Week Sauce Game Jam

Why another game jam?

Although there are many great game jams out there, sometimes it is difficult for people to try them out because of…

The fixed schedule: What if you are unavailable on those specific dates?
The speed: What if you don’t have the skills to complete a full game in just a couple days? What if you just don’t like rushing?
The time availability: With jobs, families, and other commitments getting in the way, who can afford several uninterrupted days in a row to focus on a game jam?
The stress: Many jams are also competitions. What if being judged stresses you out? If it is supposed to be a fun way to practice and experiment, why do so many feel like crunch time, and high expectations?
Other extraneous requirements: What if you don’t want to share your code, or your platform of choice is not accepted?

We created Week Sauce for the people who want an easy, laid-back way to practice making games, get better at their craft, break out of a rut or a creative block, and try new things without fear.

How does it work?

There are no set dates. You can start any day you want.
You have 7 days to finish your game. You don’t need to work on it 7 consecutive days, although having a few together, especially at the beginning, usually helps. Spend as much or as little time each day as you can afford.
Use any tools, libraries, engines, or programming languages, and build for any platform you prefer. You can reuse code, buy assets instead of creating them, work alone or with others. The jam is not limited to digital games—board games, card games, role-playing games, and anything else you consider a game all count.
After working on it for 7 days, it is done! Let’s be clear, you probably didn’t have time to make everything you wanted, or get it super polished. Maybe it’s missing sound, or enemies, or a menu screen with a fancy logo, or even win and lose conditions. Maybe you look at it and it feels more like a quirky experiment than a full game. It doesn’t matter, it still counts!
So go ahead and publish whatever you have! A simple way is to use itch.io, but you can upload it to your own website or any storefront, for free or as a paid download. We think publishing is an important part of the experience, but since going through the approval process and making the assets for your publishing method of choice takes time, the 7 days deadline only applies to making the game, not publishing it.
Share it on social media using the hashtag #WeekSauce so other participants can find and discuss your creations. You can also follow @WeekSauce on Mastodon, or @WeekSauceGames on Twitter to check what others are up to. If you publish on itch.io, you can join the monthly jam there to view everybody's submissions. And if you just want to chat with other participants in a very low-key Discord server, we have one of those too.
Repeat! Try not to work on the same thing twice in a row. Avoid “finishing” work from a previous entry—it’s already finished, move on! Participate at your convenience throughout the year. You may want to set a loose goal, like doing it once a month, but don’t fret if you have to skip some. The whole point is to do it often enough to feel positive about completing and sharing your work, improving your skills, and exploring many different types of projects.

Discord and itch.io

Although doing the jam on your own is completely acceptable, you may want to join our communities in both itch.io and Discord.

itch.io provides a place to submit your games regardless of platform, play each other’s submissions, join the jam on a month by month basis following the announced theme, connect with other itch creators, and charge for your finished games.

You can join our latest itch.io Week Sauce jam here:

Join on itch.io

Our Discord server is the best place to talk about your project, get help while developing it, find collaborators, vote on next month’s theme, receive announcements from the organizers, and hang out with others participating in the jam. Posting about your progress every day you work on your game is also a great way to keep yourself accountable and finish before the deadline. If you need support, whether technical or moral, our Discord is the place to be.

You can join our Discord server here:

What were the themes of previous months?

February 2026:: Groundhog Day (& Other Superstitions) [itch.io]
January 2026:: Make a Game That Reacts to the Real World [itch.io]
December 2025:: Start At The End [itch.io]
November 2025:: Malfunctioning [itch.io]
October 2025:: Masks Have Power [itch.io]
September 2025:: You Are The Environment [itch.io]
August 2025:: Make a Game Based on a 1980s Hit Song [itch.io]
July 2025:: Tree of Life [itch.io]
June 2025:: Pocket-Sized [itch.io]
May 2025:: The Rules Keep Changing [itch.io]
April 2025:: The Illusion of Choice [itch.io]
March 2025:: 1 Minute [itch.io]
February 2025:: Resistance! [itch.io]
January 2025:: Make A Game That Blends 2 Genres With 10 Or Less Entries On Steam [itch.io]
December 2024:: Wait, Are We The Bad Guys? / Running Out Of Space [itch.io]
November 2024:: Shapeshift / Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem [itch.io]
October 2024:: Collecting Frights / We Have A Breach! [itch.io]
September 2024:: It's Like (?) But With (?) [itch.io]
August 2024:: Time Travel / Harvest [itch.io]
July 2024:: Rulebook for the Recently Deceased / Return to Base [itch.io]
June 2024:: Puppet Master [itch.io]
May 2024:: Drones, Not Evil After All! [itch.io]
April 2024:: Chain Reaction [itch.io]
March 2024:: Make a Game with 0x72's Dungeon Tileset Assets [itch.io]
February 2024:: Remake a “Terrible” Minigame [itch.io]
January 2024:: One Tool, Many Uses [itch.io]
December 2023:: Give an Ill-Fitting Game or Game Genre the Winter Holiday Treatment / Inconvenient Power [itch.io]
November 2023:: Underwater [itch.io]
October 2023:: Grab an Item From Your Personal Todo List and Make It the Goal of Your Game [itch.io]
September 2023:: Aetherial Realms [itch.io]
August 2023:: Creature Companions [itch.io]
July 2023:: Disco! / Too Heavy [itch.io]
June 2023:: Make a Game Where Color is a Core Mechanic [itch.io]
May 2023:: Cosmic Wonders [itch.io]
April 2023:: Trapped [itch.io]
March 2023:: The Dark Side [itch.io]
February 2023:: Where in the World is…? [itch.io]
January 2023:: Boss Fight: the Musical. [itch.io]
December 2022:: Make a Game Based on a Favorite Gift You Received as a Child / Finish One of the Games You Started This Year. [itch.io]
November 2022:: A Storm is Coming. [itch.io]
October 2022:: Hexes! [itch.io]
September 2022:: Explain a movie you like badly in a sentence or two, base your game on that (#ExplainAMoviePlotBadly). [itch.io]
August 2022:: Fin & Claw. [itch.io]
July 2022:: Pick a favorite book, make a game based on a specific chapter of that book.
June 2022:: Choose a place you have lived in. The theme of your game is something that place is known for. [itch.io]
May 2022:: Imagine a game you love is the sequel to an earlier, previously unknown, but recently rediscovered game. Make that game. [itch.io]
April 2022:: Pick a musical group you like & turn their name into the theme of your game. [itch.io]
March 2022:: Renewable Energy [itch.io]
February 2022:: Under Cover [itch.io]
January 2022:: Remake [itch.io]