Hello everyone! I've spent the past 3 days playing and streaming all of the games in this jam. You can find links to the vods of me playing all the games in this document https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VHM9CXIo7nl8hkqazqIKw8-TpwY0ulSDUML3iKYNQ74/edit?usp=sharing .
Having played all the games, I'd like to give recognition to some of my favorites.
Top 5 games that would be great high score competitions:
1. Skeet Ninja (vod)
Skeet Ninja is the clear winner as a high score competition game for me. It doesn't do a great job of fitting the "combining" theme, but it does a great job of making you want to play just one more round. In this game you play as a ninja that has a katana and shuriken attacks. There are 3 skeet launchers on the ground and you have to jump into the air and combo hit the clay pigeons with your katana or shuriken. When you hit them with your sword, you bounce and can continue to combo hit them before hitting the ground. This game feels amazing to play. Timing your hits and bouncing around in the air makes you feel like a ninja and I could play it for hours going for a high score.
2. PotsDealer (vod)
In PotsDealer, you need to combine potions for your customers. Every time you combine 2 potions of the same color, they'll "upgrade" to the next tier color. You have to balance between filling your board with higher tier potions while also having some lower tier ones available in case a customer comes in asking for one. There is a lot of strategy and skill needed to consistently get high scores.
2.5. Zephyr (vod)
Full disclosure: Zephyr is my game. That being said, I genuinely believe it is a pretty good game and think it would make a great high score competition. I will include a 6th game in my top 5 however so that I don't rob someone of a top spot. Anyway, in Zephyr you are the god of wind and you want to use your power to guide a boat's path towards exciting adventure before returning home. The line you draw for the wind combines with the boat's original intended path and you need to try to get the boat to collect coins, narrowly avoid kraken, and eventually return home. The scoring system has some great incentives to play both fast as well as deliberate and a skilled player could always take the top spot on the leaderboard.
3. Suffer Puffer (vod)
In this game, you're a puffer fish that keeps getting trash stuck to it. However, you can get rid of the trash by combining 3 items that have the same color. This game is super fun and leads to some hilarious situations of panic when things aren't quite going your way. This would definitely be the most enjoyable game to watch someone stream while attempting to get a high score.
4. Elemental Mayhem (vod)
In Elemental Mayhem you can absorb different elemental enemies to gain their power. There is a large variety of enemies that each have unique attacks. Trying to both figure out which enemies to absorb as well as staying alive while getting points takes a lot of skill and watching top players fight for the top places of the leaderboard would be quite fun. My only concern with this one is that there are 2 "ancient god" creatures that I fear may be a bit too overpowered and lead to a dominant strategy that doesn't involve interacting with the cool elemental weaknesses system.
5. Garden Mix (vod)
This one may be a bit of surprise to see here, but I honestly think that this game has quite a bit of strategic depth to be explored. In this game you plant flowers to sell to customers. Some customers want mixed flowers, others want standard red, blue, and yellow flowers, but what makes this game interesting is the number of options you have to do in your down time. There are multiple ways to make extra money while waiting for new customer orders to show up and I think if people were seriously competing for high scores, it'd quickly become clear who is the best player.
Top 5 games that would be great mobile games:
1. No Overlap (vod)
This game is simplicity at its best. In No Overlap you are shown a circle with a bunch of different sized dots on it. The circle then splits into 3 or more circles that are missing some of the dots. It's your job to select which two circles combine to make the original image. It's incredibly easy to understand, satisfying to play and would make a fantastic mobile game.
2. Boiding (vod)
Another game where simplicity is king. In Boiding you have a circle full of little @ symbols. You have to grab them and slam them into each other to make them combine. I imagine this mechanic would feel even better using touch controls. You also have to continually drag little & symbols away from your circle while doing so. I can imagine playing many many rounds of this on a phone before getting bored.
3. Potions Worth Their Weight in Gold (vod)
This is another color combining potion creating game, but the fun part is that the ingredients are constantly being thrown at you. You have to grab the ingredients out of the air and slam dunk them into your cauldrons to make the right color combination for what your customers want. It leads to many hilarious situations where you're trying to make a blue potion, but a yellow flower gets thrown in from off screen or you grab an ingredient out of the air to keep it away from one of your cauldrons but accidently throw it in another. This is another one where I think it could benefit greatly from touch controls on phone.
4. Out of Slime (vod)
Out of Slime is a highly polished simple little game about selecting two slime creatures that look alike. It's super adorable and super easy to pick up and play. The controls just involve touching the slimes that look alike and it's easy to get sucked in and play for way more rounds than you mean to.
5. Numerology (vod)
Numerology is a pretty simple match 3-esque game where you combine two of the same number to increase their value and clear your board. When you combine two 9's, a very satisfying explosion will take out all the numbers on your board in a plus shaped pattern. Not much to this one, but it's pretty easy to get lost in playing round after round.
Honorable Mentions. All of the games in this list are well worth your time to check out (or at least watch my vod if you don't want to play yourself):
Thank you so much to everyone who competed in this jam and everyone who stopped by my stream. I genuinely loved playing all of your games and I hope I wasn't too harsh with the criticism.
I'm not usually a Twitch streamer, but if you want to follow me check out my YouTube channel where I've been making tutorials on how to make browser-based online multiplayer games, or my itch.io page where I upload all my game jam games.