01
Pick your studio
Games, interactive fiction, short-form video, and adventures all count equally this week. Open whichever studio matches what you want to make, pictured below.
Weekly Theme
Live now
Pirates week · live
Weekly Theme:Pirates
Build anything: games, shows, stories, adventures, whatever you want, and land in the weekly theme row in the catalog with everyone else who shows up.
Required: read this first
Build in any format, tag with pirates-week to enter.
Publish to RUN before September 23 at noon PT.
How to enter
Pick a studio, build it, publish.
Any RUN studio counts. Build around this week's theme, tag your project pirates-week, publish before the close, and you're automatically in the catalog row.
02
Build around Pirates
Pirates are a whole ocean of ideas, not one voyage. A cursed-treasure hunt, a naval broadside at dawn, a mutiny you have to talk your way out of, a smuggler's run past the navy, a parrot with opinions. Riff on a ship, a captain, a legend, whatever the word sparks for you. Solo or with friends, no team-size cap.
03
Publish to RUN
Add the keyword pirates-week to your project, then share it to RUN before September 23 at noon PT and you're entered automatically. Keep refining right up to the close; your latest published version is what lands in the catalog row.
02 / The week is live
Building's open. Here's where to put your energy.
Seven days, and everyone who publishes lands together in a row in RUN's catalog all week. No leaderboard to climb, just a deadline to hit.
Publish early, refine often
Your latest published version is what counts, so get a first pass up early and keep polishing all week.
Share your process
Post progress in #weekly-theme on Discord. Half the fun of a weekly prompt is watching everyone's take on the same theme take shape.
Every entry lands in the row
There's nothing to rank and nothing to win. Publish on-theme and you're in RUN's catalog row for Pirates week while the week runs.
About
A weekly prompt for creators of every format.
RUN.labs is a running series of 7-day creative challenges. Every Wednesday we drop a theme, and you have until the following Wednesday at noon PT to build something around it, in whatever format you work in: a game, an interactive story, a short video, an adventure.
There's no prize pool and no leaderboard. Publish your entry before the week closes and it goes up automatically, no forms. The theme's row goes up in RUN's catalog the moment the week opens and stays there until a week after it closes; every entry lands in it as soon as you publish, side by side, so it's less a competition and more a weekly show-and-tell for whatever the theme sparked in you.
This week's prompt: Pirates. Hoist the colors. A treasure hunt with a cursed map, a ship-to-ship broadside, a mutiny below decks, a port full of scoundrels, a sea shanty turned into a game. It lands on Talk Like a Pirate Day, so lean in. Build it in Game Studio, Story Studio, Video Studio, or Adventure Studio and you're in.
Theme & rules
What counts as an entry
- To enter: build something on this week's theme in Game Studio, Story Studio, Video Studio, or Adventure Studio, add the keyword pirates-week to your project, then publish it to RUN before the Wednesday noon PT close. Every published entry tagged pirates-week is in automatically, no separate submission form.
- The keyword is required: entries without pirates-week tagged on the project won't be pulled into the catalog row, even if published on-theme in the window.
- Any format counts: games, interactive fiction, short-form video, and adventures are all eligible under the same theme and the same week.
- All original: your entry must be your own original work made for this week's theme. No clones, no copyrighted characters or assets you don't have the rights to.
- Everyone in the row: there's no ranking and no leaderboard. Every entry published on-theme before the close lands together in a row in RUN's catalog during the week.
- Every qualifying entry earns 10,000 credits. Publish something on-theme, tagged pirates-week, before the close and the credits land in your account after the week wraps. One award per creator, however many entries you publish. Credits are for building on RUN: they have no cash value and can't be transferred or cashed out.
- We reserve the right to pull entries that clearly aren't on theme. If an entry has no real connection to the week's theme, we may remove it from the catalog row and withhold its credits, at our discretion. The same goes for anything that breaks the content rules.
- Submissions close Wednesday at noon PT. The catalog row is up from the moment the week opens and stays up until a week after the close.
Schedule
Milestones
Sep 16 · 12:00 PT
Pirates week opens
Building opens in Game Studio, Story Studio, Video Studio, and Adventure Studio.
Sep 16 – Sep 23
Build week
Seven days to build around the theme in any format. Published entries land in the Pirates week row in RUN's catalog all week. Drop-in help in #weekly-theme.
Sep 23 · 12:00 PT
Submissions close
Anything published after this won't count.
Sep 23 – 30
Row stays up
The Pirates week row stays in RUN's catalog for a week after the close.
FAQ
Common questions
Is Pirates free to enter?
Yes. Pirates is a free 7-day game jam on RUN. Anyone can join, build a game, and compete.
How do I enter Pirates?
Any RUN studio counts. Build around this week's theme, tag your project pirates-week, publish before the close, and you're automatically in the catalog row.
When does Pirates run?
Pirates runs Sep 16–23.