Snesdev 2025 game jam to promote new Super Nintendo games development

Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension

A brand new game jam called "SNESDEV 2025" is set to kick off later this month, encouraging game developers to take part and play a role in advancing SNES homebrew.

The jam, which is being organized by Kannagichan, Svambo, and SNES-Testberichte, will begin on May 31st and will last until September 6th. Entry is still available, with participants being able to enter alone or in a group.

According to the itch.io page for the upcoming jam, there isn't a specific theme but there are a few different rules that people are expected. Games, for instance, should be able to fit inside 256 KB (LOROM), must run on real hardware (NTSC only), and won't be allowed to take advantage of any expansion chips (SA-1, Super FX, etc).

The reason for this is that the organizers intend to build multi-cartridges with all the entries on them and send them to the participants of the Gamejam as a prize, as well as sell a few copies (max. 20) on eBay to recover the costs of the event.

All entries submitted to the event will be judged on four criteria, which will be broken up into gameplay, hardware, sound, and graphics. As expected, those judging will also be banned from entering.

When it comes to the world of homebrew video game development, the Super Nintendo is usually left behind in comparison to its 16-bit rival, the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis.

Online there are often several different reasons given for why this is, with one of the major ones that is often repeated by developers being that the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis is just a more welcoming system to develop for, thanks to having a bunch of easy off-the-shelf tools like Stephane K's SGDK (Sega Genesis development kit) and an active community on hand to provide feedback in case anything goes astray.

The organizers, therefore, hope that by encouraging more people to try and create games for the Super Nintendo annually through this new game jam, we may eventually see more progress start to be made in the space. We'll be keeping an eye on the event, and look forward to seeing this year's entries.