There are a ton of game jams happening online at any point during the year. Many of these jams follow a theme and a timeframe, giving developers the challenge of creating a game within a specific jam’s restrictions. I am able to record loads of these games for each and almost every game jam. As I record them all, I pick out games that stand out to me and games I love from each individual jam. This article contains the games I love from ‘GM48: One Shot’.
The GM48 is a quarterly game jam which requires developers to create a game using the GameMaker engine in just 48 hours! Each jam has a theme, voted on by the community. This GM48 had the theme ‘One Shot.’ There were quite a few entries in this jam and I was able to play all of them in my compilation video series. Below are a few of my favorites, in a random order.
Party Maniac
Party Maniac is a shooter full of dancing and fun! Or at least, that’s the way things look through your eyes. Ignoring the fact that you are a reindeer who has clearly been locked up in a place full of rabbits with guns, you have found your own gun and plan on using it to make the other rabbit guards party! You feel that the place you’re in could use a little more fun — and you’d be right. Too bad any gun you pick up only has one single shot. This shot, if it hits a guard, makes them break into dance and drop their own gun. You can then pick that up and use its one shot to continue the chain. Sometimes, you may miss.
Missing your shot causes some problems, as the rabbits continue to chase you. You will need to pick up discarded guns and fling them at the other guards. If you fling several guns at a guard, they might get knocked out, dropping their gun. If other guards see you though, they also start chasing you, so do get a gun in your hand quick! Party Maniac takes a bit of planning and plenty of skill to beat, but as a shooter causing a dance party, it’s not a game to miss.
Final Ascent
by Seltzy
Final Ascent is a challenging game that gives you a single attempt to overcome a massive tower full of coins. These coins are very tempting, but most of them are in more dangerous positions, forcing you to venture above spikes or slide down walls to collect them. This tower was built with greed in mind, tempting adventurers into the tower to die instead of making it to the top. Final Ascent doesn’t save as you go along, so once you die, the game quits out, forcing you to delete the game to play once more.
Going through the tower isn’t easy, as you may have already guessed. You must avoid spikes; jump across fading platforms; try to wall jump on slippery, golden walls; and continue moving upwards. There are also gravestones and signs which tell you the tale of the tower and the previous people who have challenged it. Can you make it to the top in one go?
Archies Arrow
by Ivar, Knutone and Tätofågel
Archies Arrow is a challenging little adventure game where you play as a hero with only one arrow. Thankfully, you are a resourceful archer and know to be careful where you aim — arrows can be picked up and reused to fight again as long as they don’t end up in the water around you. To complete your quest, you need to destroy all enemies in each area before you can move on to the next. You begin to face off against more challenging enemies, but the environment is something to also watch out for.
Not only is there water, but there are also walls that break after a few hits, exposing more areas to water. You rely on this single arrow, so you have to make sure it doesn’t fall off. You also have a limited life, so being defenceless against all of these monsters will inevitably cause you some harm. It’s up to you to try to make it through the world with only a single missile.
Sub Squid in Torpedo Trepidation
by QuibbleCoatl and Octotruck
Sub Squid in Torpedo Trepidation sees you playing an octopus who has a very important job. You must guide a torpedo through the water and make it to a robo-whale. Once you make it to the whale, you must fire the torpedo off into it. It’s a long path, full of other sea creatures who don’t understand why this torpedo is moving through the water. They continue to swim toward it or even fire at it, hoping it will stop invading their space. You can shoot back, eliminating the other fish or obstacles in your way, but sometimes the torpedo also needs to be moved.
The environment around you changes, forcing you to move the torpedo so it doesn’t smash against a wall or the floor. Once you start moving the torpedo, you cannot fire until you let go again. Both you and your torpedo have seperate lives, but if either one reaches zero, it’s game over and you will need to try again. It’s up to you to save the ocean and defeat the robo-whale!
Eagle Eye Emma
by Lone and Simon Milfred
Eagle Eye Emma is a challenging puzzle game where you must eliminate anyone who gets on your bad side. Today, a lot of people got on your bad side. So, you must take your gun and try to take each person out with a single bullet. Ricochet your bullet along walls and knock down objects to complete each level, shooting only the specified enemies! If you rough up the place, you gain more points — if you kill off innocent people, you lose them.
As you get deeper down your list of rage, the levels become more challenging, making you have to think of tricky solutions to get that single shot to the goal. You can’t move, so you’ll need to think fast as the timer counts down to the enemy’s turn at shooting. Eagle Eye Emma has not only a great little story, but also some very challenging puzzles.
CRUNGUS 3: Mrs Crungus
by Moo, Elko and MajorWipeout
CRUNGUS 3: Mrs Crungus is a super-unique puzzle platformer, the third in a story about fictional creatures called ‘Crungus’, but this time you are off after your late husband, who is inside the underworld. The underworld is located inside a serpent’s mansion, so you need to find your way around and get deep into the mansion to get your husband back. A lot is riding on this, as you are the last of your family. To make it through this mansion, you take control of objects — which only female Crungus can do.
Possessing an object does have some limitations — once you leave the object, you cannot go back into it. You can play around with objects, move them or open them — or even play music from them. Smaller objects move faster than larger objects, forcing you to become small to make it across gaps. Picking objects and playing around adds some challenge to the game, as you need to think before you use your item up. Some tightly timed jumps and mid-air possessions are essential to make it deep into the mansion — but you must save your husband!
The GM48 always has a ton of really nice, creative entries and the community around the jam is absolutely wonderful. If you are looking to get into the GameMaker engine, this is a great opportunity to do so! You can keep up with this jam by joining their subreddit, visiting the GM48 website, and by following @redditgamemaker on Twitter.
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