Slow Cook is open — a free browser game challenge anyone can enter

Slow Cook is SlowDen's ongoing, no-rush game challenge for browser games. You get a menu of creative prompts, you pick one (or a few), and you build a small game around it. Then you submit it so people can play it.

That's it. It's friendly, it's free to enter, and it's built for browser games — the kind that run in a tab with no download. If you've been looking for a reason to finally make a small game, this is a gentle one.

1. Pick a challenge from the menu — any one you like, or try a few.
2. Build a small browser game for it. You get about a month per round, at your own pace. Any engine, any skill level — Godot, Unity, Construct, GDevelop, Phaser, plain HTML5, whatever you already use.
3. Submit a link to your hosted game (itch.io, Netlify, GitHub Pages, anywhere it runs in a browser). It goes live so people can play it.
4. Players play and the round wraps up. Selected winners get featured — more on exactly what that means below.

Most jams hand you one theme and that's the whole game. Slow Cook does it differently: there are five prompts on the menu, and you pick the one that sparks something. Each one asks for a complete small game rather than a weekend experiment, which is why a round runs about a month.

• 🗝️ Ten Rooms · Design
  A complete game across ten hand-made rooms.
  To count: ten distinct hand-made rooms, and a proper ending screen.
• 🎲 One Good Run · Roguelike
  A run-based game you can lose and want to replay.
  To count: permadeath, 3+ enemy types, 5+ upgrades that meaningfully change a run.
• ⚔️ Three Bosses · Combat
  Three bosses, each with real patterns and phases.
  To count: 3 bosses, each with 2+ phases and readable, learnable attacks.
• 🏕️ Hold the Night · Survival
  Gather by day, defend what you built by night.
  To count: a repeating day/night cycle with escalating waves, and building that affects survival.
• 🧠 Twenty Levels · Puzzle
  One mechanic, twenty levels, saved progress.
  To count: 20 levels from one core mechanic, plus level select and saved progress.

Updated 31 July 2026: the challenge menu was replaced. The earlier set (One Button, 60 Seconds, No Enemies, One Colour, Tiny World) is no longer running — the current five above are what entries are read against.

Everyone. You don't need a studio, a team, or a finished portfolio, and solo is completely fine. Be aware the current prompts ask for a finished small game rather than a weekend prototype, so give yourself the full month — but there is no experience bar and no application to pass.

Beginners, students, solo developers, hobbyists, and seasoned indie devs are all on the same menu here. Solo or in a team, any engine, any country — if it runs in a browser, it fits.

Here's the straight version, because overpromising helps no one. Selected winners get:

• A chance to be featured on the SlowDen homepage.
• A shoutout across SlowDen's social accounts.

That's the real reward — a genuine chance to be seen. Slow Cook does not promise guaranteed traffic, downloads, players, revenue, followers, or cash prizes, and we won't pretend it does. What it offers is a low-pressure reason to make something small, and a real place for people to find and play it.

1. Have a browser-playable game (or make a new small one for a prompt). It must be your own work — credit any free assets you use.
2. Host it somewhere it runs in a browser (itch.io, Netlify, GitHub Pages, your own site).
3. Submit the link through SlowDen's submit panel. See how submitting works for the full checklist, and browse the five challenges to pick your prompt.