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
Silk Road week · live
Weekly Theme:Silk Road
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, then enter it from Creator Hub.
Publish to RUN, then enter it from Creator Hub before November 18 at noon PT.
How to enter
Pick a studio, build it, publish.
Any RUN studio counts. Build around this week's theme, publish it, then enter it from this week's card in Creator Hub before the close to land in the catalog row.
02
Build around the Silk Road
The Silk Road is routes, not one place. A supply-and-demand market sim, a caravan you keep alive across a desert, a port city where languages mix, a mapmaker charting the way, a relay of letters that takes years to arrive. Riff on the journey, the trade, the exchange, whatever it sparks for you. Solo or with friends, no team-size cap.
03
Publish and enter
Share it to RUN, then open Creator Hub, find this week's card, click Enter, and pick your project. Do it before November 18 at noon PT; publishing alone doesn't enter it. 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, enter it from Creator Hub, and you're in RUN's catalog row for Silk Road 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, then enter it from this week's card in Creator Hub before the week closes. 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 once you enter it, 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: Silk Road. The greatest trade network in history, and everything that moved along it. A trading game where you haggle your way from market to market, a story that follows one bolt of silk across a continent, a travel video through caravanserai and mountain passes, an adventure about a caravan that carries a secret. Goods, ideas, and stories, all in motion. Build it in Game Studio, Story Studio, Video Studio, or Adventure Studio, then enter it from Creator Hub.
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, publish it to RUN, then enter it from this week's card in Creator Hub before the Wednesday noon PT close. Publishing alone doesn't enter it, and there's no separate form.
- Made this week: your entry has to be created and published to RUN during the week. Projects started or published before the week opens can't be entered.
- 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 on-theme entry before the close lands together in a row in RUN's catalog during the week.
- Every creator with a qualifying entry earns 5,000 credits. To qualify, your entry has to stay published and public on RUN for the full seven days after the close; the credits land in your account once those seven days are up. 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
Nov 11 · 12:00 PT
Silk Road week opens
Building opens in Game Studio, Story Studio, Video Studio, and Adventure Studio.
Nov 11 – Nov 18
Build week
Seven days to build around the theme in any format. Entries land in the Silk Road week row in RUN's catalog all week. Drop-in help in #weekly-theme.
Nov 18 · 12:00 PT
Submissions close
Anything published after this won't count.
Nov 18 – Nov 25
Row stays up
The Silk Road week row stays in RUN's catalog for a week after the close. Keep your entry published and public until then to earn your credits.
FAQ
Common questions
Is Silk Road free to enter?
Yes. Silk Road is a free 7-day game jam on RUN. Anyone can join, build a game, and compete.
How do I enter Silk Road?
Any RUN studio counts. Build around this week's theme, publish it, then enter it from this week's card in Creator Hub before the close to land in the catalog row.
When does Silk Road run?
Silk Road runs Nov 11–18.