Hey everyone!
The SuperTry Jam Hosted at Hackfort has concluded! These are the jam submissions most beloved by Jed, Paul, Eric and I. Thank you to everyone who participated and to everyone who played games and left nice comments. There was so much good stuff submitted!
This is what we liked (in no particular order):
Birds Hate Jonathan by madeoftaco
PAUL: I find instant appeal in the game page’s thumbnail. At first I felt bad hitting the birds, but the first time I tee’d up a heavy attack and heard that satisfying ping… I was in. Kiting a bunch of birds and then loading up for a big heavy attack releases that Vampire Survivors serotonin.
ERIC: madeoftaco made me hate birds just as much as Jonathan with this one! Beat-Em-Up where you obliterate pigeons with a baseball bat. I suck at this one, but I do appreciate just how many pigeons and feathers are flying around screen! Best Violence
JED: Solid silly challenging action game
Boomba! by UnderscoreEgg
ERIC: Boomba is cock-fighting with roombas! UnderscoreEgg delivers a very realistic simulation of what this world would look like. My roomba and my opponent's roomba got stuck in opposite corners for about 3 minutes and I was gripped with anticipation. This is bloodsport. Funniest
PAUL: The first time I battled, I accidentally sent my Boomba out without a weapon. Felt bad for it. I never played beyblades, but thanks to this game I can kinda say that I have now?
BRDBLS by SuperTry
ERIC: A really excellent metroidvania-platformer from SuperTry with amazingly tight controls. The level design here is stellar and the difficulty curve is somehow perfectly tuned for a jam game. If Kevin can pull this off in a jam, we are in for a real treat with his next game, Bazooka Panic! Best Game Design
PAUL: BRD looks so cute, and the pixel art and animations are so simple while staying evocative. Moogle vibes. Classic Supertry tutorial opening into stylish title reveal. Joe killing it on music, mesmerizing, syncopated meditation jams on a trash can lid. That sequence of moving the bubbles through corridors of spears was flashing me back to NES TMNT, in the underwater seaweed maze. Kevin - do these spike boxes have fair hit boxes? Be honest. And not SuperTry fair, normal person fair. The glide reveal in the 2nd half is a delight - it feels like Joust, and I think that’s a very impressive accomplishment.
JED: BRDBLS is a fun and challenging platformer. Hard to believe something so polished was done in just 48 hours!
KEVIN: I agree with the hitbox criticism!
Jarnathan's Cleaning Service by andyman404
PAUL: Relaxing music, relaxing gameplay, relaxing messaging wrapped in a simple polygonal design. When I chirp while flapping my wings, I become an airborne demon of cleaning-death. Last 10% is always the hardest, indeed.
ERIC: Super charming clean-em-up by andyman404! Jarnathan's design is undeniable. Smooth riffs accompany you as you clean the muck and mire with the power of bubbles. Very impressed with how many hats andyman404 wore here. Best Original Character
JED: Need a quick therapy session? Check out @andyman404's gamejam entry: "Jarnathan's Cleaning Service" It may not solve all your problems, but it'll make you smile :)
KEVIN: I was drawn in by Jarnathan’s adorable character design (plushies when?) and stayed for the fantastic linkage between writing and mechanics. I didn’t expect to be emotionally moved by the cute bird tidying up game. Glad I was!
Jonathan Quest by owmyknees
ERIC: Jonathan Quest by owmyknees is a game where you need to pester everyone you meet into identifying as 'Jonathan'. This game has a great pixel art style and my kind of sound design 'Beep Bop, Brother'. Am impressed with how many character animations were done for this! Best Pixel Art
PAUL: I’ve never considered the question “Am I Jonathan?” until now. Some nice worldbuilding in this one with varied background artwork and small but detailed sprites and a melancholy. Persistence and an inability to take no for an answer are key to maxing out your Jonathans.
Karavan Killer by dev3r3nze
ERIC: Karavan Killer by dev3r3nze is a game about hunting big birds with a giant spear affixed to your wasteland van. The pain of defeat when you are halfway down the highway to hell is too great for me to bear. Most Painful to Lose
PAUL: It took me a little bit, but this one eventually pulled me into a meditative, bird-murdering, blues-lick-ripping trance.
LeapBot by flameStache
PAUL: Flappy Bird Hard. Nice pixel work! The random movement of your character and the enemies are challenging, but it doesn’t feel unfair.
Seedfall by Falling Seeds Games
ERIC: Seedfall is a game by Alex Buck & Haydn Bryan about guiding your seed down to fertile land! I am terrible at this game, but I do love it for some reason. The controls are spasmodically twitchy, and it's over in 4 seconds. Feels like a great wario-ware microgame in the making. Shortest and Sweetest
PAUL: An expression of frustration at the chaos of chance. You can’t fight the blowing of the wind, man.
Spearry Pop! by muddrox
ERIC: Spearry Pop by muddrox is a game where you are a little guy who can turn his body into a javelin (or perhaps a spear) and lance a heck of a lot of bubbles. This game is oozing juice and has got my favorite music in the whole jam. Lot of trial and error involved here, but goddamn it feels good when you line up your trajectory correctly. SPEARRY NICE!! Best Music
PAUL: The citrus sherbert title screen with poppy rock opening track is taking me into an instant Arcade headspace. Very satisfying when you find a good line - kind of reminds me of trying to hit a strong line of tricks in Tony Hawk.
KEVIN: Great colors, great humor, great sounds! Love the interplay between platformer mode and spear mode.
Tickets by Laggy McStab
PAUL: This is a cute little physics playground. I’ve lived this real nightmare before. High-key, low-poly artwork is taking me into a Kraftwerk video headspace.
ERIC: Tickets by Laggy McStab (excellent name) is a perfect game. Really admire games where the creator takes inspiration from their real life and injects this intimate knowledge into a simulacrum. Best In Show
KEVIN: Playing this in front of a crowd that cheered when my second ticket *finally* went in might have heightened my opinion of this game so I gave it another shot alone in my room. Still silly and fun! Excellent interactive physical comedy.
Vagabond by hightekHextress & Sprons
ERIC: Vagabond is a game by hightekHextress & Sprons where you fight robots and collect scrap! !Or something! I literally have no idea what is going on, but it kind of has the best vibe of the whole jam. I really like this little robot's animations and the fast-scrolling text that leads into encounters. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get out of the shop. Excited to see more by these two! Best Vibe
PAUL: The Vagabond is adorable, I would die for it. I guess I did, a couple of times.
Wingspear by The Chromian
ERIC: Wingspear by TheChromian is a hilariously difficult platformer where you play as a red bird with a spear. I destroyed a living wheel, I popped a bubble, I flew. I died many times. This game is not for amateurs. I need someone to show me a video of how to get past the bubble part! Most Living Wheel Enemies (1)
PAUL: Game title sounds like a really sick Fantasy novel. I only got Wingspear to pop a couple of bubbles with my downward pogo move, but each one felt like winning a championship for something.
KEVIN: This brought to mind the old Klik & Play days of yore! The music and sounds are great and I love the rising tension of flapping and slowly running out of flaps.
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Thanks again to everyone who participated in the jam! You can play all the submissions here.
See you next jam!
KC/ST