, the sandbox server and the demo code can be found at github.com/js13kGames/js13kserver.
All participants and judges at js13kGames are required to agree with the following code of conduct. Organizers will enforce this code throughout the online event. We are expecting cooperation from all participants to help ensuring a safe environment for everybody.
js13kGames is dedicated to providing a harassment-free competition experience for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of competition participants in any form. Competition participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the competition at the discretion of the competition organizers. TL;DR: Be excellent to each other. For more details see Berlin Code of Conduct.
The following terms apply to participation in this competition ("Competition"). Entrants may create original solutions, prototypes, datasets, scripts, or other content, materials, discoveries or inventions (a “Submission”). The Competition is organized by the Competition Organizer. Entrants retain ownership of all intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) in and to Submissions.
As a condition of submission, Entrant grants the Competition Organizer, its subsidiaries, agents and partner companies, a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish, distribute, publicly perform, create a derivative work from, and publicly display the Submission.
Entrants provide submissions on an "as is" basis, without warranties or conditions of any kind, either express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of title, non-infringement, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose.
By entering your email address and sending a game through the submit form you agree to receive email communication about important events of the competition like announcing the winners or sending out the digital prizes, but also curated content from the partners about their tools, services, or job offers. I will never share your email with anyone though.
By submitting, you also grant the competition organizers the right to re-use the uploaded materials for advertisement of the competition in any form.
If You have any questions or propositions please feel free to contact us via e-mail: contact@js13kgames.com.
The other options include visiting our profiles on Twitter or Facebook,
or joining our Slack channel and sending end3r a private message.