The Rules

1. You must have the right to use all content submitted; either you hold the copyright or the copyright holder has licensed the content to you for use in a game jam submission. That also means no fangames or parodies of other people's work, and definitely no assets ripped from commercial games.
2. The use of official SEGA tools or software is prohibited - only unofficial technologies such as KallistiOS are allowed.
3. Use of patented technologies such as certain audio/video codecs is prohibited.
4. Anything with adult/NSFW content is prohibited.
5. No content (graphics, code, audio, video or otherwise) generated using AI is permitted unless you have explicit license from the original IP holders to use their data to train an AI in this manner. However, generative AI such as ChatGPT may be used as a tool for inspiration or guidance during the development process.
6. You may submit projects that you started before December 1st 2025 as long as they have never had a prior full release (projects with prior demo releases or work-in-progress builds are permitted).
7. You may submit more than one entry, but only one will be permitted in the top 3 (cash prize).
8. Teams of any size may work together on a submission, although we suggest keeping team size small to minimise complexity.
9. The Submission Integration Requirements section outlined below must be fully adhered to, otherwise your submission will be disqualified. Ask for help if you are unsure.

Submission Integration Requirements

These requirements allow us to include your submission on the physical CD-ROM as painlessly as possible. Please read them carefully and remember to ask for help on the Orc Face Games Discord if you're unsure of anything!

• All files must be provided in a .ZIP archive named "(Project Name) Submission.zip".
• The zip archive must contain a top-level subfolder called "CDROM" and a top-level subfolder called "ARTWORK". If your project uses CDDA audio, it must also contain another top-level subfolder called "CDDA".
• The "CDROM" folder must contain a single folder that is named after your project with no punctuation except for dashes, underscores and spaces. We will call this the project folder.
• The project folder must contain a file called main.bin which is the executable binary file for your project (raw binary, not .ELF).
• Any and all data files read from CD-ROM by your project must be stored inside the project folder (subfolders are allowed). Note that any romdisk files are already included in your main.bin and don't need to be included in the project folder.
• You must load all CD-ROM data files assuming the project folder is present on the CD-ROM filesystem. For example, if your project folder is "red_apple" and your file is "apple_sprite.png", you must read "/cd/red_apple/apple_sprite.png" to access this file (assuming the "/cd/" prefix is how your project accesses the ISO filesystem on the CD-ROM).
• If you use CDDA, you must read a text file called "cdda_track_offset.txt" that contains a single ASCII number of what offset to use when playing any CDDA track. You must add this number as an offset to the track number you would usually provide when playing CDDA audio. This is essential as it allows us to include multiple CDDA projects on the same disc together. You can find sample code for reading and parsing this file on the Orc Face Games Discord's #dream-disc-resources channel.
• When the user holds the START button and the A button together, your project must exit (in KallistiOS this would be a call to arch_exit()). This allows users to go back to the menu. We will provide a notice upon loading the game informing the user of this button combination.
• The ARTWORK folder must contain two images: a 512x512 image called disc.png that contains the artwork that would be visible on the front of a CD for your project, and an image of 512 pixels tall (and any width) called title.png that contains the logo/title for your project.

The Prizes!

Dream Disc '25 CD-ROM

Top 10 submissions chosen by the panel judges will be considered for inclusion on the physical CD-ROM. Submissions with total contents taking up over 70MB cannot be included due to space constraints. If CDDA is used, the submission must be able to read its first track number from a file. We understand that some developers may not want to have their work added to the disc.

Prize Pool

Top 3 submissions by the panel judges will be awarded cash prizes! We started the prize pool with our own donation but others have since contributed. If anyone adds to the prize pool, this page will be updated to reflect this.

1st Place: $0

2nd Place: $0

3rd Place: $0

If you would like to add to the prize pool, head over to our Dream Disc '25 Prize Pool donation page. Note that the current amounts shown on this page have been entered manually and will not auto-update after your donation has been received.

Dream Disc FAQ

What sort of thing can I submit?

Games and software utilities that run on the SEGA Dreamcast or the VMU, tools/apps that run on other platforms but are directly tied to Dreamcast gaming or development, or even Dreamcast-related hardware projects (see below).

Do you have any recommended tools?

Yes! For beginners we would recommend Raylib4DC or AntiRuins. For more advanced users, Simulant Game Engine or directly using KallistiOS are good choices. The SDL3 and GLDC libraries are useful if you're not using an engine but want to make life easier.

Do you accept VMU submissions?

Yes! Although you will need software to load your VMU submission onto the user's VMU from the Dreamcast that they can run from the physical Dream Disc '25 CD-ROM.

I would like to submit a hardware project. How does that work?

Please join the Orc Face Games Discord. Hardware submissions will be reviewed and judged separately in a side-competition by the same panel of judges, assuming there are enough hardware submissions.

Please let us know if you have any other questions and we'll add the answers to this page. Happy jamming!