VIDEO: PENDLETON WARD KICKS OFF THE ADVENTURE TIME GAME JAM

Above, the amazing & ever so slightly Lynch-ian keynote video from Adventure Time creator Pendleton ‘buenothebear‘ Ward, also featuring writer Kent ‘kentisawesome‘ Osborne, and designer Andy ‘skronked‘ Ristaino, which officially signals the start of this weekend’s Fantastic Arcade Game Making Frenzy, where one lucky winner will be given a fruity surprise by Pen himself.

As previously reported, the jam will last 48 hours and will be hosted by B.M.O., the Beautiful Mess Organizer platform created by Brett Chalupa.

We’ve also just announced one last secret rule for all the games to come out of the jam: they must contain an overt or secret appearance of The Snail, a character that’s appeared in pretty much every episode of Adventure Time over the past four seasons, whether you knew it or not.

Several of us will be in and out of Austin’s local Frenzy HQ all weekend, where Vlambeer‘s JW Nijman and Kitty Calis have set up shop next to VVVVVV & Super Hexagon creator Terry Cavanagh, POP: Methodology Experiment 1 creator Rob Lach, and a handful more local developers in a now-disused yoga studio (which has the amazing/essential side benefit of providing a shower [for pit-hygiene]).

Our friends at BOOM! have also graciously supplied us with a fat pack of Adventure Time comics for inspiration, specifically issue #5’s Eleanor Davis variant cover, for awesome reasons that will become clear shortly.

We’ll have even more strange and amazing details about the jam coming in just a few short days, but until then, looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with this weekend! Drop us a note if you’ve got something extra special you think we should see!