The Friday Night Fright Jam1200×675 46.6 KB

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Join Here:** https://itch.io/jam/the-friday-night-fright-jam

Now Announcing: The Friday Night Fright Jam

Hi! I’m Glitc5. I run a weekly Twitch and YouTube show called Friday Night Junkin’ where I dig through newly released horror games on Itch.io looking for hidden gems. Every Friday night at 7:30 PM EST, I play through as many new horror releases as I can, giving honest feedback along the way. No filter, but no cruelty either.

Now I want to flip the script. Instead of hunting for games, I want you to bring them to me.

Make a short horror game. Submit it here. I will play every single submission live on stream and give you real, honest, and actionable feedback.

Not a generic “nice job!”, that would waste all of our time. I’m talking about what worked, what didn’t, what scared me, what pulled me out of it, and what I’d want to see more of. Player-to-developer, face to face (well, mic to screen).

The best submission wins $75 and a dedicated spotlight in a YouTube video.

Da Rules

1. It has to be a horror game. That’s the genre. Psychological horror, survival horror, cosmic horror, body horror, found footage, analog horror, walking sims (with substance), that’s all fair game. It doesn’t need to be the scariest thing ever made. It just needs to try.

2. Keep it under 15 minutes. Your game should be completable in roughly 15 minutes or less. This isn’t about scope. It’s about impact. Some of the most effective horror games on this platform are under 10 minutes. Make every second count.

3. No AI-generated assets! No AI art, no AI music, no AI writing. Your work should be yours. Use whatever engine you want, use free assets if you need to, just make sure a human made them. If you use AI in any capacity, don’t submit.

4. Your game must be made during the jam period. You can plan, sketch, write design docs, and gather assets beforehand, but the actual development should happen between February 15 and March 27, 2026.

5. Any engine, any style. Unity, Unreal, Godot, RPG Maker, GameMaker, Ren’Py, hand-coded HTML if you’re insane. 2D, 3D, text-based, point-and-click. No restrictions on tools or style. Just make it horror and make it yours.

6. Solo devs and teams are both welcome. No team size restrictions. Work alone or with friends.

7. Tag your content appropriately. If your game contains intense gore, flashing lights, loud audio, or other potentially triggering content, tag it and include content warnings on your game page. Take care of your players.

The Timeline

Submissions Open: February 15, 2026

Submissions Close: March 27, 2026

The Live Playthrough: March 27, 2026 — Friday Night Junkin’ @ 7:30 PM EST

The final Friday Night Junkin’ episode of March is dedicated entirely to this jam. Every submission gets played live on Twitch and YouTube. You made it, I’m playing it, and we’re doing this in front of whoever shows up.

Rating Period: After the stream, submitters can rate each other’s entries during the voting window.

The Prize

1st Place: $75 cash + a dedicated YouTube video on my channel

But let me be clear about what that YouTube video means.

I’m not going to promote anything without substance. If your game wins, I’m digging into it. I’m replaying it. I’m poking around in the files. I’m looking at what you hid, what you implied, what you left for someone paying attention to find.

The winning game needs to give me something to talk about. Scare me. Unsettle me. Tell me a story that lingers after I close the window. Hide things. I don’t care what it is, but I love obsessing over puzzles.

Every submission gets played live on the March 27th Friday Night Junkin’ episode with honest feedback. That’s not a consolation prize. For a lot of devs, getting a real human reaction and thoughtful critique on your game is worth more than money. I take this seriously.

Judging

This is a mixed judging jam. Submitters can rate each other’s entries during the rating period, but final rankings are determined by me. I’m looking at:

• Atmosphere — Did it pull me in? Did I feel something? Was there a moment where I forgot I was streaming?

• Originality — Is this doing something I haven’t seen, or doing something familiar in a way that made me lean forward?

• Execution — Does it work? Is it polished enough that the horror lands instead of getting undercut?

• Depth — Is there more here than what’s on the surface? Did you hide something? Is there a reason to replay it, to dig through the files, to look closer? The games that haunt me aren’t the ones with the loudest jumpscares. They’re the ones that make me feel like I missed something.

• Impact — Did it stick with me after I closed it?

I’m not expecting AAA production value. I play Itch.io horror every week. I know what a solo dev can do in six weeks. What I’m looking for is intent, effort, and something that makes me want to take the game apart to understand how it got under my skin.

Who Am I?

I’m Glitc5. I stream on Twitch and upload to YouTube. Every Friday night is Friday Night Junkin’, a show where I play through newly released horror games on Itch.io. Every Monday is One Shot Monday, a focused, single-game deep dive.

I’ve been doing this because I genuinely believe the best horror being made right now is happening on Itch.io, by people with almost no audience.

I want to find that stuff, play it, talk about it, and help the people making it get seen.

This jam is an extension of that. Make something. I’ll play it. Let’s see what you’ve got.

Links

• Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/glitc5

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Glitc5ed

• Newgrounds: https://glitc5.newgrounds.com/