The GGJ Achievement system could really just as well be called diversifiers. It is a system aimed at diversifying the games as well as providing motivation for experienced game jammers. In a sense, the achievements are a free-for-all voluntary list of secondary constraints, that the individual teams can choose to go for, or not, as they please. If they do go for one or more achievements, they get to tick off those achievements as fulfilled when uploading their game.

As stated above, the achievements are absolutely voluntary, and no points are given for achieving them. If you are a first time team of students, we recommend that you focus primarily on the overall constraint, and only add in extra achievements if you feel sure you will have something to hand in on sunday.

Current List and description of the achievements for 2011

1. Aggregation
The game uses or combines existing web services and online data (e.g. Google Maps, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, airline services, news, stocks, etc.) as part of the gameplay.

2. Automated Development
All game assets (art, sound, levels, etc.) are procedurally generated.

3. Back to School, OLD School
The game must have a screen resolution of exactly 160×144, is restricted to a color palette of four shades of the same color, and the game must be 1 Megabyte or less on disk (incl. executable, all assets and external libraries, unzipped)

4. Based on a True Story
The game must be biographical or documentary.

5. Bits and Pieces
The game has both physical and digital elements.

6. Both Hands Tied Behind My Back
The game is meant to be played without the use of a player’s hands.

7. Breaking the 4th Wall
The game acknowledges itself as a game.

8. Couples Game
The game only makes sense if played together with you and your romantic partner.

9. Do and Undo
The game features a phase of creation and assemblage, followed by a phase of removal of all traces of expended effort.

10. Game for a Cause
The game is about a social or political issue that can be solved solely through increased awareness.

11. One Hit Wonder
The game can only be played once (e.g. per computer, per IP address, etc.).

12. Playing the Music
The game’s duration is matched to that of a song. When the song ends, the game ends. No loops allowed!

13. Mandelbrot
The game features some pattern or aspect that fractally repeats itself at different scales.

14. More Ways Than One
The game can be played both turn-based and realtime simultaneously by different players (sharing the same game state).

15. Picasso Lives
The art of the game is rendered in a Cubist style.

16. Sim Something
The game has no explicit goals (other than any goals the players invent for themselves).

Rules

1. Voluntary. Participants do not have to go for any of the achievements if they wish not to
2. Maximum of 4 Achievements. Even if your game or team fulfills more than 4 achievements, you can only choose a maximum of 4 when uploading the game, so if any, choose the ones that make the most sense and mean the most to you.
3. No Score. There are no virtual or real score granted for fulfilling an achievements, neither is there any prize for it. The achievements only purpose are to separate your game from others on the website. You are not a better game jammer, just because you have taken it upon yourself to fullfill more achievements.
4. Self-Evident. We have tried to make the achievements as self-evident as possible, which means that they can be verified by anyone downloading the game. This is in order to create as little administration from the organizers as possible (ie teams simply just tick off themselves when they upload the game what achievements they have), and to make cheating as difficult as possible (ie anyone who downloads the game can check that they hold true).

Motivation:

The motivation for putting in the achievements are many:

1. There are more and more experienced game jammers joining, and we try to provide extra challenge for them. People are free to add extra challenges themselves, but the achievements are structured and uniform way to provide these challenges.
2. In 2009, there was approximately 370 games available on the GGJ website. In 2010, it was 920. With a just a standard game taxonomy of strategy, platform, puzzle and a platform (windows, mac, etc) it was very hard to get an overview of the games. With at least 168 sites for GGJ 2011 we expect well over 1000 different games, which only makes the problem even worse. Albeit arbitrary we hope the achievements can be a fun and creative way to help separate games and make them stand out.
3. The Achievement system is meant as a motivator and helper for getting particpants to try to think outside their normal scope and move away from their comfort zone.
4. At the Global Game Jam we find it important to practice what we preach, so since a game jam is all about innovation, collaboration and experimentation we find it equally important to try out new things.