itch.io

Hello! This is my first time doing a horror jam, and I’m very excited! I have a strong idea that’s also a continuation of my Rainmaker game from 2025. It’s going to be part of a larger game and I’m using Game Jams to push myself to complete it.

While its going to be following a gameplay and story framework, all code and assets will be new for each jam, hopefully becoming refined for when I combine the games together at the end.

You can play Chapter 1 on itch.io, I recommend downloading it but there is an HTML5 version (Godot) available: https://phobos001.itch.io/rainmaker

Here’s a ref sheet for the main characters I made. They’re posing and stature is not important, I just wanted a model to draw sprites from later.

I’m hoping to share some environment art and ideas (Nothing too spoilery of course) but for now I’m really amped to join you all :)

Love the animations, but it’s not very clear to see where I’m supposed to be to avoid some attacks. Maybe you could have something that shows you how you died, and maybe a hint on how to avoid the attack? That’s a lot of metadata because a lot of these attacks are very unique, but since its the same each time maybe you could use timestamps instead? Like “Oh its between 20 and 30 seconds so they must have died by X”

Great entry though, very charming and I hope to see you next time :)

This is up there with one of my favorite games of the jam. Very simple and fun with lots of depth and strategy, which is really hard to design! Great work all around <3

Cool concept executed well! It’s possible to keep using torches after unlocking the boss door, so it got kinda hard to get back since there’s no way to cancel using one. The art and music are very nice, and the controls are responsive. Good job guys \o/

Very fun, the desperation to dive bomb into a coal vein just to get a few more seconds is very real.

The procedural generation is really cool but there were some situations where it was ALL stone across. I suggest having some pre-designed masks you can subtract over the different generated layers, so you can create a possible path and even use it as a challenge for the player.

Great work!

The art style and designs are really cool, but the player physics are really weird and its hard for me to move around. It’s also hard for me to see where I’m supposed to go next, which stings a bit when there’s a time limit lol. Otherwise this was a cute game! I’d like to see more of the story you have in mind too :)

After beating the game I realized I can restart whenever I want, so I kept restarting and knocking the cars off the road until I was just plowing through the line like a hot cannonball through a butter ship. Very fun, makes me yearn for Burnout again lol.

Love the idea of hiding the timer! I just wish the car handled a little better, I think it’s too realistic for this type of game. Everything is very well put together. Great work :)

Very good game! I think some more heavy feedback when you hit something would add a lot. I love how you just plop the injured citizen on top of the ambulance. Good work \o/

I had to search for the controls so I could start the minigames (E) but after that I had a good time. I love the bait and switch. Two of the minigames are the same with a different format, but otherwise it was short and sweet. Good job :)

Fun and chaotic little game! That rewind is very seamless, and the art style is cute. I had some problems getting my mouse to be captured by the window so I couldn’t look around at all, but otherwise a great entry :)

Art and animations are very cute. I love the idea of tying events to each second of the countdown. I kept getting hit while jumping on the heads of the enemies, I think some hitboxes need to be tweaked or processed in a different order. Otherwise this is very fun and impressive for a 24 hour period. Great work! \o/

Very fun and stylish game! You guys did a fantastic job. Love the art style.

Not a bad entry! A little awkward to control, and having to start all over is kind of annoying when you don’t know the layout of the level very well. I think if you increase the FOV and make it more clear what you can interact with it would help a lot. Otherwise the environment art is very well modeled and with some polish could make a fun puzzle game. Hope to see you next time :)

VERY well polished game. Super stylish and it is fuel for my ADHD brain lol. Love the audiovisual feedback, I’ll be grinding on this for a while. Fantastic work :D

I wish I could play it but I keep having very extreme mouse issues for looking around. In windowed mode I get forced to look up and spin around, and in fullscreen the sensitivity is so low that I need to do about 15 mouse drags just to turn around.

It looks really nice, and the movement feels good, but it’s just impossible for me at the moment. This is in both FireFox and Chrome based browsers. I hope your entry is still successful! o7

Sorry about that! Can you specify which sound specifically is bothering you, and why? I’m guessing maybe the push/pull gun but I don’t know for sure. It would really help to have more info so I can fix the problem for future players.

Are you sure you’re using delta time with your game logic? By the time the fuze is done it’s already far in the sky and unable to hit anything besides larger planes right above me. The planes also make short work of me in mere seconds.

I’ve included a video to show you what I mean. For reference my monitor is 360hz, which if you were targeting 60fps would be a 6x speed increase. If you’re using a built-in engine timer for the fuze it might use different logic from the rest of your game.

https://streamable.com/c1pv5g

Otherwise it looks good! I’d love to try an updated version of the game with this bug fixed, if you plan on working on it some more.

Took me a while to solve some of these, but finding out how to rotate things did help quite a bit lol. I’d recommend using some mild pitch randomization on the screaming sound so it’s not so samey each run. Cool idea for a puzzle game! :)

I feel like the level design is holding an otherwise simple game back. There’s no way for the player to control the rolling of the bomb beyond pushing it, but yet we need to somehow balance it across thin ledges? I think if you focused on larger obstacles for the player to deal with (holes, moving walls, stuff falling from the sky with a little shadow as a warning even), instead of forcing optimizing micro-movements, it would play much better. Otherwise it controls well, looks nice, and doesn’t have any larger issues. I hope to see you in the next jam :D

Congratulations on your first game jam!

A lot of odd design choices but everything seems to work correctly, which is the most important part.

The mouse aiming is really weak. A way to increase the sensitivity in the menu would be nice, or otherwise try to use a higher sensitivity as a default.

I never figured out how the scoring system works with the dropped clocks.

Also you might want to look into using something called “Nearest Neighbor filtering”, which is a setting you can use on your textures/materials to get nice crisp edges for pixels. It might currently say something like “Linear” or “Mipmap” but I’m not very familiar with Game Maker.

Hope to see you again in another jam! Keep learning and pushing yourself and you’ll do great \o/

Challenging but fun! I compulsively copied any text I was writing in the emails because I’ve had it vanish on me more than once. The pop up ads are very funny. Everything was responsive but it was kind of hard to see that I was missing some commas or periods because the text was so small. Maybe have some sort of UI scaling feature to help for people with high resolution monitors or bad eyesight. Otherwise fantastic entry! :D

Fun and aggravating, but not in the bad way. Many times I encountered the perfect storm of bad luck, but eventually I was successful with only 35 deaths lol. Great work! Very nice to provide controller support too!

Cute little game, I love the change up done at the end of the level. Good pacing with introducing the mechanics too. Good job :D

Thank you for the feedback! I’m a big fan of Cruelty Squad, so I understand what you mean with the sadism lol. In future updates I plan on having a more thorough tutorial that introduces these concepts one at a time, along with some sort of small challenge system for players to chew on and hone their individual skills outside of the main campaign.

On the other hand, making it extremely easy for careless players to accidentally kill themselves is very intentional, but I try to make sure there are buffers between life and death so the player has time to react. It’s something that will require practice, but I’m hoping to make the game exciting and curious enough to encourage players to keep going.

Very tricky but rewarding puzzle game. Everything works together well, the overall atmosphere is heavy but well crafted. You guys did a fantastic job!

It gets kinda stagnant after about five minutes, I feel like some environmental hazards that force the player to move outside of their comfort zone could keep the momentum going. Maybe having fireballs or acid fall from the ceiling to create areas the player cant move, or having arrows shoot out from the walls in a pattern.

Maybe some optional challenges to encourage the player to do something different, like maybe a glass cannon powerup you can get from not being able to use weapons for 30 seconds? It might not fit what you have in mind, just some extra ideas for depth.

Otherwise, the game plays very well and feels really polished! Great work \o/

I think some look-ahead towards the cursor would be nice for when you’re moving very quickly, but otherwise this was a fun little game. I never ended up using the bombs and just maxed out my speed lol.

If you wanted to add some spice to the game, I suggest changing the zooming the camera out and easing back in quickly whenever you pick things up, especially the keys. It adds a little punch to the movement. I wouldn’t make it really strong though, because it might mess up the aiming of your movement. Adding a light screen flash would also add to this but that might be too much for this kind of game.

Good work! :)

Game is fun! Love the changing art styles on the god character. Writing seems kind of stunted, but I think its the product of the short game length and not the actual writing. Short and sweet. \o/

The optional theme is

HEX

MONEY

POWER

Thank you for your very kind words!

I agree that the Grapple Beam (But its absolutely a physgun lol) is annoying when used in competition with the other bots. Without a skill-based way to cancel the beam it ends up being a waiting game that kills the flow. I’ll probably save the beam for a different game mode and put a different tool in its place.

As for the level size I didn’t add a lot of clamping to the target moving positions of the bots. Combine that with the bots dropping treasure based on fuel or a timer - and how beamed objects can be thrown - and we end up with things going WAY far away from the action horizontally.

Originally I planned to have a finite set of objects strewn about the level to collect, but it created the problem with the best parts of the game being at the end when there’s only a few things left. After trying to create a weighted decision-making process for the bots, eventually I flipped the design so there’s always just one item to fight over, leading to very aggressive playing for a longer time, but with less stuff going on. I’ll probably populate the level better in future updates, but that’s why its so barren right now.

Thank you for playing my game! Good luck with your entry, and have a wonderful day :D

This is gonna take me a while to figure out, but you did a good job pacing the learning process and making it rewarding when the system reacts the way you expect. I’ll chew on this some more and leave some more feedback when I’ve made some more progress. I also love the style you picked for your UI. Very good for your first Jam game!

I’ve added a Windows build to the games description to circumvent my mistake. Hope you come back to give it a try :)

Love the title screen and ending art, really funny. Rolling down slopes is really fun, but the jumping is kind of milquetoast. If you can find a way to tie them together you can probably add some depth to the gameplay (Example: Rolling really fast and jumping can help you clear large pits. Or maybe if you switch to rolling while mid-jump you could do a special attack. Maybe some enemies need roll attacks and some need jump attacks?) Maybe add some hit sounds on the enemies, or if you’re feeling really fancy try adding some small screen shake. Good work :)

Uh oh uhhhh, is there a way I can update the files without being disqualified?

Hello again! In an attempt to tidy up before we get one month before the start of the Jam, I’ve made some changes to the Jams description. Mainly I made the rules less ambiguous, and made the examples cover a broader scope of ideas. Additional feedback is appreciated. Thank you guys! :)

Yep.

Pump Up The Jam is a game jam all about things that inflate, or making things inflate! 

Here are some examples of games that use this theme in some way:

    Astro Bot: Players can use the Octo-Balloon power-up to rise up and stay floating for a while, usually to avoid hazards or reach new areas.
    Balloon Fight: Float around on balloons, and try to pop the balloons of others so they fall.
    Dig Dug: Players must use a pump to inflate their enemies to pop them and get points. Players can also keep enemies partly inflated so they cant move, allowing the player to drop rocks on them for even more points.
    World Of Goo: Use Balloon Goo's to help keep parts of your goo structures lifted.
    Kirby: Being able to puff up repeatedly allows Kirby to float across the level, which is a key part of the games movement across multiple Kirby games.
    Animal Crossing: Balloons carrying gifts can be popped and usually contain items the player can use.

These are good starting points for creating your own pneumatic mechanics!

At the start of the Jam, a secondary, optional theme will be announced. It's a surpriiiiiisse.

Rules:

    You may use any engine you'd like!
    Your game can only be for this Jam and its theme. You cannot (and should not really) cross-post your Jam games to other jams.
    It is recommended - but not required - to have web builds available for your game. You can also offer local downloads for Windows, Mac, Linux, ESP32, etc, but make sure you trust the software you download before you run it!
    Any use of AI in your project is forbidden and will instantly disqualify you. If you try to hide your use of AI in your project I will break into your home and toast all of your bread, on the REALLY HIGH setting too.
    No hateful language or conduct is allowed. We should be supportive and constructive with each other, and intolerance will not be tolerated. Do onto others as you would have others do onto you.
    No adult or NSFW entries are allowed. Adult entries will be disqualified. Games that lean into being arousing are not recommended.
    You must include a copy of your source code / project files with your submission as a separate download, similar to that of Ludum Dare, I think it's a fantastic learning tool to see how others have built their games. You own your own code and do not need to license it unless you'd like to. If you do decide to license it, I recommend permissive open source licenses such as Apache 2.0 or MIT.

Criteria:

There are five criteria for the jam:

    Theme: How well does the game use the theme? Does everything click right, or does it feel shoe-horned in?
    Creativity: How unique is the game, and does this uniqueness play into the games strengths?
    Gameplay: How much fun are you having with the game? Do you find yourself replaying it again?
    Atmosphere: How well does the game engage you emotionally, if at all? Is there any dissonance between you and the game?
    Enginneering: How well built is the game? Is it stable? Is it optimized? Is it hard to control?

This is all highly subjective, so please make sure to leave constructive feedback on peoples games and let them know how you feel!

This Jam will run from March 27th to March 31st, and you can update your entry with bug fixes and features up until the Jam ends. After that, any further modifications can be grounds for disqualification (because of voting obviously). You are welcome to make a new page for future updates.

If you have any questions don't be afraid to ask in the community tab. Have fun!

Yeah no Breast Expansion is off the table.

To be specific about whats acceptable, the line is drawn at cute, flirty interactions; something generally acceptable to everyone, like a kiss or a teasing remark. But you should be more focused on gameplay systems :L

I’ve been thinking about including some examples in the description beyond some name drops, but I might also include a surprise limitation that’s revealed when the Jam starts. I think that would reinforce the correct mindset for this Jam.

Initially I had the Jam cover the entire month, so that people could create their own schedules. But after reading a reply on the Godot Forums I’ve realized that it might actually make things significantly harder. I’ve tightened the jam to be between March 27th to March 31st, which is also nice because it covers a weekend. Since it’s so early I don’t think this will really mess up anyone’s schedule.

I’ve pushed the Jam back a month to cover March instead of Februrary. I felt like the Jam was too close for people to plan around, and it should build up better momentum this way too. It is close to Ludum Dare in April but I think it’s flexible enough to not hardline people on a choice.