12.2a — Placeholder Jam: Day 1 (topic TBA)
The schedule holds two days for a jam whose topic is announced by your teacher — a placeholder for whatever the season needs: a jam, a portfolio day, a guest, or the year's loose ends. The contract below is real for EITHER topic-on-time or a flex day — the skills are the same: pick up a constraint fast, and ship.
When the topic IS announced, run the full kickoff ritual, compressed to one class:
- Pitch (15 min): the 10.1a pitch card, written FAST — you have done three of these; the sentence shapes are muscle memory now: "a ___ where the constraint is ___"
- Teams (5 min): 1–3, everyone codes, same rules as every jam
- Core loop (30 min): the 10.1b day-one contract — verbs working end to end, ugly and playable, one lose state. You know this road. Walk it faster than September-you could have believed.
One-day topics deserve one-day scope: ONE verb, ONE system, ONE moment. The best one-day jam games are a single good sentence executed exactly.
When the day becomes flex, the portfolio wins. Pick from the flex menu (or propose your own to the teacher):
- Portfolio day: your projects page wants a real entry for each jam: screenshot, one-paragraph pitch, the retro's best sentence, a play link if you built one (10.1e builds can go on itch.io — free hosting, real audience)
- Unfinished business: the one jam game that deserved polish it never got. One hour, three 10-minute items (10.1e rules), tagged and shipped
- The pitch you never built: one jam day is exactly enough for a tiny version of the idea that lost the vote in 12.1a or 10.2a — build it for yourself, no showcase, no votes
- Read-ahead: tomorrow (12.2b) closes the YEAR — read its retro questions now and bring answers
Reflect: the menu choice
What did you pick today and why — and if the topic had landed instead, which of your jam skills from 10.1a through 12.1e would you have reached for first?
Checkpoint — before moving on, you must be able to:
- If topic: pitch → team → core loop in one class
- If flex: name what you chose and show the commit
- Either way: leave with something pushed and one thing to hand tomorrow's retro
Reference Docs
Need a deeper explanation? These pages cover the same concepts:
- Unit 12: Season 2 — the flex-day menu
- Projects — the portfolio the flex day serves
Next: 12.2b — Placeholder Jam: Day 2 + Year Retro — the last B day.
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