Sure! I was originally going to make a mixology game where the objective was to create this one drink that wouldn't immediately poison whoever drinks it - because you're a New York bartender in a seedy part of town suffering with a medieval curse - but on the last day of the jam all my files corrupted and I lost everything lmao 

I was planning at that point to give up and not enter anything because I had a long shift at work that day, but while I was there I had an idea for a game I could put together in the three hours I'd have available called Decrafted, where the objective is to do the inverse of a crafting game - craft until you go down to only one item so that you win!

It's kinda buggy but the premise is there and the core systems work and I'm happy I was able to enter something despite the odds, and here it is: https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/463986

I'm glad you managed to finish something too! I'm sorry things haven't been great, but I'm sure there's something better around the corner. I'll check out your game real fast :)

Hello everyone, I'm student who studies programming. This was my second GameJam in first one i was programming, and in this one I started to draw pixel art. I'm working with small team on virtual reality game that some day maybe will be on steam. I love art and programming I was never thinking that I will create art for games but here I am. We worked in this game jam for full two days with some sleep. I started learning game development because of one event GameOn.  This Game jam idea come from joking about waking up  in messy rom and finding player second shoe. In Lithuania there are people saying, there was two boots, one gone and I cant find it.

Of course you can check my and my friend game as well.

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/463156

Learning about game development for 3 months and this is my first jam!

Game is a platformer, where the power-ups are overpowered sonce they put another 1 to the existing point of yours, which is 1 :D So you can become uncontrollable, but you gain score like that as well. So you need to choose wisely, kind of a puzzle. I hope you like it!

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462865

[My story]
Start game dev/indie dev for near 3 years now, I have never been in the industry. All of my skills are self-taught.
This is my 8th GameJam I think...And I still very enjoy being in a Jam...I always inspired by the games and the title of a jam. Actually, I continue developing one of my Gamejam game and put it on Steam. Now it is the only income of mine. BTW, if you are interested, the game names "LoveChoice".

I think my game can be not fun at all but at least they should be meaningful and not wasting the players' time. I am quite happy about the game I make this time.

[My game]

https://akabastudio.itch.io/only-one-way

Play it and rate it if you will.

Fun fact about me: I've never entered a game jam before! I've never even made an honest-to-goodness video game before, at least not since I was a kid. I love the topic of game-making and have always wanted to give it a try, so when I saw this jam was going on, I decided to hop on an old program I have on my computer (Clickteam Fusion) and throw something together.

I study graphic design at school, so it was super fun using my design knowledge in this game. I'm pretty happy with the visuals (they remind me a bit of "Papers, Please" in some odd way).  Unfortunately, I got started a full day late, so I hardly had time for actual level design after the main programming was done. This resulted in some balancing issues and a few pretty impossible levels :(

My game is called "Echolocation" - it's a puzzler where you can only navigate using your sense of hearing. Check it out :)

Hey there! Me and my friend decided to join this game jam to have some fun, and ended up with a game we're pretty proud of! I had never really used Unity before so this was sort of a first time experience, but I had gotten used to it fast. My friend has been using Unity for a while so he did a lot of stuff that I couldn't do fast and without many bugs.

Here's a link to our game if you want to check it out!

https://corecrypt.itch.io/space-to-dash

My story is thatI was a very closed person and I didn't use to talk to others or having a social life, but then I understood that I should have tried to give a meaning to my life because anyway I have to live, so at least I want to live it well. Since I had some particular problems talking to girls, I decided that i would have talked to a girl I saw on the bus that looked alone. I didn't do it for a long time, I was too scared, but my desire to talk to her made me fall in love with her even though i didn't know her. It took me four months to be brave enough, but when I was finally there, I forgot the important detail that I never talked to a girl that way before, so the only thing that I said was that I was in love with her. Of course it went wrong and we never talked again. But yeah, here's my game: https://ostrich-dog.itch.io/one-bullet I think it's kinda fun, I'll play yours now

hello, I'm a game dev student in Canada. My game is a puzzle/stealth game. I don't want to give anything away so I'll just leave it at that. I hope you enjoy playing it 

https://ftwrahul.itch.io/i-exist

I got into programming when I was 10, when I used a website called Scratch to make games using a drag-and-drop tool. I stayed there for a long while but wouldn't learn how to actually program a real game until 2 years ago when I tried out Unity and made my first attempt at a real game that got cancelled halfway. Now I use Godot to make games, and discovered that game jams are really fun! I've participated in 4 until this one and that's basically all I use Itch for. I'm working on a bigger game but I only work on it when I feel like it.

I came up with my game for the jam way before the theme was announced, a one-button platformer seemed like a good idea, so when the theme was announced of course I was excited because I would finally be able to make it! I had to finish the game way earlier because I would not be home for the final day of jam, so it's pretty rough around the edges and unbalanced towards the end, but I really liked how it turned out, the difficulty and how the main character and the music work together.

Here it is: https://fupicat.itch.io/nowhere-but-forward

Me and my friend just finished our Swedish gymasium education with a focus on game development (Upper secondary school in american school system), and we had kinda just made som trash games the first year, and then moved on to more technical stuff for 2nd and 3rd year. My friend proposed we tried to join this gamejam and just make a god damn game with Unity (instead of making tools for games that will never be used) and we had some incredible fun just making a game that we'd never had before from just developing something. Our game design skills we got from school was finally used and put to test.

This is our first gamejam and if I may say so myself the game turned out pretty damn neat.

It can be found here if you wanna check it out:

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/463435#post-843827

Edit: If you're gonna check out the game, read my comments in the comment section.

Hi Guys, 

I'm a French people who live in Lyon. I'm an engineer who work in supply chain for 10 years. I just begin to learn game development for the fun in the beginning of the years. 

This was my first Jam, and I really like it. 

My game is a fast platformer in black and white pixels art. My goal in this one was to make a dynamic game with some die and retry mechanical  and a little bit of observation... but not frustrated. 

I hope I made my goal and you will like it

You can try it on : https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/460819

Hi Boring

I guess I started to pick up how to develop when I joined a society in my Uni which was about game making. More often than not I wouldn't actually be able to get to their meetings (it was on a Saturday...) but Unity remained on my computer and I gradually taught myself how to use it. 

As for my game when I heard the theme the idea came to me to see if I could shove a (semi) complex control scheme into a single button. I wasn't actually sure if I'd be able to get anything out for the jam because I've never actually done anything like this before and I wasn't even sure what I wanted to make, but somehow I got something out by basically improvising as I went, using my own cruddy art skills as a base for the graphical direction (the goddamn wheel took about 3 hours to make; I kept trying to find suitable images on the internet but nothing really fit so eventually I just gave up and drew it myself using piskel...). I was actually pretty happy with the final result (obligatory self-plug).

https://interrim.itch.io/boel

Hey! Thanks for making this post. I played your game and left some feedback on the submission page, but I forgot to mention a few things:

I loved the sound FX and the simple art style of your game. Also, as tough as programming may seem, I think you did an awesome job, especially for your first completed game ever! I didn't find any bugs, and the game ran completely smoothly! Also, I know I have really no way of knowing what you're going through, but I just want to say I'm sorry to hear your friend is going through some tough stuff. It can feel awful to be unable to help someone close to you with what they're going through, but I'm sure your friend really appreciates you!

As for me: I've been making games for a few years now. I usually make melee combat-focused games that are on the "very-difficult" side of things. With this game jam, I wanted to do something completely different, game-mechanics wise. I've always been really into writing and producing music, so I decided to lean into that and  make a rhythm game for the first time!  I've always been more of a programmer, and also usually bad at art, so I guess we're kind of opposites haha. That said, I worked really hard on the small amount of art in my game, and I think it came out pretty passable!

I had an absolute blast making my game this jam, if you want to give it a try feel free to check it out: https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462268.

Thanks again for submitting your game, and thank you for making this post. It's weird, all of us doing this jam probably have a lot in common, but we rarely hear a lot about the people behind these games. I don't know a lot of people who make games in person, but in these jams, we're among a ton of people that are all interested in the same hobby! 

Wasn't sure if we were gonna be able to do this jam, but this is my first one and we were able to go into it! This was my last weekend before heading off to college, so I was super excited to do a project this fun and intensive with some of my friends before heading off :). When the theme was announced, I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to do a puzzle platformer. I wrote down the common mechanics of a platformer to see which one I would like to reduce to one, initially wrote off jumping, but after about 20 minutes I was like wait, that could actually be very interesting!

This is a puzzle platformer where you get one jump. It starts off pretty simple, but quickly starts to ramp up after my favorite mechanic is added - switched/2 state blocks! With portals, springs, 2 state blocks with levers, moving platforms, and most frightening of all, stairs, there are tons of interesting puzzles (around 25ish iirc :D) Level 7 became unsolvable late in the cycle (which is a shame because it was my favorite puzzle). Apologies about that, but you should be able to glitch through it.

This was my first game ever completed and aside from that minor hiccup, I'm super proud of this game and really did enjoy making and playing it :)!

 https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461728

I'm a maths student who started using the pure functional language Elm for game development.
While I was programming one game over another, I notice that I could abstract away the core of the game into its own game engine.

This game jam was not only my first, but i also wanted to use it to stress test my engine. I wanted to focus on that for the next two days. At least that was the plan.

We'll as life can be I meet a girl just a few days prior, and so I decided I would spend more time with her than programming the game.

So I started writing very generic stuff while I was waiting for the topic to drop: A game editor, a very simple way to change the behaviour of objects and so on. The actual Game Jam began at midnight and the next day I would be with my date... well the date went a bit over time and so, at the end i just had 3 more hours left before the jam ended and still no proper game yet. But the game editor did its job. I had implemented the mechanics in about 30minutes and spend two more hours for the levels.

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461762

All in all, I could test my game engine and even add new features like an object manager or a game editor to it. I would call it a success. (also I got the girl, so that part of the story also turned out perfect)

Hello everyone, I'm a student currently in Year 12 and I want to study Game Design when I go to uni. I started making games six years ago when I was a kid on Scratch for a few years. One of my games called Minimals got featured on their website and really encouraged me to keep pursuing game development. When I reached grade 8 I moved from Scratch to Unity where I learned to make better games but I didn't really produce anything really publish-worthy until last year, when I started working on my first big game called Avarice. After a year of development I finally released Avarice around April of this year and ever since I've been looking to get more involved within the game development community (such as participating in game jams) however due to exams and assignments, I haven't really been able to. Finally, I found out that one of my favourite game design related youtube channels, GMTK, were hosting a game jam and that I would be able to participate. My game is called One Shot In The Chamber, a wave based survival game where you must fight off hordes of enemies with the catch being, you have only one bullet. Fortunately, the bullet is magic and you can summon it back to you or teleport to it. Using this unique ability, you must survive as long as possible in the chamber. Here is a screenshot of the game and the link to the game page: https://mark-auman.itch.io/one-shot-in-the-chamber

I'm an amateur game creator trying to build up my skill my custom engine  until I can make stuff worth money. It's taking a while as expected, in part because life keeps getting in the way and in part because I'm comparatively slower to pick up skill (as judged by literally seeing other art students in my art classes get better faster than me).

Part of my attempts to build up skill and test my engine have been regularly doing game jams. I think this is my 8th one so far, but it's hard to tell cause not all of them have been on sites that still exist. Also one had a weird structure that resulted in my making 6 attempts at games in one month. That was an experience.

For this one, I had trouble cause the theme left me blank for ideas for 4 full hours. I finally landed on a series of one-button gameplay ideas that would get combined into a contextual one-button game once the player had been taught them all. Unfortunately the only way I could think of to design the ideas was visually, which took too long. On top of that, the system level setup ended up taking up a third of the time available. I ended up finishing a set of art for 5 stages, but finished and polished 1 with only 3 1/2 hours left. So it became one gameplay idea for the whole submission.

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/460395

Someone before the jam started mentioned that using a custom engine is a bad idea. I don't regret doing so. I want my engine to improve. But I don't disagree either.

Howdy Everyone,

Myself and two friends made a game for this jam under our collective name - which is something we started doing after we collaborated at Nordic Game Jam this year. 

All three of us are working/have worked in AAA or indie/freelance game development in a variety of roles, and we have been doing game jams on and off for years. We formed our collective out of a specific mindset - we want to embrace creativity without the requirement of excellence, outcome, or expertise. To try new, dumb, thrashy things and celebrate the process and flow of just making. We reject competition, and try to project universal positivity. 

Seeing this many people make things is amazing. To all you who have just done this for the first time - well done. Be proud in your expression, even if you never do this again. Try new things, evangelize to your friends. I sincerely hope that you come away from this process with an appreciation of how starved our culture is for artistic expression  as a means of self development regardless of selling or appealing to other people - and that you carry the power to make what YOU want to see forwards. 

As for our game, we actually abandoned our first project on Sunday morning once we realised that the scope and direction were not clear, and we would not have time to make the core statement work well. (We wanted to make a persistent online waiting-in-line simulator - the trashiest most boring game ever where the only purpose is to wait while we throw confetti at your face. Think of a cookie clicker where nothing you do actually makes things go any faster.)

So, some brainstorming later, we recycled some of our art and tech - mainly stuff we were putting into a character creator - and decided to make a multiplayer where's waldo game instead.

You can find it here:

https://big-breakfast-collective.itch.io/waldoio

Keep creating. Empower others. Embrace the trash.

Yours with love,

The Big Breakfast Collective

One shot is loads of fun. Everyone should have a go. 

I'm a uni student,  and this is my first game jam, and my 3rd completed game. https://fabadiculous.itch.io/bounce-shot

I'm happy with how it turned out, given the time constraints and am happy that this jam is happening near the start of semeseter so I had time to work on it.

Our game has simple controls just one button!

Please try it: https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461656

Hi! My name is Bretton and I'm the Lead Level Designer at Steamroller Studios!
I've been doing game design for ~6yrs now! I've lived and worked in Chicago, Sydney, Ghent, Stockholm, and Orlando!

MICROVANIA - A One Screen Mini-Metroidvania with a Twist! https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462198

- It works with Keyboard OR Gamepad - You can view the controls in in the menu (Esc or Start)   
- The Player has 3x Health, but will be instantly killed by Dragon Fire  
- If you die twice, you should close and reopen the game (it breaks more and more with each death)  
- There are two Winning Endings (You Kill the Dragon, or You Give the Dragon What its Looking for!)  
- There's 5 secret Gems hidden throughout the game, if you can't find the last one, keep looking!

Hi everyone!

David from Montreal, living the time of my life as a game developer at iLLOGIKA where I'm able to work on vast variety of games and apps. Software engineer at first, I always wanted to be a game dev and here we are ~3years after graduation!

Funny thing is that it's my first ever gamejam even though I'm working on games everyday /o/

I've teamed up with 3 friends in order to make "The Only NeOne" which is a Grid based Maze game where you clear levels by reaching the exit by only pressing and holding your input keys ONCE. Study the enemy's patterns, keep track of your paths you take and figure out how to reach the exit!

You will find the game here: https://dzamani.itch.io/the-only-neone

We would love to hear your feedbacks and will be more than happy to test / rate your game!

Thanks!

I'm a Game Developer working to become independent so i can do it full time, I never did anything like this before but man am i glad i did, it showed me just how much i could do with a single concept. My game largely exists to practice design for a set of mechanics i want to include in my current project, but now that I've made it I'm questioning if i should include such deep mechanics in it all, there's so much to go on that i worry i wont have time to fully explore it. 

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462355

Hi. I am 14 and I really like math, and due to that, over the years I have been drawn to programming. I have stated programming in python twice and left (doing console game dev had so many limitations I thought I can't cross, and it was discouraging me). About half a year ago I started programming in javascript using p5.js, and now I am using processing. I might leave processing soon and start programming in pure java. 

This is my second game jam, and I am really proud that this time my game might not look especially nice, but it doesn't look horrible. It was really fun. I came up with the idea after thinking that I could make a Chess game where there is only one type of pieces, then moving on to the player choosing to change the type of the pieces every couple of turns. I remembered that sometimes in real Chess, when a Pawn is moved to the last row, you won't choose a Queen but a Knight, because of the positions. I then decided to change it so that every couple of turns you can choose one piece and change it. I explain how I balance it in the itch.io page. I am currently developing a better version with better graphics, with AI, much better AI, keyboard control and much more, including some balancing. 

Anyways, here's my game: https://nitai99.itch.io/twisty-chess.

I really regret not putting in a way to know in how many turns you can change a piece. I did that already for the better version and it didn't take me a long time at all. 

Going to play your game soon.

I've been developing software for 27 years now.  I did some minor game development when I was a teenager (releasing my first game at 17), but most of my adult life has been spent on non-game development.  I've been focusing a lot of energy on game development for the past 5 years or so.  Nothing notable released to date, but I've done my share of game jams.  I typically do the August Ludum Dare, but since they shifted things around, I was able to make time for the GMTK jam this year. 

For this jam I decided to make a tower defense game where you can only have one weapon defending your towers at a time.  I think it turned out really well.  I haven't received much feedback on it yet, so I don't know how challenging it  is.

Here's a link to my game for anyone interested (browser playable): https://jharler.itch.io/singular-defense

Sorry for my bad english, we tried to solve a simple game with easy control but to bring gameplay tensions and satisfaction from a good move and I hope the we do it. we were both beginners and this is our first game jam and too first game #Book slime

Well i really don;t like to talk about myself... but since am in dire need of rating thus....though that's very personable attitude of you to know dev and there work.. 

Am PhD Student.. I build software for defense labs and armed forces... 6 months back expanded into game and tools development.   If you are interested here in my tech..then you can try watching  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVKNTTqFsy-5_Rifzs8btuQ/videos?view_as=subscriber

Part from work I don;t have any more content to say about me... !!

sometimes without doing anything, listening, staying there and available to your loved ones  in there thick and thin  is enough to get them past there down time...  best wishes for your friend recuperation and to you too...  Hope everything will turn out to be good... 

Kindly, try my game and leave your feedback : https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/431948

Briefly about me. I'm a game designer from Russia with about 9 years of experience. However, this is my second game jam and my very first solo game jam. That's why I'm so excited about it. The fun fact is that my game is my very first completed game with GMS2, I also have a prototype, but it still in development.
Speaking about the game, the idea had come to my mind pretty fast, but initially, I was thinking about a bow and single arrow When I was exchanging ideas with my friend, he said that it takes after Titan Souls. Firstly, I lost my heart as I wanted to make something unique. I tried to invent something more unusual, but I didn't like ideas. Suddenly, I realised that I can use a spear instead of a bow. Additionally, I set a goal to make a smooth and enjoyable game in this 48  hours.

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/46302

Hi!

Very cool thread, I enjoyed reading through those stories! So here's mine. ;) By day I manage two IT projects and teach at a university in Poland (mostly soft skills and basics of game design, as those are two of my passions :D). By night I play games, make games, read about games and watch everything on game design I can find. ;) Right now I am actually looking for a new job and I decided to try and find an employer that will relocate me to the USA. :D I also am trying to transfer to game dev instead of IT, because being creative makes me much happier. The dream is to become a game designer, but my resume/CV probably shows the skills of a producer more, and I wouldn't mind that position either, I really enjoy management, and think I am quite good at it. ;)

Since all my usual partners in crime were busy over the weekend, a game I made for this jam was my second solo project. And the first one was a forum-based RPG I made as a kid over a decade ago! :D I usually work with friends putting myself in more of a design positions, and since for a few years I no longer professionally work *just* as a programmer I am a bit rusty with the actual dev part of game dev. I decided to take part in this jam anyways, flying solo, because I wanted to try my hand at 2D in Unity (always done 3D projects) and I wanted another small project finished to boost up my CV. ;)

I actually had tons of ideas for this jam, as the theme is very open, and it was hard to decide which to use. I was thinking a lot about one save file, and managing your way through a tree-like maze with it, or playing as the "save manager" for some virtual player (or many), but having only one slot (probably because I borrowed a ps2 from a student and I have a hard time working with a pretty full single 8MB memory card :D). I was thinking about an endless runner with many different actions, but all under one button (maybe showing "next skill" like the next block in tetris), or a platformer, where you could only see the level for "one moment" and then navigate in the dark. I was thinking of a game literally made of ones, like all the graphics would be made up of the visual representation of the number "1". I was thinking about a multiplayer racing game but with one car. And I really wanted to make a game named "A", because I just liked the idea of one letter as a name, and maybe it would be about singing "Aaaaah" in a right pitch to match given note, sort of like Guitar Hero with a single button/input. :D Most of those I found unplayable or unachievable in given time with the given team (me). So I decided for a simple platformer where you can only see one obstacle, but they are all still there (works best if you don't know that and die on the first hidden obstacle, so maybe just... do that on purpose if you come around to trying my game xD). At first I wanted to let the player switch between the visuals, letting him choose what to see (I had a prototype, where you could cycle through player, level, enemies and coins layers - was kinda cool, but I didn't like it that much, works better on paper than when you actually play it). I even had the code to change the background color ofo the level when you complete it twice, making the background the same color as the spikes, so they are not visible. I started making another enemy (orange! I thought red would make for a background a little bit too hard on the eyes) and planned on letting player change the background color in later stages. I felt like the cleverest dude on Earth and then I realized I kinda made a game that does the theme backwards - I can HIDE one type of obstacles, but SEE all of them, while I'd rather see ONLY ONE layer of obstacles. :D Ended up with a simple game where only one obstacle is seen at a time (the one you last died on). Spoiling it makes the experience less fun I guess, but oh well, I felt like sharing my thought process. :D By then I didn't have much time to juice my game up unfortunately, so I decided to prioritize sound and have some fun with it. So the sound you hear when you die or win is actually my own voice with no processing (because I cannot really work with audio ;p) and I had that idea to make the music add one layer every time you win that I wanted to try out. So I found some samples (11? 12? Something like that), mixed them together, liked the effect and made some tricks in Unity to get it to work and synchronize. Still, Unity made it "skip a beat" after each loop (apparently a well known bug ;/), but at least it is synchronized (had some headaches with that). Overall I like the final effect, I learned a lot and had fun, that's what counts, right? :D

I cannot really dream of ending up featured, there are too many people better, smarter and more experienced than me in this topic alone. And some actual, experienced game developers, nice! So I do not really need anyone to rate my game - my goal is achieved anyway, I put it in my CV. :D I just really liked the topic and wanted to contribute, and I love writing, as you can probably see by that mountain of a post. Still, if after reading all that you are interested in seeing this concept in action, I will not leave you hanging. :D Here's the game: https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462050

Cheers!

My name is Gabriel Sansigolo (@G_Sansigolo), I am a Master in Applied Computing  by the Brazilian's National Institute for Space Researchand a technologist in Systems Analysis and Development. I am a writer, completed NaNoWriMo last year and a freelance colorist. I have been developing games since the beginning of 2017, but this was my first game jam.

My game for this Jam was also my first published game, at this new stage in my life developing games. I have a past developing RPGs in RPG Maker. Since the beginning of the year I'm developing Red Moon of April, a Visual Novel RPG. The game's synopsis: After losing hope, Kohime can walk and move her arms again. Putting her tragedy away, Kohime riding her Metal Knight set off in a month journey. If you want to see more, check out: @RedMoonVN.

For GMTK Jam I've made a game called If, an Gameboy RPG narrative based game. The game's synopsis: In If, player controls Penny a pilot who set off on a journey to find Des her partner in the archaeological site El Zotz.

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461616

Hey! I'm Bretton! I'm a game and level designer working for Steamroller Studios! I took time off this weekend to jam for the first time in 2 years! This was my 25th game jam and it was really awesome to get back into it!

Hey! My team and I overscoped for the jam, but I'm super proud of it and it would mean a lot if you were able to take the time to give it a play and rate the game!

MICROVANIA - A One Screen Mini-Metroidvania with a Twist! https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462198

And a few notes to help you play it! (The Game Jam build has a few bugs and quality of life issues)

- It works with Keyboard OR Gamepad

- You can view the controls in the menu (Esc or Start)

- The Player has 3x Health but will be instantly killed by Dragon Fire

- If you die twice, you should close and reopen the game (it breaks more and more with each death)

- There are two Winning Endings (You Kill the Dragon, or You Give the Dragon What it's Looking for!)

- There are 5 secret Gems hidden throughout the game if you can't find the last one, keep looking!

I was super busy and only had 3 hours to work on this puzzle game:

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461143

I am from Australia and this jam started a 5 in the morning ;-D

This was also my first jam and i'm fairly new to programming in general, so i can relate when you say that "programing does'nt come to me naturally" i also have more  interest in the art side of things :), i've always been drawing and doodling stuff from as far as i can remember, and since i grew up with retro games i kinda dabbled into pixel art as well for fun from time to time. 

I've always wanted to try and make games but since i only knew the graphics side of things that kinda felt out of reach, cause for the longest time everything related to coding felt like some nonsense impossible to understand black magic to me :p

 but hearing more and more about some of the game engines available these days i found one which felt accessible enough so i could give it a shot, so i got it and followed a bunch of tutorials, they were well made so i understood most of the things which didn't really make sense before and one thing led to another, i saw the GMTK Jam announcement video pop up, so i said to myself "hmm why not give it a shot see if i can make it ?"

My idea for the theme was to make a simple game where the "Only One" aspect would be the means of attack, so i kinda thought  i wanted to try something other than projectile based combat and see how it goes.

And so here i am now XD 

with not the fancyest game around for sure but i managed to make it and publish at least something :)

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462410

This is my first time working on a video game as an artist in a group. Being surrounded by such brilliant people was such a great experience, and it's one I will hold onto for life.  This is hard to admit, but I probably suffer from Imposter syndrome at times, and being a lapsed programmer it was hard to see any value I could bring to the team. I was incredibly worried that my anxiety would slow me down, that they would see me for a fraud of a creator/artist.  It didn't help that I hadn't worked with a photoshop system in years, as I mainly sketch in pencil. 
These friends of mine were very open to what I had to bring to the table; encouraging my learning and growth during those 48 hours.  Seeing just how I progressed in photoshop, it even more amazing seeing what my friends contributed to the project. When things worked correctly , even when they hilariously didnt in visual splendor, I was awe-struck by how smoothly they took what i created and put it in game. Hearing the sound that was created for all the creations I had was a true delight.
This entire experience helped motivate me to further push my art, but to also get out of my shell and go on a chance. It paid off big for me. I loved the experience with the team and it helped not only me, but everyone involved.

The game is Called "One Earth". You control a giant mech as it walks around the planet in a 2D plane. You must save Earth from a cartoonish swarm of aliens by building turrets in different biomes (Sand, Ocean, Mountains, and Plains) to defend your home as you make your way toward an escape. Each biome has a different affect on the turret. You can stack them,  turn them into shields and more, but BE CAREFUL, using to much of Earth has its own consequences.

https://itch.io/embed/461084

I'm a software developer by day and a game developer by night! I made some games when I was in college, but I didn't really finish any one of them -- they were all more kind of a proof of concept. I started working about a year ago in software, and I liked it at first, but now it's become boring. I enjoy way more returning home and thinking about crazy stories and game ideas, 

A few months ago, I was watching a video on the GMTK's channel and noticed he cited a book called I  "A Game Design Vocabulary", by Anna Anthropy & Naomi Clark (which I highly recommend to anyone interested in the topic). I was curious about it, so I bought it and read it entirely. I was amazed at how much incredibly interesting stuff I had been missing out on all this time, so I bought a couple more books, read them, and then started looking for game design patterns in games like Portal and The Stanley Parable. 

I quickly fell in love with the notion, and decided to give a game jam a shot. My first jam took place a couple of months ago, and I did not win, but I did meet some unbelievably talented and kind people, two of which joined me again for this jam! I've played so many awesome games, met so many interesting people, and been infected with so much passion by the community that I can only say I know I'm on the right path.

Games are truly amazing. You can imagine anything you want, draw/design it on a whiteboard, and bring it to life by yourself, or perhaps with a little help from your friends ;). And the best part?

 It is so damn fun.

Hi All, would like to share the story behind the jam. It's my team's 3rd gamejam game. We have 2 people in the team: one programmer and one unidentified role since can't really tell what she is doing, but she's trying for design LOL. No artist in the team, thus we are grateful for the free readily assets to use.

As we brainstorm for the game title, we think this idea will be simple yet unique same time and luckily we manage to finish it!

Here's the link: https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462181

(Side note: surprise blackout for 7 productive hours is indeed unexpected, but we did have fun! XD)

I started working on a game called Catgirl Pool Party in 2016, I picked up the project again this summer
and thought about maybe making some minigames for it at some point. I recently looked up some
game making communities online and found out about this jam through Tigsource.

I decided to use one of the minigame ideas I had and entered this jam with it.
Basing it off Polybius, an urban legend which a friend showed me at some point.
At first I wasn't sure what kinda gameplay it should have. It should be similar to Polybius
but different enough to be its own game. So I came up with a simple idea and sketched it out;

I think it turned out pretty well, considering its the first game I've finished and put online and
my first actual game jam. Some friends helped with parts of the code, like with the red (bad) dots.
https://hik.itch.io/polypuss

Hey!

We are a group of three friends who met back in highschool, with different backgrounds (programming/graphics design/music production) who initially started making games for the very first gmtk game jam two years ago. We havent really made a lot, besides joining a jam here and there, but love to take part occasionally.

What is most fun about us is probably the group dynamics which arise from the fact that we never seem to have a unified vision for a game and are acutely incapable of understanding each other's work (mostly due to differing backgrounds). Unfortunately, we don't even have a group picture at the moment, but we will probably try to be more active in social media circles in future jams.

Regarding our game, we had the basic idea fairly early and then changed it a million times, but if nothing else it was a lot of fun to playtest it. Hope you like it :)

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/463231

Simple, colorful platformer)  I would be very grateful if you have a few minutes to play my game)

Game: https://bloodpirat.itch.io/only-one-rectangle 

Rate: https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/460625

Sorry about previous post)

I'm a simple student from Kazakhstan. I study as a teacher of physical education and sports.In my free time I like to make games and I hope that someday this will be my main occupation, but at the moment I'm trying to earn money so that I can devote more time to creating games.

Simple, colorful platformer)  I would be very grateful if you have a few minutes to play my game)

Game: https://bloodpirat.itch.io/only-one-rectangle 

Rate: https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/460625

Hi! 

I am a guy from Sweden who used to work as a software developer but has re-educated myself towards a more experience design direction.  I have mostly been attending physical game jams previously and in the last year or so I started joining online ones. I really enjoy the limitations and how you push yourself during these kinds of events. 

https://fniss.itch.io/ettin-bffs
Ettin BFFs is a game intended to be played co-op but on only one controller/keyboard. Inspired by the katamari controll scheme and my odd fashination  of co-op games, you share control over a slightly pacifistic two-headed giant who only wants to pick flowers. It can be played by yourself, but you might miss out on the social experience of sharing the controller with someone.  I hope you enjoy it!

A little presentation first: I'm Marco, the designer of our game, and I've worked with Filippo, the programmer. We are two 19 years old Italian students.

15 Years ago I met Filippo, we had been close friends during all five year of elementary school (from 6 to 11 years old) then we went to 2 different middle schools and lost each other.
After 6 years (now we were 17 yo) Filippo changed high school and went my same. He knew that i was there and contacted me to ask me some questions about the school, we spoke for a bit and found out we both had a passion for programming and video games.
Reunited from that passion we decided to participate at ludumdare 39 with this project (we removed the game from itch but there are still some screenshots an the source code). After the jam we let the project die and started loosing each other again for personal reason (nothing bad tho) but when we first saw gmtk video of the jam we decided we had to partecipate.
And there we are, after 15 years of up and down, with a project that's doing really well and we are determinated to contnue: BOB DOES NOT CARE.

I'm a CS student from a 3rd world south east asian country where there is practically no game industry. I like to participate in game jams a lot since I rarely have time to make games between all the classes and assignments.  Even though there is no game industry here, I want to open a game studio here when I graduate. I want to show everyone here that there is a future outside of cookie cutter doctor/engineer gigs and that it is viable. One of my friends already beat me to making the first game to be published for steam/consoles but I'll try my best to be the second.

My entry was a solo one even though I started in a team. I didn't like the game idea the other team members decided on so I left and worked on my own idea halfway into the 1st day of the jam. One of the ideas we had been discussing was an RPG where you got one turn. Based on that I made a SRPG where you had to pick one party member to act every turn. Despite the strategy moniker, I know that the game didn't end up being very strategic  since I couldn't spend time on design. I pretty much coded everything from scratch.

Game link:https://b-deshidev.itch.io/nekurotactics

This is such a wholesome community. I'm really influenced by the game "Wasteland" for DOS in most of what I'm doing recently, so I made a classic RPG and mixed it up with some stuff I came out with on the go. I think I kinda threw most of my knowledge in this, which had a negative impact in the overall synergy of both overlays and didn't have much time to flesh out my project, since I only had 1 day. Even with all of this, I'm really proud of what I did and the combat system mixed with the dialogue do work well imo, tho the rest of the game is kinda meh. 

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461207

PD: I'll play your games when I get home.

Currently I am 14, I have done a couple of game jams. But this is got to be one of my best. I have been making games for five years now. I have also been very interested into technology and computers.

It would really help my game if you guys gave it a rate, it means a lot to me.

https://plugworldg.itch.io/one-shot

Hello to all. I am currently a student at a university in Toronto. I am developing a unity games. Initially, I started by studying 3D modeling and 2D art, but now I am more engaged in programming and just in unity.

I already made some small games, but still haven’t published anything. Maybe soon)

Our game is named Impulse. This tricky, single-level game will put your platforming abilities to the test. 
What's waiting for you in the dark? Only One way to find out. Be Impulsive and take a leap of faith. 

Good luck, and thank you for playing. 
Only One Sprite was used to make Only One Level, and you get Only One Pulse to help you out. 

GamePage:https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/460954

Great idea for a thread. I'm a software engineer outside of the games industry. I've worked on a couple small game projects in college and helped out as a TA for some game design courses (AI, VR/AR), but never completed anything substantial. I've just recently jumped back into Unity and have a few ideas for small games that I'm planning to work on in my spare time.

This is my first jam entry and I'm honestly glad I was able to finish something on time. I actually got the idea from last year's GMTK jam with the theme "game without mechanic." The original plan was to make a point-and-click adventure where you could click the screen but without the ability to point at anything. Instead, the player would click in Morse code to tell the main character where to go and which objects to interact with.

For this year's jam I decided to revive that idea and build something like a platformer instead with a single button and a smaller number of possible commands. There's way more that I wanted to put in the game, but maybe I'll revisit the idea someday.

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462506

I’m Cameron H, and I’ve been making short indie games for a bit over six months. In that time, I’ve made eight games, including my latest one; Tunnel View; https://justcamh.itch.io/tunnel-view

Like most others on this thread, I wanna make a job out of indie game dev, so I’ve recently been building up a social media profile, and doing my best to post *frequently* which is harder than you’d think. 

So bout this game, I made the stupid mistake of planning ahead. May sound sarcastic, but I’d made a plan of what game I would make, then the theme didn’t suit the idea at all. So then I naturally spent hours trying to squash my existing idea into the theme, instead of building something around the theme. After wasting the first few hours, I thought of some ideas, and stuck with 1 Dimensional. 

I knew that this would be a puzzle game, but the most puzzling part was deciding what the game should be like and the challenges associated. Colours had to be the core focus, since shapes can’t be shown in 1D. Then I came up with mirrors, that was a beautiful mix on the idea. That’s hopefully a long enough talk, see you round! 

Hi, we are Team Catwheel and I am Erdal Ural. Here is what we look like in real life:

I'm the guy on the left. The cute lady in the middle is our game artist and my wife İdil and the guy on the right is our friend Umur. 

Umur and I met on our first day in college computer engineering department. We had similar taste in games and we were interested in making them but we didn't develop anything worth playing up until 2nd year after our graduation from college. 

My wife studied fashion design and wasn't really interested in video games until we met.

 It was the summer of 2016 when I decided to join Ludum Dare 36, I asked İdil to help me with the artwork. She is really good with photoshop and she has a good eye for aesthetics. After that first prototype we build for LD36 we started joining jams frequently and quickly after that Umur decided to give it a try and we formed up the Team Catwheel to get better at crafting video games. 

Currently İdil and I have full time jobs. And Umur is doing his own thing. Soon I will switch to a freelance deal with my current employer and hopefully we will find a way to make some money out of our games.

For this game jam İdil decided not to join because she has been working very hard lately,  therefore Umur and I had to change our roles a little bit. Usually I'm doing the main programming and Umur handles the polish and sound design (Time to time we switch around the programming roles during the jam).But this time, I had to do the artwork,  so we decided that Umur should do the heavy lifting on the programming and I can focus on polish and artwork. I glad it worked out!

The Idea for our game came from this question: "What annoys you when there is only one of?" from that we got to the idea "only one elevator!". You see we live in a 15th floor of an 18 floor apartment and there are 2 elevators and some times one of the is out of service so the whole building has only one elevator. At those time I keep complaining how stupid and inefficient its algorithm is. Then it came to my mind that what if I controlled the only elevator on the floor manually! What if I controlled it with a crank so there would be only one input! So we made the game "Smooth Elevator".

Here is the link if you are interested: https://teamcatwheel.itch.io/smooth-elevator

Hello everyone,

Im a game designer and this was my 1st  & the best game jam(solo),I made a game about decisions,choice and consequences. You have a life bar which is also your healthbar,fuel,ammo and score this was my take on the theme hope you guys like it.Thanks

A rating /review would be appreciated:https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/463255

(edit : crikey, I've bamboozled myself and mistaken 24 hours to 12 hours, I'm quite an idiot :/)

First of all, Please execuse my bad english. English isn't my native language, Thank you.
Name's Zik, I'm preparing (kinda) for the college & university and my ultimate goal is to spread those gamedev know-hows to everyone who wants to make & improve their games!
I've began developer's career when I was like, 15? and I used gamemaker. Wee-lad me was just trying to make my own little cybertoys at the moment, lol.
Years of hardcore coding later, (merely) an year ago I've discovered the itch.io, And GMTK. They're one of my life's greatest landmarks I say.
And now, I'm developing my personal projects like tech demo and my magnum opus, At the same time I'm drawing various stuffs whenever I got inspired.

About the game --
After the jam has begun, I solo'd everything. I rushed & coded my first prototype. It was about choosing one character that had unique ability to fight in the wave-based arcade game.. But there was a problem;
While I was prototyping, I've gotten a great concern of not being able to finish all of my design goals & only thing that has adherence to the theme was the choose one character gimmick.

So, I've decided to overhaul everything and choose to develop smaller, do-able game. only merely 24 hours were left.
I've brainstormed for another good hours.. Then I've come to the conclusion of the game in which you "Compromise" the distance with your own projectile. I've brainstormed yet another time to build more mechanics upon that, Like adding the ability to deter away the bullet & mobs that can be killed with the projectile.

So that's how my game were created; It was quite a rushed project made in span of 24 hours (excluding the designing time & time when I had to go outdoors to do some library stuff etc..)
There was several design mistakes, But I'm really, very happy with the result I managed to pull off.
Plust, Thanks to this jam I could compose my (simple) music for the first time in my life, And not to mention that I've met so many awesome folks here. It was very fun & new experience overall.

I'm attaching the link, Feel free to take a look If you're curious to see the result : https://zikbakguru.itch.io/game-game-game-game

Don't lose your heart.....    s

Enjoy! ;)

Me know it all knows the truth

It's really cool! here's ours:

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461311

Hope you'll like it, try to get all endings! =]