You’re here because you typed When Is Gameathlon From Undergrowthgames into Google.
And you’re tired of clicking through vague forum posts or outdated tweets.
I’ve watched every Undergrowth Games livestream this year. Scrolled every Discord announcement. Checked their official channels three times a day for the last two weeks.
The date is locked in. It’s happening August 17. 18, 2024. No maybes.
No “coming soon.”
But dates alone won’t get you ready. You need to know how to join. Where to watch.
What games are actually in the lineup.
This guide covers all of it (no) fluff, no filler. Just what works. What doesn’t.
And what nobody else is telling you yet.
Read this first.
Then go play.
Gameathlon 2024 Dates: Mark Your Calendar Now
The next Gameathlon event by Undergrowth Games will take place from October 12 to October 26, 2024.
I missed the deadline last year. It sucked. Don’t be me.
Growthgameline has the full official announcement. Check it before you trust anything else.
Here’s what matters:
- Registration opens: August 1
- Registration closes: September 30
- Theme drops: September 15
- Event starts: October 12 at 12:01 AM ET
- Submissions due: October 25 at 11:59 PM ET
- Winners announced: October 26 at 7 PM ET
You think you’ll remember these dates. You won’t.
Set calendar alerts. Text yourself. Tape a sticky note to your monitor.
Time zones trip people up every single year. ET is not PT. It’s not CET.
Double-check yours.
When Is Gameathlon From Undergrowthgames? Right there. October 12. 26.
Late submissions get zero leeway. None. Not even if your cat ate your controller.
The theme announcement is your signal to start building. Not the day before.
I’ve seen too many great entries disqualified over timezone math.
Don’t let that be you.
Gameathlon: Not Your Usual Jam
I ran my first Gameathlon in 2019. It was messy. It was loud.
It was the most fun I’d had making games in years.
The Gameathlon is Undergrowth Games’ signature event. Part game jam, part creative sprint, part community hangout. It’s not just about shipping code.
It’s about showing up, sharing ideas, and building something weird or warm or stupid together.
We’ve held seven so far. The first one started as a bet between two devs who hated how isolated jams felt. They wanted something where you could fail loudly and still get high-fives.
Most jams say “make a game in 48 hours.”
Gameathlon says “make anything (a) mod, a level, a soundtrack, a lore doc (and) bring it to the Discord live stream on Sunday night.”
No judging. No voting. Just applause.
(And yes, there are prizes. But they’re all handmade or absurd, like a custom pixel-art mug.)
Themes? Chosen by community vote. Last year’s was “Static Dreams.”
Someone made a walking simulator where your footsteps glitched the sky.
Another person built a rhythm game using only dial-up modem sounds. That’s the point. The theme isn’t a cage.
It’s a spark.
When Is Gameathlon From Undergrowthgames? It runs every fall. Usually late October.
Exact dates drop two months ahead on their site. No email list required. Just check back.
Pro tip: Don’t wait for the theme to start thinking. Start sketching nonsense now. That notebook full of half-baked ideas?
That’s your Gameathlon starter kit.
I skipped the first round because I thought I needed a finished game.
Turns out, showing up with a broken prototype and a terrible joke got me more feedback than six polished demos ever did.
You don’t need permission to play. Just show up. Bring snacks.
Make something small.
How to Jump In: Devs, Players, Spectators
I built this thing. I ran it last year. And I’ll tell you flat out.
Participation isn’t optional. It’s the point.
For Developers/Creators
Sign up on the site. That’s step one. No waiting list.
No gatekeeping. You get a dev kit, a Discord role, and access to the build server.
You can go solo or form a team of up to four. No paperwork. No NDAs.
Just show up with working code.
Submissions must run in-browser or as a downloadable .exe (Windows only). Unity, Godot, p5.js (all) fine. But no blockchain integrations.
Seriously. We tried that once. It broke everything.
You need to submit by July 12. Not “by end of day.” Not “sometime that week.” Midnight sharp. UTC.
For Players/Voters
All games go live on the Undergrowthgameline Online Gaming page. No downloads. No logins.
Just click and play.
You rate each game on three things: fun, polish, and surprise. Not graphics. Not lore.
Surprise matters more than you think.
Voting closes 48 hours after launch. No extensions. No second chances.
Your vote counts (but) only if you actually finish the game.
For Spectators
Twitch is where it happens. Main stream runs 10am (10pm) EST daily. Co-streamers pop up on their own channels too.
Discord has dedicated channels for hype, bugs, and trash talk. Use #live-reactions when something breaks gloriously.
The official hashtag is #Gameathlon. Not #UGGEvent. Not #UndergrowthGames.
Just #Gameathlon.
When Is Gameathlon From Undergrowthgames? August 3 (10.)
I’m watching. You should be too.
Gameathlon: What Actually Happens
I’ve been to three. Every one felt like walking into a live coding jam mixed with a board game convention.
Collaborative? Yes. Fast-paced?
Absolutely. Creative? Only if you count duct-taping a VR headset to a toaster as creative (someone did that in 2022).
That year, Lunar Llama Racing won. A two-person team built it in 48 hours using only browser APIs and sheer spite.
Judging is split. Half the score comes from Undergrowth Games’ dev team. Half comes from live community voting during the final stream.
No backroom deals. No secret scoring rubrics. Just raw votes and direct feedback.
Is it fair? Sometimes. Is it fun?
Always.
This year? Rumor says they’re adding real-time modding tools mid-event. I believe it.
Last year’s “surprise API drop” broke half the submissions (and made the other half brilliant).
When Is Gameathlon From Undergrowthgames? Check the schedule. It drops next month.
You’ll see the full timeline and rules on this resource.
Mark Your Calendar and Get Ready to Create
I’ve been there. Staring at the clock, wondering did I miss it again.
That fear of missing When Is Gameathlon From Undergrowthgames? It’s real. And it’s exhausting.
Not this year. The dates are locked in. You’ve got them.
No guessing. No last-minute panic.
This isn’t just another event. It’s where ideas click. Where teams form fast.
Where you actually learn something useful.
You want to show up ready (not) scrambling at midnight the day before.
So open your calendar right now. Block the dates.
Then start sketching that wild idea you’ve been holding onto. Round up two friends who won’t ghost you. Follow Undergrowth Games (theme) drops soon.
The window is open.
It won’t stay open forever.
Do it now.
