Congratulations to everyone for a terrific jam, and thanks to everyone at PlayBern who supported and played our games! After an intense but very fun morning of tweaking and polishing, we got most of our submissions together in time for presentations. In total there were 10 people who worked on the 5 projects, which you can explore at https://itch.io/jam/playbern/entries or see on our YouTube stream.
G-CELL and seism presenting on the livestream and to the PlayBern audience. Photo by Levyn Schneider.
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To play Angry Boss, you will need a microphone, and can start it right in your web browser. There is a story line, complex code, and a very quirky idea at the heart. Lots of people stopped by to try to beat the algorithm and appease the Boss, with much amusement resulting. The highest score I saw was about 12’000’000. How high will you go? Our jury was impressed by the Zeitgeist of this entry, a commentary on the online media landscape. It was also clear that you put in a LOT of effort to make this title, produced code and graphics that we hope will continue to be built on!
Good Ol’Devs dazzled us again this year with Utopia Express, a one-button game of skillful maneuvres where you aim to keep a train on a hazardous course while collecting “friends” - passengers of all colours - from the stations. Beautiful graphics, a smooth camera, wonderful sounds and an action packed experience in an unbelievably great entry. We loved it, as did PlayBern visitors, and you should download and play it now! Post your friend counts and times in the Discord chat.
One Button Flight challenges you to try one-button flying, and experience the frustration of physical limitations. Many noble air knights came by to try their hand, only to be smitten in their attempts. If anyone manages to catch the Orb, please let us know! You can download the game and run it on a Windows computer.
Finally Stay in line is the Minecraft mod that was demoed in the livestream. You climb up above the rains to navigate a labyrinth in the clouds. Walk off the line, and you’ll fall! During development, the team investigated and learned how to make it possible to play with accessible controllers. This entry, made by our youngest participants, is available to download into your Java edition.
That is a journey I do not want to miss, so during the jam I also worked on a couple of ideas. My first one (“Dire Tyre”) did not get further than some initial 3D models, but my second was a small alt-hardware game that kind of grew out of the code. I did not manage to submit in time for the presentation, but as it’s 5 minutes of fun I put it online, along with the source code, to interest others in this new platform. There is a short video on the M5nesweep page.
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What a fun jam, what utopian people and entries! Our expectations were met and exceeded again this year. Every one of the teams put considerable effort and thought into making their game accessible. Our jammers received some small rewards in appreciation of their efforts. The big reward being the experience of the journey of game design, and seeing your work light up the big screen.
Thanks again to everyone on the PlayBern team, to our sponsors and the Reitschule site staff who made it a very special week again on our calendar, of free-spirited and enlightened game culture attuned to the diversity of game-makers and players in Bern and the world. See you about town!