Welcome to Get Tilted, the build-your-own-alt-control jam from the MAGFest Indie Arcade and Arcade Commons! This fully remote jam will teach you how to build a simple TiltBox controller, develop a game specifically for that controller, and see your submission on a custom console at Super MAGFest 2027 in January!
Note: To be eligible to shown on the MAGFest cabinet, games must be ready to run on Windows. Web games have issues when presented in a multi-cab format and we cannot promise that any games developed for a web platform will be playable at the event so please submit an exe if possible.
This is a remote jam! Jammers will be able to talk, ask questions & form teams on the Arcade Commons Discord.
This year, we're working with mouse input simulation. Our controller is using the tilt sensors built into our usual favorite, the Adafruit Circuit Playground, to send directional mouse inputs, as well as two intentionally awkwardly placed buttons to emulate left and right clicks. Since this controller is meant to be held and tilted, the base shape of our controller is a large flat box - a pizza box is pretty ideal. We place the Playground flat inside the box, with the two buttons dead center on the top and bottom, requiring players to use both hands.
As always, we assign colors and shapes to each button to help differentiate them in your game design - we've got the Blue Triangle on top, and the Red Hex on the bottom.
If your game requires any inputs other than the mouse, it won't be playable with the custom controller, so limit all interactions to mouse X & Y and left/right click.
The build is very easy this year, though there are a few important pieces to consider, particularly as the microcontroller itself is the main pivot point for inputting mouse movement:
The pizza-box enclosure is a good way to start, and our build at MAGFest will be aiming for something roughly that wide. You can still do this with a smaller box of course, but remember that at event people will be tilting something pretty large and have some level of fine control you might not get from a smaller enclosure.
If you're looking to 3D print something custom, Jam regular Josephalopod has put together a harness that can hold your microcontroller in place, available here.
You can test that your controller is working as intended with our sample game, Pizza Time by Josephalopod!
As always, we'll announce a theme at the kickoff of the jam to help get the creative juices flowing. We'll update this page, and post on our BlueSky, so throw us a follow to stay tuned!
Important to note - we may be mapping inputs to mouse movement, but this thing does not operate like a standard mouse. It's more about limited tilting to drift in different directions and then stabilize. When designing your game, keep in mind that users will almost always be tilting the box a little bit, whether they mean to or not. Whether you want to do something with all those small movements is up to you.
As participant in the Indie Gaming expo hall of MAGFest, generative AI is not allowed for submissions. All submitted games must contain original assets, IP, or assets for which the developer owns the rights. AI art and other AI-generated assets are not allowed. Don't worry, bad art is better than gen art anyway.
We're building a cabinet that will run selected submissions at the Indie Arcade Expo at Super MAGFest in January 2027! More build pics to come, but you can see some shots of the build from Flip Out! and Lever Up :
Here are the folks working to bring you Get Tilted, and other alt control jams:
