Indie game developers of all stripes are in the thick of the third annual Asylum Jam, a 48-hour event with a very specific purpose in mind, other than scaring the bejesus out of its spectators and fans.
Asylum Jam tasks individuals and teams to create horror games without resorting to negative stereotypes about mental illness. Seems like a pretty straightforward idea, but think of how many — indeed, how many popular — horror games exploit mental illness as the baseline for their experiences. Now, I have to admit here that I’m a fan of even those types of games, as well, but just like with zombies, it’s extremely important for horror games to grow and expand to include a wide range of topics and ideas, so Asylum Jam is a welcome addition.
If nothing else, it promotes the diversity of horror experiences and tasks devs with pushing the boundaries of what can be accepted as horror. The only major requirement to be part of Asylum Jam goes as follows (from the Tumblr blog):
You should not use asylums, psychiatric institutes, medical professionals or violent/antipathic/’insane’ patients as settings or triggers. This jam is to show that you can still create a great horror experience without using inaccurate stereotypes of those who suffer from mental illness, or the institutions that support them in diagnosis and recovery.
Looking for a sample of what past years’ jams had to offer? You can play both the inaugural year’s games, as well as those from 2014 on the official site. The 2015 selections are obviously not ready for consumption yet.
Individuals and teams must be members of Game Jolt, but otherwise, the competition appears to be open to anyone interested in making a mental-health-positive experience. One of the best aspects of being privy to this jam is that most, if not all, of the games are completely free.
Several dozen games are expected to come out of this year’s jam, which should be extremely exciting for horror fans. The event ends on November 9, 2015.
