This jam is now over. It ran from 2019-06-23 16:30:00 to 2019-07-01 06:35:00. View 26 entries

>>> ✨ 🚨 Discord ✨ 🚨 <<<

Welcome, friends, for the sixth time.  The sixth opportunity to make some video games while watching people break some video games.

The Deal

Make a video game during SGDQ!  You have from the moment it starts until 24 hours after it ends, according to the final state of the GDQ schedule.  (It gets updated over the course of the week, and always ends up running late by a few hours.)

  • Rules: There are none!  Work alone, in a team, on a new thing, on an old thing.  Make a game, make a level for an existing game, mod a game, hex edit some abandonware, flesh out a design doc, or just try out a new tool/engine.  Hell, write a story or compose some music.  Anything is better than nothing.
  • Voting: There isn't any!
  • Prizes: Nope!
  • Theme: Nada!  But if you really want one, I always appreciate an ironic theme like "the faster you go, the longer it takes" or "impossible to speedrun because it can be beaten instantly" or "perfectly optimal strategies make you lose".  Or try this theme generator.

FAQ

Q: Can I—
A: Yes.

Q: But I don't know how to make video games!
A: This is an excellent time to learn!

How to make video games

If you've never made a game, this is an excellent time to start!  There's only a week and everyone will be spending most of their time watching Mario traverse parallel universes, so most of the entries will be half-finished prototypes.

Some hints off the top of my head:

  • Make garbage.  Doing this for the first time under a tight time limit is not the best setting for worrying about polish.  Embrace the inevitable crappiness and worry about making something that functions.  It'll blend in perfectly with everyone else's garbage.
  • Stick to what you know.  If you don't know anything about programming, don't start the week by busting out Unity.  If you're not an artist, stick to rectangles or stock sprites.  Again, make garbage.

Speaking of which, here are some things that are relatively quick and easy to get into and also don't require a lot of art or programming investment:

bitsy is a microscopic game engine for making little worlds where you can walk around and talk to people.  It's actually hard to do much more than that (though a few people have managed).  I made Roguelike Simulator in a day with bitsy!

Twine is a system for writing nonlinear stories.  Doesn't sound game-ish enough?  With some clever use of the Harlowe 2 story format, you can track progress and add an inventory and probably even rig up combat or something.

PuzzleScript has its own custom programming language for describing grid-based puzzle games (e.g., Sokoban) surprisingly easily.  It's fairly sensible even if you have no idea what "custom programming language" means.  And if you are a programmer, you can do all kinds of stupid unreadable hacks!

Inform 7 is an entire programming language designed specifically for writing old-school text adventures — the ones with no pictures where you have to type GET YE FLASK and whatever.  It gets pretty deep, but since half the fun is in the writing, a week is plenty of time to make a charming little world with a few rooms and a few things you can interact with.

Doom is, you know, Doom???  The first video game ever made?????  It turns out you can make your own maps for Doom, and walking around a world that you built from scratch as Commander John Keen III-2 is pretty rewarding!  I wrote a whole series on how to do this a couple years ago.

MegaZeux is, I admit, getting kind of obscure, but I will give you a thousand bonus points if you actually make something with it.  It's a DOS-era tile-based game engine with a bunch of built-in stuff, so you can treat it like a level editor if you want — but it's also pretty easy to dip your toes into adding custom behavior.

There are plenty more depending on what you're after; maybe ask in the Discord?  I'm sure folks can point you towards some stock assets if you're in need of those, too.

Submissions(26)

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Browser playable (14)
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Windows (10)
macOS (6)
Linux (6)

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Be a cat, get pet, take a nap.
Play in browser
Defend your evil kingdom from adventurers in this puzzling tower-defense game!
Strategy
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A runner game with CRT inspired visuals.
Platformer
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cleaning simulator?
Simulation
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An 90s horror game from Sonic SchoolHouse Get 7 keys and you only have 1 life in this game very hard not easy
Strategy
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a simple arcade-like shooting game
Action
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Take on the world as a rocket-powered robot in a roller skate.
Platformer
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Play as a blind fox on this short platformer.
Platformer
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They don't deserve this.
Adventure
A haunted GB cartridge (note: not actually Sokoban)
Visual Novel
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The exceedingly brief adventure of a beach-faring Dragonborn.
Role Playing
[Demo] Vania Inspired Sidescroller
Action
You can't reload, so just switch to a different gun!
Shooter
Dungeon crawler where you crawl
Adventure
oversimple Kirby's Block Ball less-than-clone
Action
Zombies is a short puzzle game made by me for Games made quick . also my first game.
Puzzle
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A game where you fight against zombies.
Platformer
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3 Hour Game for GamesMadeQuick 3 Jam
Puzzle
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A Deip.io inspired game made within 5 hours.
Action
A game about talking animals
Adventure
Simulation
Made in less than 2 hours and reusing assets of my other game.
Survival