The Arbitrary Gamejam is a monthly gamejam with two random themes to challenge your creativity and a bonus theme chosen by the host to spice things up! Entries are judged by the host and winner gets an opportunity to host TAG jam next month.

Themes: Bridge, Wolf, Sedative

Bonus theme: 80's Music

Bonus rule: Include some Fall or Halloween related colors/ideas/theme in the game itself.

Jam page: http://jams.gamejolt.io/tagjam15

Host: https://twitter.com/Haddicus

See you at #TagJam15!

During last Feedback Friday on /r/gamedev I got a ton of useful feedback and realized that there's a lot more I need to do, than I first assumed. It's fun to play, but gets old after 10 minutes. I'm still unsure how I'll be able to make it work, even with more content. Anyway, some new mechanics!

Most requested feature: dodged projectiles now hurt enemies! While it's pretty satisfying, it did mess up balance a lot, which may or may not be solved with nerfing it, so it wouldn't insta-kill.



A mash of a couple things I wanted to implement earlier: knocking enemies to the rockets to kill them and... FLYING BODY PARTS!



So, it is moving forward, but not as fast as I'd like it to move.

Finally, got time to make an update!

• new enemy type: rocket wolf! Kick it off his firework or it will annoy you to no end.
• enemy attacks have longer wind-up and attack animation is much clearer
• piglet strikes flow much better and have shorter frame reset delay
• ducking now has a kick attacked, so it will be more useful to do
• ducking in front of axe will not do "axe catch" move if an enemy is near by (thus, you will be able to avoid being hit)

Ok, total newb question: it appears that game jams tend to be a meetup in person style affair, at specific locations and such, but then, as per this example, there are also virtual ones? I'm only confused because I would like to meet with people in reality, and it appears I've missed a lot of them already this year...

Online gamejams got crazy popular recently, especially when platforms like itch.io or GameJolt made hosting one super simple. Great way to learn making and finishing (!) small games fast. And plenty of various flavors to choose from: http://www.indiegamejams.com/

For "reality" meetup jams you should get in touch with your local game development community - they might be organizing something. Personally, I have never been in a real gamejam

Hello,

for those, who will be looking for a gamejam fix this weekend - give TAGJam14 a chance! It's a monthly jam with 3 themes (2 random, 1 chosen by the host), where the winner gets an option to host next TAGJam. It's a pretty relaxed jam, since themes are announced a day before (tomorrow!) to get brainstorming going and an extended 12h period is usually added to the already submitted games for final polish and bugfixing.

Edit!




About TAGJam idea: http://www.ticktakashi.com/p/tag-arbitrary-gamejam.html

TAGJam 14 GameJolt page: http://jams.gamejolt.io/tagjam14

Landing page: http://tagjam14.snoutup.com/

Twitter: #TAGJam14

Hope to see you there!

Expected to add a new enemy or new mechanic today, but instead added half of new enemy and half of new mechanic.

Enemy: Wolf on the rocket. It will fly through the screen over the character once and come back in lower level forcing to jump. It will probably require a new move to be added for "neutralizing", but jump & kick might be enough.


Move: Throw! Still unsure where and how the grappling will happen, but I'll find a way.

Love it so far! There's something really satisfying about uppercutting a wolf up in the air, juggling it a while, then slamming it back down to the ground!

Thanks! I will update Gamejolt version this evening with some balance changes (lowered HP of piglet and wolves, but also made spawn sequence a lot more fair. That'll do for now, until I start adding new enemy types).


I also published Android version already... For my "game in a week challenge". There are some big input delays on some older devices, which I'll look in to, but players report that it works okay: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snoutup.ironsnout



Next week I'm planning to add at least one enemy type or new move/mechanic every day. Let's see how that'll work out for me!

Update:

* improved art of the scenery
* added shadows
* more knock-backs!
* new moves: knee kick and ground slam
* tested on mobile and face palmed because controls needs a ton of work

Very early alpha version is UP! Added low kicks, knock-backs to more strikes, updated main character sprites with softer colors, tweaked some of the sprites to fit moves better, added trails and, finally, made piglet mortal.

Feedback wanted: http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/iron-snout/33540/

I did it! Made a bee-flying game and also submitted it to "One Button Jam". While in a different setting than your entry it's also more a relaxing experience than a real game.

http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/bee-nice/32692/

4 AM and I'm done for today. So far it's going on quite well (still haven't started any balancing) and I added a couple of very sweet moves:

This looks really neat and seems like kind of game I'd really like to play. I hope to see some gameplay videos/GIFs soon!

First update!

Added knock-back/enemy stun and some visual feedback to successful hit. And it made a world of difference to the feel of combat. Although, axe hit is buggy (counts multiple hits) it does look cool.



The question remains... How will I be able to balance all the fighting out when I'll add character mortality... It kind of looks like insta-death would be fun killer, so I'll have to go with health system.

Enemies clumping up is another headache. But, hey, at least it's already fun to test it!

[Game:]

Good day!
My name is Aurimas, solo hobby gamedev, and I have issues with finishing and releasing games. To fight that I decided really force myself in to a challenge of making a small new game and publish it as soon as possible. Hopefully, this devlog will help me to brainstorm and get some feedback.

Game: Iron Snout (working title). A "stand your ground" fighting game, where you either fight waves of enemies or try to survive as long as possible in an endless ambush from both sides (yet to be decided). Vertical movement only: jumps and crouching.

Playtesting:

Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/424280

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snoutup.ironsnout
Browser: https://snoutup.itch.io/iron-snout

Latest gameplay GIFs:






- - -




Moves:

• basic punches, can be chained for decorative purposes
• turn around "back hand" slap
• mid-air kicks
• uppercut (striking from crouch position)
• ground pound
• throws
• using enemy body parts against them (kicking and throwing heads)
• catching an enemy projectile and throwing it back!

Enemies:

• a double-axe wielding wolf (walks, throws one of his axes, then runs at character to chopping at it)
• flying enemy type (done: rocket wolf)
• smaller wolf running on all fours and jumping at character
• something with low attacks to force jumping (not implemented)

Issues:

• Maintaining fast paced combat, but not overflowing player with enemies & projectiles
• Making a feedback of a connected strike feel good
• Balancing: insta-death? health bar?
• Responsive touch screen controls
• That feeling that this is not a "small game" anymore

I understand this is nowhere as interesting as other projects posted here, but I hope you don't mind me posting about my progress once in a while.

Time to go back to work!

Sorry, it took me so long to respond - I was "offline" for a week.

So, thank you for great feedback! While, of course, it might be "not your thing", all points you made are very valid and I'll take them in to consideration while making new level.

Since a couple of problems arise from challenge level, I should note that it was a level made during the gamejam, so it is quite a long one on purpose & has no enemy types, which were added later. I left it unchanged as a nod to early players. I'm also a fan of presenting new challenges gradually, so that new player won't be bombarded by various obstacles, yet, I get that this way the presentation of the "fighting" side of the game is lacking.

My next step will be making a set of shorter level set with hand-positioned obstacles, so that should solve the need of checkpoints and I will be able to make it more tense, since there will be less need to give player a break in between trap-clusters. I'll try to work on enemy AI/boss fights to add more to the "fighting" part of the game, too.

Well, I got bored/annoyed after about a minute and a half but that's because I'm not a big fan of this sort of game. I really thought I'd enjoy it when I saw the GIFs, though.

I think my main issue is that the game starts out like a Flappy Meat Boy game and doesn't add enemies for a few screens. By then, I was already disappointed that there was so little combat, since the moves you mention in your post weren't even being used.

Strangely, I also didn't feel any excitement. Super Meat Boy wasn't my type of game either, but I at least felt tense. Maybe the character should speed up as they move through the level? I'm not sure.

Personally, I also wish there were checkpoints in the normal mode. For endless, it makes perfect sense to see how far you can get before dying. In the normal mode, though, I found the first level much longer than my "Do I really want to play through all that again?" limit.

The controls work really well. I think the shuriken could be made to show up a bit more, and the fire shouldn't cover up the Music button, but overall I think the game is artistically and technically quite well made. I'm interested to see what fans of flappy games or meat-boy-like games will think of it.

[Play latest version here:]

Good day, everyone!

Play latest version here: http://snoutup.itch.io/shurican

Been an user for a while, never got enough courage to post anything and now I'm going to try it with a pretty risky project. The risk comes from the fact that I'm working on a base of well known and hated game mechanics, which is mid-air jumping.

So, it's called Shurican and it's a single button/tap controlled side-scrolling game with a variety of dynamic obstacles and some emphasis on fighting. Mobile oriented, but I'm having a free & full Windows version too.

Still experimenting with controls and possible abilities my character can use, but in the current version there are:

* upwards slash added to the jump
* downwards slash (tap, hold until upwards slash animation ends, release), which adds a knock back useful fighting melee enemies
* shuriken throw (double tap)
* character strikes can block melee enemy weapons

Latest gameplay GIF showing unlockable character, weapon and a bit more slaughter:


Gameplay trailer (outdated):



Browser & Windows: http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/shurican/29177/

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snoutup.shurican
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shurican/id895045580?ls=1&mt=8 (will be updated soon)

This project started in FuckThisJam gamejam, where the theme was to make a game of genre you don't like. Since the result was better than expected, I decided to keep working on it.

Any feedback & critique would be great! If I should add anything more to my post - let me know.

A couple of early screenshots of my first game: pig-based 2D running game for Android. This is taking ages for me to finish, because various motivation problems and, since I've started, 3D running games took over the market. But it's my personal fight to finally complete it.

Nothing that could compare with an amazing art people are posting here, but it's a start.

"Epic" mine explosion!


My friend is saying that those spikes looks more like spoons, so I might have to redraw them...


Piggy just got wet!


Also, this is my first post here, so far it looks like a nice place. If you don't mind, I might stay here for a while

Good luck!