Otome Jam is an annual game jam held on itch.io hosted by Crystal Game Works and Akua Kourin that’s focused on making otome games. Otome Jam runs every year from May 1st to June 30th, giving participants 2 months to make new otome games or finish old otome games they started making.
What is an otome?
Otome or Otome Games specifically refer to games created for a female audience where the female identifying player character pursues male identifying love interests (via routes or events) and opts for a romantic ending with the chosen character. Otomes are often Visual Novels or VN-Hybrids such as RPGs and simulation games.
The key parts include:
- Female Protagonist (protagonist can be chooseable but a fem or fem representing option must be available)
- Romance (You have to end up romantically with one of the characters in some way)
- Male Love Interest(s) (Female, nonbinary, and other ones optional but not necessarily included, the focus is still a masc representing love interest)
Our definition of “otome” includes games that have non-male love interests and chooseable gender protagonists.
Why Otome Jam?
While we weren’t the original creators of the jam, we’ve continued it on to celebrate otome games. The purpose of Otome Jam is to encourage new and experienced visual novel developers to make more otome games. By entering, we hope participants will:
- Create & finish new indie otome games
- Gain experience and hone their craft
- Make friends and potentially new work partners
Previous runs of Otome Jam include:
What is Josei Jam?
Josei Jam is a sister jam to Otome Jam, running concurrently with it. Whereas Otome Jam is focused on female x male romances, Josei Jam allows for a wider range of female-oriented visual novels, including other types of romances like boys love and girls love as well as non-romance games.
It has the same basic rule set as Otome Jam as well as the same time limit.
Previous runs of Josei Jam include:
Where can I get updates and join?
We currently have updates through Discord. You can join the host server here.