Creating a game jam on itch.io is a simple, ad-hoc way to get together a bunch of people to create games with a similar cause. If you’ve ever wanted to organize discussion or a community around your jam you would have had to find another site to do it. Starting today anyone creating a jam can now instantly attach a community to their jam.

This community functionality is the first of many community tools that will be making an appearance on other parts of itch.io in the near future.

Creating a community

In order to enable your message board on a jam just head to the Edit jam page and find the community options:

Once enabled, you’ll find a new community tab on the jam’s navigation:

Community tools

itch.io’s community tools are designed for flexibility. Everything necessary for management and moderation come standard. Every community comes with the following panel for community moderators:

As the owner of your community you’re in charge of how things are run. Enlist moderators and set some rules, or keep things relaxed and see what kind of discussion happens.

Communities on itch.io

Communities on itch.io work like any other message board you’ve used. Create a topic to start a discussion about something in particular. Anyone can join in by replying with a new post. When posting, you can either reply to someone in particular or reply to the thread in general.

itch.io’s notification system is tied directly into communities to ensure that you don’t miss any posts that might be directed at you.

Look forward to communities making their appearance on other parts of the site in the coming month.

Enjoy!