Insane games that I made (or helped make) within a few days or hours.
Coded for the November Conglomerate Duos Microjam [A, B, C] in about a day alongside RENREN (馃帹馃幎), with this gif as a vague theme.
My first side-view game, but it was pretty easy since there's just one ground platform. The movement feels pretty nice, and there's a bunch of little pro mechanics like slam-bouncing, nail gun gliding, & score combos. I cheated the time limit like the first Duos Microjam, but the time limit is just an encouragement to finish the game after all.
I think I spend too much time on very specific polish—like the subtle stretchy animations when Mortimer lands & turns, or how when Mortimer's gun goes behind them it slightly dims & doesn't clip through their body (it goes around). At the same time, I don't want to make games if I can't do that kinda stuff, cause I wouldn't have as much personal pride in it.
REN did a great job on all the assets, and their music is an absolute jam.
Have you ever played IndestructoTank?
Coded for the Conglomerate Duos Microjam [A, B, C] with the theme "Infection" in about 12 hours alongside HIS (馃帹).
I think this game turned out really well, even if the original time limit (8 hours) was cheated a little bit. It definitely could have been planned out better—I'm still not super good at planning under a time limit (too much worry that implementation will take too long). Regardless, I didn't wanna be too picky since I had a partner this time.
Having a partner with a different role definitely enhanced the typical game jam "ball & chain" feeling, but it also made the end product way better. I'm curious if doing a game jam with people that fill the same role(s) as me would be easier.
Inspired by Boys.
Created for the Ludum Dare 50 Compo [A] with the theme "Delay the Inevitable" in about 48 hours.
This game is a little lacking since I decided to step out of my comfort zone a bit. The plan was to make a fast-paced racer in which you're immune to all damage, unless you become vulnerable by slamming into a wall (hopefully encouraging players to take risks for advantages). The main time-sink became collision and level-making since I never fully planned out how those would work. I think it might have gone better if I made it more arcade-y, less physics-y, but I'm not sure what that would look like.
Fortunately, this was the least stressful game jam I've done so far. I slept plenty, got to use a few cool tricks I've passively picked up about how racing games work, and listened to a lot of The Minute Hour (awesome background noise).
I see balls whizzing through tubes getting shot by turrets, bullets bouncing off...
Created for the Ludum Dare 49 Jam [A] with the theme "Unstable" in about 72 hours.
The development of this game was similar to DogSpin, where I threw assets at the wall until something worked. This time I was just trying to make something impressive, so I reused some personal sprite-splitting code in order to make splittable asteroids. Unfortunately, I had to spend a day recoding that since it was really slow. Quite happy with how the game turned out, though.
I noticed a "ball & chain" feeling during this jam more than the last one—a need to constantly work on the game even when I didn't want to. After this jam I swore off doing another solo game jam ever again.
Special thanks to attfooy for the game's background art and RenRen for music.
"Drillte" means "drilled" in German, unintentionally.
Created for the GMTK Game Jam 2021 [A] with the theme "Joined Together" in about 48 hours.
My first jam game, and my first actual game—I had something to prove with this one. The creation of DogSpin was a rollercoaster of highs and lows. Lots of time was spent rapidly creating random assets, which I repurposed as I shifted through different ideas and really sloppy code. I was constantly on the edge of giving up entirely until the last 12 hours of the jam. Luckily, that was when the dog-flailing idea popped into my head, and then I just had to tack on the sticky-dog part for some cool & nuanced gameplay. I'm super happy with how this game turned out and it's still my favorite.
Special thanks to Frex, Kalu, attfooy for the game's name & sprite of Kalu, and RenRen for the post-jam music.
If you press B, Frex waves at you.
