The seventh annual Global Game Jam wrapped up on Sunday and the results are... mind boggling.
A New Original Zelda Speedrun Record
Over 28,000 developers, programmers, artists, musicians, testers and more gathered at more than 500 sites in 78 countries around the world and created over 5,000 new titles in the 48 hour code-a-thon. That's... that's a lot of games.
Now, even devoting five minutes to each game would take about 17 days in total, so I had to trim down the titles to play. Firstly, I decided to focus solely on Team America (USA! USA!). This blatant nationalism still left approximately 1200 games to comb through. Filtering even further, I focused only on the games available to play on Windows PC systems, whose trials could be downloaded. That brought me down to 840 games.
Innovative Adventure! A Tim Schafer Retrospective: Psychonauts
So, it wasn't small, but it was at least manageable...or something. Still a lot for a guy like me, who plays about fifty games a year, but enough of a start.
The real trouble came with deciding which of those games to play. The selection process was based on one single rule: does it sound fun? And thus, we are presented with the following nine games.
(It should be noted that these are all titles created on little more than knowhow and caffeine and are far from finished products. Many may never see a life any further than the Game Jam)
Blacksea Odyssey - developed by a team out of the Downtown Orlando Game Jam site, Blacksea puts you into a tiny boat on dark water and you collect bigger and bigger fish, dragging their corpses behind you to attract the biggest fish of all. The controls feel a bit sluggish, but the art style can keep you entranced.
Spaceships - developed by Elliot Mahler from the University of Southern California. Perhaps the most complete title of the many I sampled, this game flips the script on the enduring classic, Asteroids. Instead of the ship, you play the asteroids themselves, setting new ones down and watching the mayhem as the smaller and smaller cosmic debris attempting to destroy the mechanical interloper. Simple, elegant. The ship gets stuck off-screen every now and then, but just watching the madness occur is quite delightful.
Q - developed by Team Sea Unicorn out of Philly - this First Person title is the beginning of a mind-fuck for the player. You can't really trust your senses, with walls or direction, and have to find your way out of a mysterious area. The controls, which cannot be adjusted, are a bit too sensitive and I was on the verge of motion-sickness at times. Needs some ambient music to really drive home the uneasiness.
Game Over Ever After - developed by a seven person team out of Atlanta Georgia SCAD-Atlanta, the design of the game -which utilizes the Unreal Engine - is great. I love looking at the trees. But I'll be damned if I know what else to do. You're supposed to guide the villagers, who have just lost their hero, as they take up the quest to do...something or other. But mmm...that design.
No Safe Place - developed by Misery Studio, a six-person team at Elmhurst University, No Safe Place is positively dripping with atmosphere. I never encountered any of the prowlers who were - I assume - prowling about, but there's this impending doom that penetrates every frame of the darkened countryside. All I did was travel from glowing tree to glowing tree, gathering resources. It's very much an incomplete game, but there's a great base here for an indie horror title. The music - a constant humming drone - is worth noting.
MagicClouds - developed by Serge Korlev, from University of Southern California; this game also utilizes one of the jam's diversifiers, 'Stephen Hawking Can Play This'. I absolutely understand what MagicClouds is trying to do - combining blocks in certain patterns so the player can get out of the beautifully rendered, Minecraft-esque world. But man, was this a tough nut to crack.
Global Game Jam Simulator 2015 - developed by a small team from Eugene Oregon, there are always some ironic group team that makes a game jam game about game jam. There are at least two others present, but this was the one that got pulled. It's very much a game that was developed in 48 hours, and conveys the various intra-team bickering about style, tone and content. The game puts you into an RPG-esque battle, done in three different styles: Mario RPG, Pokemon and Final Fantasy. It's fun, easy and intuitive, and I'd love to see more, a true game-ception.
We Didn't Start The Fire (But The Rabbit Probably Did) - developed by a team at Northern Illinois University - a charming little mini-screen game that's a new, and fiery, take on Snake. You have to guide an arson-prone bunny around obstacles in a room, hoping to set at least 80% of it on fire, or else you can't leave. The trick is not painting yourself into a corner, or you have to start all over again. Could definitely see this working as a mobile title!
Monster Baes - developed by a team at the Art Institute of California - you ever date someone who can't stop hocking a cause? Well, Monster Baes is like that person. It's a very rough (but very adorable) dating game that has an ulterior motive: environmental issues. Because nothing is sexier than that. Very, very catchy music!
These are but a fraction of a fraction of the available titles. Check them out, or go find one of the over 5000 games made this past weekend at the official Game Jam site. Hey, you never know what you might find! And if you do stumble across a diamond in the rough, let us know about it in the comments.
