Your personal time zone. So whatever “Thursday evening” is where you are, and ditto Sunday night. The important part is holding to 72 hours.
I’ve been working on a longer response to this thread, but I don’t think it’s happening. And I love how @cvaneseltine is organising things. 
I’ve been having some issues. I was really inspired to create this thread by a very specific thing I wanted to do and it’s not something that anyone else seems interested in.
I’m just not getting the same rush of enthusiasm from the other themes. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have said, let’s pick a theme amongst us, because now I’ve no clue how to pick. That’s not to say I don’t think the other themes aren’t fantastic, because they are, I’d love to see them worked on, would love to see the games made with them.
So, I’m sitting here wondering one of two things. Do I let someone else take over, and do I just offer to help anyone with coding. Someone else can take the responsibility and I don’t have to worry about the anxiety of no one participating because I selected something only I want to do.
Or do I accept that we can have multiple game jams, and that I am going to mess up the first one, so just do it how I want and let everybody else learn from my mistakes. I’d love to see this being a regular thing, us coming together as a community, pushing ourselves, testing our limits. And if my one ends up just being me, writing on a theme only I care about, well, at least we’ve all learned something.
I’ll also admit that the extremely short time span of 3 hours is really, really tempting to me. Of course that’ll likely be a nightmare to schedule since we’re across a bunch of timezones.
72 hours is feeling oh so long! I bet I’ll spend the first 24 hours procrastinating. 
Still…
Starting on the 6th ending on the 9th sounds great to me.
Leader picks a theme and we can write any story based on it…?
Are you planning on merging the stories together in the end…?
It sounds interesting… So I would ask to be able to join.
No merging of stories this time. (I do encourage others to organise group project jam after this though if they want.)
Everyone keeps whatever they finish at the end of the jam, and then do whatever they want with it.
No need to ask to join. Just hang out with us at the set time.
I’m still thinking of possibly using a chatroom as well as this forum. I think choiceofbox has one.
Well as far as date goes, I didn’t quite catch when this is happening, and I’d love to participate, but depending on my ability to access a working laptop at the time, I may not be able to.
@FairyGodfeather
Don’t worry about the theme. I’m sure that whatever you come up with, everyone will have a blast making a game to fit it. look at the CScomp, all the entrants had a blast fitting to the theme. (Although things got chaotic in my personal life around then so I wasn’t able to finish my entry.) to be honest, I think a theme given out that isn’t expected is perfect for matching the fast paced spirit of game jams.
@Doctor A bit off topic here but there are plenty non-magical titles that become successful. The theme of the competition could include it or leave it out, I doubt it will effect the quality.
On a side note, at some point in the future, I would love to see a collaborative sci-fi title where each participant creates the lore and story behind a single planet, and the player explores each of them in a solar system as the final product
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Reading the comments since then, I’d say YES to the above, except for fairygodfeather choosing the theme. I think we can satisfy everyone, like so…
On Saturday 1 August, at midday in fairygodfeather’s time zone (if that works for @FairyGodfeather; you started this, so you deserve first pick… please specify what that timezone is and I guarantee I for one will be there writing at the same time as you), fairygodfeather announces the theme for a 3-hour jam and anyone who wants to have a go does it. No time to edit, proofread or code if you don’t want - so ANYONE can give it a shot and clean it up later. The aim is just to get the story down, to be fixed later. Since 3 hours doesn’t allow for autotesting, I think Sunday should be edit/proofread/debug day, and stories are uploaded into a 3-hour jam results thread (not that I know technically how to do that, but I imagine it’s possible). If you really can’t code, you need to set up a partner to be ready on Sunday. I’ll go start a thread for the 3-hour jam. If nothing else, it should be both fun and good practice for fairygodfeather to play/run other jams in future (which I think you’ll like).
Then, on Monday 3 August, I open my massive dictionary at random and pick a word that seems fun to me. People can use the word as their theme, or just manage to use it somewhere (I won’t pick anything too obscure - only something that a person could plausibly say in dialogue), or just let it spark ideas. Or use it in the title…whatever! It will NOT be a word that limits genre to scifi or to anything else.
Anyone who wants in writes furiously for 72 hours, coding/not coding depending on what is within their ability (fairygodfeather volunteered to help with coding, and if you look through this thread there are others asking for/offering help).
Between now and then, I’ll start a separate thread for those who want to do a three-day jam in a 1950s scifi world (which we’ll do at the same time as everyone else’s three-day stories). I’m happy to stitch the scifi tales together after the fact, and to suggest various things (and change them if I’ve suggested things others don’t like). I’ll go start a thread for that now. @HornHeadFan @Doctor and possibly @EmptySkies @TechDragon610
If we could figure a way to organise ourselve to make a game cooperatively, and that it worked, we could do it again to do something even bigger.
(someone has to write the Elder Scrolls story line right? I’m assuming more than one person works on the game)
It’d actually allow us to do something like Skyrim if we were able to get synchronised, 5-10 people all on the same game - it’d be crazefficient!
If it’s a “Let’s all make a short story!” type of game jam, that’ll be great too and I want to participate - assuming I learnt enough choicescript once the jam happens. (but I think I did, I learnt extremely quickly - but I did spend 9 hours a day 3 days in a row, which spread out might seem more normal time frame)
Another type of “jam” that could be great would be a cooperative work that, after 10 days, someone else takes on the work, or similar. But that’s an idea for another time.
If no one else joins, do you want to do a 3 hour one with me?
I might fail terribly, but I’m up for the challenge! It’d be my first game, too. (outside of a backpack and a short prison scene)
Will the topic be posted to the forums? I have a feeling I may end up too busy with work to get anything in but it still sounds fun if I did manage to get some time together. I usually have time zone “issues” due to where I live, so chats and things tend to be hard for me, and probably some others to make easily).
I just started a thread for a 3-hour game on Saturday 1 August. I think at least three of us will play.
I am not organising a game jam on the 1st of August. That was never listed as a date of consideration. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have two game jams that close to each other. I had thought that we were still in the process of discussing things.
I’m locking this thread. Please no one contact me about game jams.
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