This is a replacement for the lost in-progress VGA+Adlib jam. First some additions:

The jam will be ranked, just to make it more interesting, and get some feedback on the entries. Voting period will start when the jam ends, and will last one week. After that week, the results will be announced with rankings per category. Categories are:

• Overall score: in general taking everything into account,how enjoyable is the experience
• Gameplay: how interesting is the gameplay
• Code: how technically impressive the game is (rendering, AI, whatever)
• Graphics: artwork, textures, style, cohesion.
• Audio: sound effects and/or music.

Join us in the "retro coding" discord, to discuss the jam, your plans for it, your progress, to ask questions, or anything else:https://discord.gg/9KPBX2v537 channel #dev-jams.

Original jam description

In the early 1990's it seemed the gold standard for gaming was to use IBM's VGA graphics card standard combined with the immortal Adlib Sound Card and it's compatible cohorts. This is a casual game jam focusing on those halcyon days of shareware arcade games and strange strategy games presented in vibrant 256 colors with rockin' soundtracks. Games can be 16 bit or 32 bit using either 640k memory or more! The video mode chosen must be supported by the VGA card, register black magic is not only allowed but encouraged! FM Music, ambience, or sound effects, the Adlib sound card is intended to be at least the primary device.Digitized sound support is allowed but not mandatory.

The goto video mode is 13h triggered by INT 10h with a base VRAM memory address of 0xA0000, but this is not the only mode allowed. Anything supported by VGA is acceptable, but no VESA modes. That could be a future Game Jam but it's not this one.

Rules

• Must be a DOS compatible .COM or .EXE file that can run on actual hardware. Owing to the limited availability of this hardware in the wild today, submissions can be submitted wrapped with any emulator environment designed around the IBM PC and it's compatibles.
• Must use a video mode available on the original VGA graphics card. Modifications to VGA registers is permitted and even encouraged provided the resulting logic works on actual hardware.
• Games submitted can be in any language.
• Games submitted can be in any stage of development.
• Games submitted can be listed at any price point (But must submit a free playable version (demo?) for the jam).
• Games must make use of the Adlib sound card (OPL2 or OPL3).
• Include content warnings on the game's page if your game includes any material that could be considered adult or sensitive.
• No AI/LLM generated content permitted. This pertains to both code and art assets.

Resources

• Borland Turbo C++ v3.0 (16 bit compiler) (https://web.archive.org/web/20260326040651/https://archive.org/details/tcc_20210425)
• Open Watcom multi platform 32 bit compiler (https://web.archive.org/web/20260326040651/https://openwatcom.org/)
• OSDev.org - VGA Hardware (https://web.archive.org/web/20260326040651/https://wiki.osdev.org/VGA_Hardware)
• The DOS Programming Guide - Adlib Sound (https://web.archive.org/web/20260326040651/https://thelobdegg.neocities.org/guide/Chapter4/4_adlib)
• Reality Adlib Tracker (https://web.archive.org/web/20260326040651/https://www.3eality.com/productions/reality-adlib-tracker)