I managed to release Minimum Damage today, and only a couple of days late! I'm actually really happy with the end result: pretty much everything is amateurish, crass and probably broken, but unlike my other games it looks intentional.

This is the first time I've created music for a jam game, but it's been a hugely positive experience. In particular I found it a real relief to work on the music, and get away from the screen (or at least, the IDE) for a while. I've found - like with graphics - that having some concrete assets, no matter how tacky, in place really motivates me in the soul-crushing twilight that is the end stage of game jams. It also took the game in more imaginative directions than I think it could have gone otherwise.

In addition to the music, I'm quite happy with the original idea. For one thing the graphics were simple enough that I could implement them very quickly, allowing time to think about more important things. The execution is imperfect, but maybe I can work that out at a later stage.

So thanks, @Tijn, for hosting this jam! I certainly learned something.

I may come to regret this, but I had an idea to create a sheet music bullet hell game. After an hour or so of hacking I got this far.

Most of the basics are there; it just needs some simple collision code and then I can get started on the squishy bits.

P.s. Yes I'm aware that isn't a minim >__<

My original plan was to add music to a past jam game, but I have this little idea for a platformer that feels easy enough to explore. It will be pretty straightforward mechanics-wise, possibly quite hard, and as the gif suggests it will be synchronized to the music.

Good news is it took under two hours to get the basics in place with Unity. It's surprising that not many games I've seen explore that kind of stuff… The closest that comes to mind is the "140" indie game, otherwise I haven't seen it in jams that much.

The gif is only an early test so possibly not representative. I'm not 100% sure where this will end, but I have in mind some danceclub-like atmosphere with a heavy electro track on top, and difficult platforming where you find gaps between constantly moving shapes to try and stay alive. Let's see what I can get!

With the jam underway for 7 days now, it would be a good time to start sharing your ideas. You can create an entry earlier and update it later once you've made more progress.

What I want to make myself is a blues improvisation simulator. Jamming blues music is one of the staples of playing music together with fellow musicians. Because of its standard format and scale, anyone who knows these things even a little can jump in and join the fun that is improvising music together with other people.

Sadly most non-musicians never get to experience this, so I thought I'd try to find a way to simulate it somewhat. It's not going to be a game per se, but more an online toy / educational experience sort of thing. The idea is that I'll provide a virtual piano you can play with the keyboard of your computer. The twist is that you can only play notes that are in a blues pentatonic scale, which means that basically all notes will sound alright. To have something to play along with, I'll record a bunch of backing tracks on guitar which will provide a standard 12-bar blues framework. This way you can jam out on the virtual piano along with my guitar playing, so we're effectively jamming together :)

So yeah, that's what I'll be making. Show me what you've got in mind!

Drawn Down Abyss is a roguelite platformer card game with a focus on action. I've been working on it for the last few months and I've finally released it. This project is part of why I couldn't spend much time on my AKJ7 entry.

Check it out on Itch and Steam! :D

I added 5 more levels to Get High, my simple puzzle game for Alakajam #7. It also is now playable directly in the browser!

I just finished the timelapse for my entry:

Hope these are fun to watch :)

Dear Jammers !

I had a tremendous time participating in this edition. However the end of the event wasn't what I was hoping for. My wife (8 months pregnant) came down with the stomach flu and I had to call in a doctor right after submitting. I hope you all understand this had full priority over me writing up a project page with instructions on how to play the game, especially since I did all of this solo (code, graphics and audio)…

However, if you would allow me, I have taken the liberty to write one up now ! :) I am terribly sorry for those who played the game and had to "guess" the controls…

Cheers and thanks again for the nice time,

Dr. JavaSaurus

It's finished! I think this is the first time I've ever successfully completed a project for a game jam, there's still a lot I can do with this if I want too, and might but with time constrains I'm incredibly happy with where it is now.

I'd love it if you could all check it out and give me some feedback and let me know if there are any major errors (I can't test Mac or Linux).

This was a wonderful experience for me as I got to dive into something new with Godot and I am blown away by how wonderful it promises to become as a game development tool. I look forward to having more opportunities to use it in the future!

Unfortunately my team-mates both met some struggles so some parts of the game weren't hashed out as good as possible such as the tinkly music. The tinkly music is nice but it gets repetitive after a while and it doesn't convey the atmosphere I would've liked but as my composer contracted a virus over the weekend this was all she was able to produce, the rest of the sounds I mixed myself.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to check out my entry! :)

I posted the game yesterday and I am planning to turn this demo into a full game, I think it has potential.  I'm definitely going to change alot of mechanics and enemy speeds.  But this might turn into a full-on project.