Earlier this month we held the second annual
GMTK Game Jam, which is a 48 hour game development marathon. I challenged designers around the world to create
a game that fit a certain genre - but was missing one of the main mechanics that you’d
find in that genre. Like a platformer without jumping. Or a shooter without guns. The response was incredible. We had a whopping 1,054 games submitted, making
it the most popular jam in itch.io’s history. The games were then made available to the
public, who left over 15,000 ratings. This gave me a shortlist of 100 games to play
myself, and I’ve gone ahead and picked out the 20 that I found the most intriguing. These are all games that really ran with the
theme and landed on something truly unique. They might not always be perfectly polished,
or finished, or even massively fun. But they all have a certain spark, and show
the true potential of making a game where you don’t just add - but remove mechanics. So, without further ado. Here are the best games I’ve played from
the jam - in no particular order. Fresh Merchandise, by developer Blind Mystics,
is a dungeon crawler without combat. And when you get rid of swords and spells,
this makes for a game about dashing past fireballs, dodging skeletons, and kiting bats around
boulders. Instead of fighting, the devs put the focus
on another part of RPGs: surprisingly, the idea of your character slowing down when they
carry too much stuff and get over-encumbered. Now, you have to think very carefully about
which items of treasure you should try to pinch, because when you can’t fight back,
going slow is a death sentence. This is a very clever little game. Space Command 1980 is a stand-out example
of one of the most interesting trends in the jam: which is games without direct control. For this cute spaceship game, the solution
is to have you type in commands to make your ship move and shoot - like typing ML to move
to the left, or SHT to shoot, or FWD to move forward. You’ll have to really be on your toes, because
you can’t react immediately with the press of a button. This one is a bit silly, but I like it. Allocation, by Mush, is one of a number of
Metroidvania games in the jam - which certainly surprised me. This one is a Metroidvania without a set world
map. Instead, you make your own by plopping down
rooms on a map editor. You can then make your way to new areas, where
you don’t unlock upgrades - but new room tiles for the editor. There’s a lot of potential here - right
now you can set your own difficulty by using easy, medium, or hard rooms, but you could
imagine some risk / reward system to encourage you to use the hard ones. Gravity Golf is a golf game without clubs. So creator Haretro took inspiration from VVVVVV,
and lets you flip the gravitational pull of the course. What makes it different from Terry Cavanagh’s
platformer is that you can’t move the ball at all so you’re relying on physics, and
the slopes and spikes of the level design, to get your ball where it needs to go. Nicely done. Crossfire marks another clear trend from the
jam, which is games where you can’t fight so have to find creative ways to kill your
enemies. In this case, developer Seet has you dodging
through enemies bullets in the hopes that one foe will accidentally blast another. You can also slow down time to weave through
particularly tricky patterns of ordinance. And if that’s not enough, you can also unlock
a reflective shield to bounce bullets back at enemies. It makes for a really fun shooter that busts
apart the conventions of the genre - and it’s also very crunchy and juicy, to boot. Fish is Nic Magnier’s take on the match
three puzzler - only, tiles don’t disappear when you make a match. Instead, they freeze! To clear the tile from the board you’ve
got to make a whole row of frozen blocks - full of fish and turtles and penguin heads. It makes for a tricky puzzler that has you
thinking several steps ahead - more like Threes than Candy Crush Saga. It definitely needs a bit more time for balance
and whatnot, but this is a great twist on a classic genre. Monochoroma is billed as a sidescroller without
scrolling. Which means these chunky outer bricks stop
you from going back on yourself. But then you can rotate those bricks, to open
new pathways. It quickly becomes this unique Metroidvania
where you’re having to think about how moving the outer layer of the game will affect your
ability to progress in the rooms behind and beyond you. In fact, it’s almost like one of those 3D
Zelda dungeons I keep banging on about. There’s lots of potential here. Well done TeriyakiPhanton. FireFlies is a vertical platformer without
jumping. And so instead of bouncing around, you ping
your glowbug hero up the shaft like its an Angry Bird. All the while, you’re being chased by an
ever-rising ocean of lava. There’s one very simple bit of design that
makes this game great, though: you have to touch a platform to restore your slingshot
power. That means you can’t propel yourself upwards
indefinitely, and instead have to make tactical choices of how you’re going to give yourself
lift and replenish your slingshot power. Give some good visual feedback that your power
is back online and this could be a terrific iPhone time-waster. Ratatatatouille, by Cyberfly, is what I was
thinking when I said “a shooter where you can’t stop shooting” - but just, much better. You play as a Rambo-like chef, killing sentient
potatoes that are running about your kitchen. You don’t have a say in when the chef will
shoot or change weapon. You only focus on moving and aiming. One of the great outcomes of this idea is
that different weapons work differently - with some, like the shotgun and flamethrower - requiring
you to run up close to enemies. While others, like the rocket launcher, will
cause splash damage if you get too close. This forces you to constantly think about
your positioning in a way most twin-stick shooters do not. In Space, No One Can Hear You Jump certainly
starts out simple. As a platformer without gravity, you simply
aim your hero at another platform, fire them off into the cosmic unknown, and let them
float on over. Things quickly get more tricky when you can
latch onto attractors and repellers to bend your arc. It’s all a bit Mario Galaxy, just in 2D. And with fewer plumbers. Demonball, by Room of Snakes, is a brawler
where you can’t touch your enemies. So there’s no kicking or punching here - instead,
you have to boot a football around to murderise your opponents. It’s a simple concept, but it’s fun to
try and weave through enemies while simultaneously kicking the ball. I wonder if it would be fun if the ball became
deadly to you after you kicked it, giving you another thing to dodge? Dunno. Won’t Look Back is a fantastic example of
how removing one element from a game, can create all sorts of interesting consequences. As the name implies, this is a puzzle game
about a character who can’t walk backwards meaning you have to think very carefully before
you make a move as any step forward is permanent. Even the simple act of walking through a maze
becomes s tricky puzzle. You can’t look back, but you’ve certainly
got to look forward. Do Unto Others, by Tom Cheshire and Sean Rugg,
is a fighting game where you have to damage yourself to hurt your opponent. Which almost kinda just about fits the theme. But I’ll let it off because the game is
this crazy puzzle where in each level you’ve got to quickly find the fastest route to killing
yourself. Maybe throw yourself in the sea, or get struck
by lightning. When health packs appear you’ve got to fight
the urge to pick them up, as they’ll actually heal your opponent instead. If the devs made it so in some levels you
actually can hurt the other player, this could become a manic WarioWare-like reaction game. Rave and Claw, by OSTSenior, is a game where
two mechanics were removed. It’s a top-down shooter where you can’t
move and you can’t shoot. Instead, you can achieve both with a hookshot. And you guys know how much I dig a dual purpose
mechanic. So the game is all about grappling to nearby
walls and hook points, and trying to latch onto enemies before they have a chance to
body slam you. It all comes together wonderfully and is expertly
juicy for a game jam game. I really dig this one. Sleep Walker is another game with indirect
control. Here, Kyle, Alex, and Marina have made a platformer
where you play as a wizard who helps a sleep walking hero get to his goal. To do this, the wizard can shoot stars into
the environment to kill enemies, remove obstacles, create bridges, power springs, and deliver
sandwiches. What makes this immediately great is that
the star must physically travel from the wizard to the environment, meaning that one - you
can accidentally shoot your own character. And two - you need to account for the time
it takes for your star to travel. It adds a real extra level of depth that you
don’t always see in jam games. Fire Escape is another platformer without
jumping. Instead, you fire an ember out like a grenade
in Worms, and hope to land on something flammable like grass or a brazier. This basically teleports you around the level,
letting you move on to the next challenge. And it’s made all the harder when you realise
that water is slowly creeping up to douse your flame. This has lots of potential, and is almost
Nintendo like in its focus on one smart idea. PongOut is a perfect example of how clever
ideas can arise when you remove something fundamental. So this is Pong, but without scoring. How does that work? Well, now your paddle is your health bar,
and it gets chipped away every time you hit the ball. The best strategy might be to avoid the ball
entirely, but then you run the risk of the ball getting stuck behind you and obliterating
your paddle like you’re playing Breakout. Nice work, Viddlerx. Very clever. Camp Shepard started out as a driving game
without steering. So you plop down gravitational towers that
change the path a speeding automobile. And I guess that actually makes it a tower
defence game without enemies. Whatever the case, this is a cute puzzle game
that is all about optimisation and trying to do more with less. I like it. What Goes Up, doesn’t necessarily come down
in this clever game from LoneBot. It’s a platformer without falling, which
means that jumping into the air puts you into this spinny anti-gravity position until you
can find your feet again. And that quickly shifts things into puzzle
territory as every leap must be thought through. Once the game gets a grappling hook and companion
cubes, you really start to see how this could make for an excellent puzzle game. And finally, Else Walker is another game about
indirect control. This time you’re telling a robot how to
navigate a level by placing floppy disks into slots. Only, the slots are laid out like an If Else
statement in a programming language. For example, If wall ahead, jump - else, walk. That makes your robot move forward and jump
over walls. It’s a fascinating idea that doesn’t just
make for a fun game, but teaches players a little bit about computer code. And that’s a really special skill. Good on you, Super Try. So that’s an incredible amount of innovation
for just 20 games. But of course, there’s a lot more that I
could have talked about. Like SNES-style puzzle platformer Walkie Tori. The attractive Chick Magnet. The keyboard smashing Rhetoric Fighter, and
the friendship ruining Super Sumo Skater. 0.5 A Presses is an educational game about
Super Mario 64 speedrunning categories. FunkSynk, where your gun fires in time with
the music, is this close to being incredible. And the magnetic platformer Elfin would be
wonderful with better level design. The invisible platformer Forward isn’t much
fun, but it’s certainly interesting, and Text Adventure is a surprisingly playable
interactive fiction, considering it has no text. So even if you didn’t make it into the top
20, I hope you had a wonderful time. Remember that game jams are about learning,
practicing, prototyping, challenging yourself, working with new people, and trying fresh ideas
- not just for awards and kudos. I hope every single person got some something
out of the experience. And if you missed it - I’ll be back in August
2019 with GMTK Game Jam number three.
It's stuff like this that makes me realize I don't have anything near the creativity it would take to be an indie dev. As one YouTube commenter said,
I was also pleased to see what looks like a Pico8 game at 2:20. Allocation, a Metroidvania where you make the map. Absolutely mad.
Hey, I submitted to this!
Now, I didn't do very well, and it's my first game, but here it is if anyone is interested. Ranked #600 of the whole jam, so I did a little better than 40% somehow.
Kind of surprised that there weren't any 3d games that made the list. I know 2d games are much simpler and well suited for jams, but I still would have expected at least a few 3d entries, as there are a lot of mechanics that can only be explored in 3d