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 the the ProcJam 2018.
The ProcJam is not necessarily a game jam, but instead a jam around ‘creating something that creates something’. That can include generative art, poems, twitter bots, games, and much more. ProcJam also always has a bunch of art packs, tutorials and more for people to use as a part of the jam. I’ve played through each of the submitted creations in my compilation video series and below are a few of my favorites, in a random order.
PATTERN by Galen Andrew
PATTERN is a beautiful walking simulator, where you move through a world full of color and… trees. As you wander around these procedurally generated forests you end up getting closer to trees, giving them leaves and more detail. In the distance, you can see smoke.
Moving towards this smoke will allow you to sleep by the fire, re-generating the world around you before you open up your eyes. Exploring around PATTERN is just peaceful and lovely. There is no danger, no bad monsters, just land to explore.
Prokja by Sean K
Prokja is a small pack of five colorful generators, all of which make some strange things with cellular automata, sine waves, and audio. Each room within the game generates its own interesting patterns and creations. My favorite of the batch would be the grass-like rainbow little creatures, protruding from the ground and waving in the wind as if they don’t have a care in the world.
There are a few rooms that generate patterns, one that generated rectangles that slowly rotate and duplicated, and another that rotates loads of colorful shapes that randomly starts exploding! At first, this machine doesn’t seem to have any audio, but over time you start to hear it. You can edit the rooms — making them more or less random, to see what you like the looks of.
Concerto for Cells and String by LOWPOLIS, Rayzones, & Yaffle
Concerto for Cells and String is an interactive, procedurally generative art gallery. Five pieces get generated in front of you. You can discard pieces that don’t resonate with you and can move them around the wall, placing them in perfect positions. Not seen by your eye, a small dot is moving around the screen, slowly leaving a trail.
You can place your art around in a way that they catch the trail, showcasing the lines that are made. As the dot moves, it continues to make the trail, and sometimes it moves into your art. Your art, when created, isn’t stagnant. Instead, it moves and pulses as it is displayed, creating an interesting and wonderful art gallery.
Tiny Woodland by maetl
Tiny Woodland is a cute little toy that you can just watch and take in. A browser-based garden complete with fun audio, you can watch the grass shift to leaves and flowers, before working it’s way back to sprouts. It’s very relaxing to watch and view, as the emojis transform and become a garden.
The game itself is based on a Twitter bot that was created by the same developer for the last ProcJam, if you’d prefer to have gardens in your timeline! Both are really a bright look that can make your day much brighter.
The ProcJam is a yearly game jam that normally have a Kickstarter to help fund the tutorials, asset packs, coding libraries, zine, and more that are involved with the jam. Keep an eye on the @ProcJam Twitter if you want to see more!
Interested in reading about more game jam highlights? Why not check out our archive?
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