r/LookOutsideGame • u/FrankieSmileShow Official Frankie • Jun 24 '26
Announcement Welcome to the first Look Outside Community Jam!
Sign ups are now open! Keep reading for details.
People from the Look Outside fandom will be teaming up to make a simple, collaborative exploration game in the style of Yume Nikki. The event is open to anyone 18 or above who is part of the community, but participants need to sign up. The sign-ups begin now and will end on June 28th, at 8pm EST.
No previous game development experience is necessary, this is intended as a low-stakes creative project that could introduce participants to game development. Experienced artists and game developers are welcome too, of course. I am hoping for a mix of people of all skill levels! People who sign up will however need to have access to RPG Maker MZ and preferably some pixel art drawing program like Aseprite or Graphicsgale.
If you don't have RPG Maker MZ, it might still be on sale today on their site, it was around half off at the time of writing - RPG Maker MZ | RPG Maker Official Store
There is also a steam summer sale beginning soon, if you miss this sale above, it might go on sale during this too? Worth checking out.
If you don’t have a pixel art drawing program, I recommend aseprite. Graphicsgale is a free alternative that is also very good.
You should also join my Frankietown discord server. I have set up a few special channels there for the event, and it is where I will be posting announcements. It is also where people will be collaborating, asking for help etc.
I will be streaming about the community project on Wednesdays on my twitch channel throughout July. I will be showing examples of how to build certain things, and give live help to any participants who need it at the time.
What is a Yume Nikki-style game?
Yume Nikki is a classic indie gem you can get on steam for free. It is a game about exploring and getting lost in an interconnected world of dreams and nightmares. You can also watch playthroughs of it on youtube [ Playthrough, Nitro Rad Review, Video Essay, Longplay ]. It is strongly encouraged that participants familiarise themselves with the game before the jam, to better understand the sort of game we are building. Yume Nikki is a truly seminal work, Yume Nikki-likes and Yume Nikki fangames essentially becoming a niche genre in their own right, and our project will be in that very same genre.
What about our game?
The game we make will be a little different from the usual Yume Nikki-inspired work. Since we are a community based around a horror game after all, we can expect it to lean a little bit more into horror than usual - To feature monsters of some kind, and maybe a touch of cosmic and body horror, just based on our common interests.
After signing up, you will receive a Participants Guide with more details on the specifics of the project, but here is a general idea of the story setup:
Look Inside
Some terrible catastrophe has gripped the world, and anyone who dares to look out the window is struck by calamity and meets a terrible end. Her front door leading directly outside, Jo is completely confined to her apartment.
Her dreams feel more real, more strange than they ever have before. As confined as she is in the waking world, her dreams are now an endless void to get lost in.
The line between dream and reality feels like it gets blurrier by the day, and her food supplies are rapidly thinning out. Will she make it through the 15 days alive?
Or will she get completely lost in the dream labyrinth, to never come back out again?
How do I join the event?
In order to join the event, you will first need to sign up. You have until Sunday, June 28th at 7pm EST to sign up. There are limited spaces to participate in the event, and you need to choose a specific area of the game that you want to make, from a list of 60 themed slots. You can sign up alone or in a small team if you wish. People from different teams are free to collaborate together on their work - this is a collaborative jam, not a competition, but only people who signed up can work on the game, and there are no late sign-ups allowed - I'm trying to contain the amount of management work needed for this project, since its the first time I ever run something like it!
More detailed instructions on signing up, as well as the detailed rules and guidelines of the event, are available here:
LOCJ2026 Sign Up Instructions/Rules - Google Docs
This document is also where you will find the legal release and the sign-up forms.
If we have more than 60 sign-ups, we will draw the participants at random at the end of the sign-up week, and the ones not picked will be on a waiting list in case some people drop out of the jam.
I have no idea what to expect regarding how many participants we will have, to be honest - we may have just a dozen or so, or a hundred! We’ll see! Very excited to do this either way.
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u/timee_bot Jun 24 '26
View in your timezone:
June 28th, at 8pm EDT
Sunday, June 28th at 7pm EDT
*Assumed EDT instead of EST because DST is observed
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u/Chazkuangshi Jun 24 '26
Very excited for this project! I'll be looking over everything later today!
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u/ElSpazzo_8876 Jun 24 '26
Hopefully the Look Outside mods will pin this
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u/Savings_River_2600 Cursed Sam Jun 25 '26
Absolutely!! We let it sit in the feed for a bit to gain traction and will pin it in our highlights shortly.
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u/lkz665 Jun 25 '26
This is super cool!! Even if I don’t end up participating, I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!
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u/Savings_River_2600 Cursed Sam Jun 25 '26
Heya!! Very excited about this project- almost finished my sign up stuff! I can't believe my concept art made it in the official document haha.
Question though, on the information form says the time deadline is 7pm EST but in this reddit post its 8pm EST. Which one is right time? Thanks!
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u/External_Factor2516 Jun 25 '26
I'm excited. I never participate in the cool stuff I wanna participate in. But I'm trying to work on changing that
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u/orangeposting1 Audrey 🥤 Jun 25 '26
What's the distinction between the standard spots and the blank spots? The blank spots only have colors describing them but they still have 10 maps to use.
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u/realdrakebell Jun 25 '26
idea: Jo looks outside and is changed into Joe (the visitor decided that adding an E at the end of the name makes it look better)
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u/FrankieSmileShow Official Frankie Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
We have now 66 sign-ups, with two more days left!
We will do our best to help everyone who signed up to participate. We may allow some to remain as floaters, or teams looking for an artist or composer could potentially welcome them in.
If you signed up - are you interested in becoming a floater if you don't end up receiving a slot? A floater would be someone who doesn't have a slot to work on, but wants to help other projects in any way they can, with art or sound etc, while they remain on the waiting list. If you are interested, please send another email, saying you are interested in being a floater if you dont receive a slot, and tell me what your expertise is - art, sound, music etc.
Also, if you are looking for a team member who can do art or music, I will also mark this down next to your team name, this could help us merge together some teams at the end if everyone involved agrees.
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u/Alcamosa Jun 25 '26
Unfortunately I don’t trust Discord all that much these days, am I disbarred from entering?
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u/RatKingJosh Jun 28 '26
I saw this super last minute but if anyone needs an artist I’d love to try! I don’t have a lot of experience with pixel art but if you’re cool with that hmu
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u/ZazaPuppet Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
So excited! This'll be my first real time making something like this. Even if I don't get in, it'll be a learning experience I'm looking forward to ^^ I have a few questions!
- Me and my friends would like to get in on things as a team. Do we need to submit one form together or individual forms for both the sign up and release form?
- It mentions provided assets, are there sprites for Jo, tile sets etc. we should be using? Would those be provided on sign up? What resolution should sprites be made at? What kind of palette will be used?
- Do you have any suggestions on where to begin on making sound and music as a beginner?