This is a 2 month student jam on the theme:

It's a Gamble!

Hey a puzzle game submission, this is awesome! I couldn't get the hang of setting up the cans and then firing the level, so i typically would manually control the can to real-time adjust the trajectory of the ship. some levels were harder than others, and i couldn't get past this one where the fizzy can spawns the goal planet. Great work!

file transfer site is better now, requalified

Submission disqualified due to suspicious link status

Thank you for submitting your game, but your entry was disqualified for the following reasons:

Hey, good question!

The actual answer is "neither"! You do not have to use primitives, you do not have to use basic shapes to explore ideas.

The idea about the capsules is just a single interpretation of the prompt. We wanted to share that interpretation because we wanted you guys to feel like you could release a "prototype-looking" game that utilized primitives. That way you didn't feel like you had to worry about artwork or modeling and could focus on the game design.

BUT!

You can do whatever you want as long as it fits the theme in some way...

Hey Malek! There is a discord, but we keep it private for the students of the program. This ensures we can moderate content and maintain a safe space for our students. Thank you for asking!

Share your progress here on the forums :D

The theme is BEANS!!!

But more to the point, think of BEANS in the Unity Capsule Primitive sense. We want you to feel able to explore any of your ideas using the basic shapes because this jam is about TRYING and not about perfection. So many students believe they must produce such-and-such quality before it's worth sharing. 

No!

Finish your work because this process of "getting it done" is a hard skill to learn, and low-stress game jam environments are where your beans can fly free!!!!

Yes, you guys are good to participate. Thank you for asking. The spirit of the jam is for students not experts or industry professionals. 

Hey everyone, congratulations on finishing! I totally messed up the jam configuration and did not allow people outside of the jam to participate in judging. Woops!

That being said, you guys all did great work and we want to promote your efforts by putting your project and social media links into a teaser trailer that we will promote on YT tutorial vids!

Please let us know what you want us to link to (for example, your itch.io page or your YT page). Thank you again for participating and making such great games!

Congratulations on finishing such a polished and beautiful pixel art game experience!

Gameplay loop is solid. Great pixel artwork. I loved the recipe system. I especially loved all the icons. I think everything fit the theme of a Bean in a Workshop doing whatever beans do during the post apocalyptic world where we need to recycle everything! I could not hear anything unfortunately. So I would have loved some music and crafting sounds!

I really can't wait to see what else you do with this project! Robot helpers? Refiners? Factory lines? Special orders? Leave the workshop and explore the world!?!? So much potential.

Great work!

Congratulations completing and submitting your project! Awesome prototype that really demonstrates the potential

I can 100% envision the phoenix as a renewable fighting resource. Awesome. Beans are very dangerous. Bird is beautiful. Model is fantastic! To be honest, my only feedback is i wanted a more expanded game loop to explore this mechanic further. My bird can die but so what? Need to experience the full adrenaline rush of REBIRDTH (get it???). Love the custom music, just wish there were sound FX to go along with it.

Great work

Great work submitting a completed project! 

Excellent menu system. I loved the idea of killer red bars attacking my big white bar that i need to protect with my paint roller! Funny concept. I think it ties to the theme loosely, so I would have preferred more in the way to communicate the idea of renewal.

Gameplay is solid. Definitely appreciate the difficulty curve increasing. Particle and sound effects are excellent. Perhaps a simple "hit the bar" animation for the white bar when you miss may be a good way to indicate a fail.

Nicely done!

First of all, congratulations on submitting such a polished prototype. This game idea has crazy potential. Without a doubt, it inspires me to think of more "paint" to create more puzzles and interactions. Any game idea that encourages that type of thinking is a great start!

I love the aesthetic. I love the sounds. I love how the world moves cleanly from Greyscale to Chroma. I love the functional puzzle design. The dialogue / inner monologue is excellent and appropriate. Great technical details like a seamless save/respawn system.

My only feedback is that it's hard to determine that the project is "on theme". I get the idea of renewing the colors, but really it's more about playing the game which happens to coincidentally change colors!

Excellent project!

First of all, great project and congratulations for submitting!

Great artwork and sprite work to fit the theme. Music was 100% epic -- I thought it was Pirates of the Caribbean or something :D 

My feedback would be to include a timer display because the game ended before I knew that i was up against a timer. I would also recommend sound effects to go along with the other feedback (like particles)

Congratulations on submitting, everyone!

It's a huge accomplishment just to get something posted, so well done!

Take time now to play, rate, and leave constructive (positive) feedback about what you liked and what you would like to see from each other's games.

Once the submissions are rated, we'll announce winners!

Hi everyone!

There's only a little bit of time left in the jam -- about 11 days! You should be polishing and getting ready to post your projects. Good luck to you all!

We are also excited to announce the possibility of dedicated Summer Game Dev Bootcamps -- intensive 4-6 week programs to refine and hone your skills in Unity. Again, this is for middle - high school students who are interested in upping their game development skills. Sorry boomers.

If this sounds good to you, please fill out this form. We need to know how many classes to offer and when:

https://forms.gle/AHJ3v2N6EycHL2PP9

Nice game, I especially liked the glowing materials and bloom effects! Disqualified because it is not eligible for this jam. See the rules and regulations:

This is a great question to see where everyone is at!

Usually we suggest that the first week of the jam is spent BRAINSTORMING. Here's a video from last jam (skip to 4:27 to get to the point about the jam):

The next 2 weeks should be spent PROTOTYPING out the ideas you've come up with. This is where you should be about now... have you made the core mechanics of your game fun to play? Another video from last jam:

Good question.

Jam winners for every category will be edited and cut into an advertisement preroll for youtube. the plan is to push the video in front of common tutorial YTers (e.g. Brackeys) to maximize visibility. We will also showcase the individual category winners on the Hackingtons facebook page, and on our Games Division program web page.

In terms of what will be included, we're going to leave that up to you guys as creators. However, it will be on top of the game you created and won with this Jam. Many students may not actually want their socials shared, so when the winners are decided, we will reach out to you and ask you what you want to be shown on the page/advertisement.

being human explains why the failure occurred because we always make mistakes. a wise man once said:

To err is human;
to really mess up, you need a computer

WOOOPS my bad. I was supposed to update the main page with the theme but since I am only human I failed to do so. My mistake and so please accept my apologies!

That being said, the theme for this winter jam is....

RENEW!

Yes! You can participate if you are not a student at Hackingtons!

YES

This is an open invitation to all students of game development! YOU DO NOT need to be affiliated with Hackingtons to participate. We just host it for you guys since there aren't enough High School game jams.

Sorry about that, I have been traveling and forgot to update the theme on the main page. That's my mistake

THE THEME IS "RENEW"!!!

As for the prizes, we offer admission into the games division discord as part of the prize package for anyone who gets chosen for the category. I've talked about offering free Hackingtons tuition for winners, but I am not ultimately in control of that decision. But since I run the Discord, I can make sure you get support that way as a congratulations for victory. Plus there's actually more going on in the Games Division discord than general Hackingtons for game development. Thank you for your understanding!

You guys are 100% correct, I totally failed to update the main page with the theme on time!

THE THEME IS "RENEW"

What a clever idea and execution! It reminds me a bit of Donut County or hole.io...

the main character model and animation is great, nicely done there! I especially loved the "infinite loop" of housecleaning. You drop something in the hole, and later it falls back down into the room. Such is life: a never-ending cycle of tossing things down holes and having to deal with them again later haha.

Would have loved some music or sound effects, and perhaps some gameplay challenges / levels to futz around with. Great work, and congratulations on finishing!

This is a great game about falling, for sure. I felt super creeped out by the music, so i can appreciate the "falling into madness" idea! the Gamma ray straight up obliterated me. I loved how there was a telegraph for it.

My only feedback is that you could use more audio cues, and perhaps some variation on the backdrop so we know that we're still falling. Best score i got was like 260. Great job with all the custom artwork!

Excellent submission, Congratulations!

I absolutely loved this idea and the world you created! I think there's tons of potential to make this a real game, perhaps even a wellness app! haha

Some minor improvements may include an indication of whether the distraction is on or off. 

I also wish IRL it was that easy to turn off the cat haha. especially when they're hungry, there's just no stopping them :D

Overall, this was a great project, and great execution on the theme. Well done!

I loved the idea for this game! As someone who needs invert mouse to play, i couldn't get past level 2. that's just me though

I found it really interesting as for the backstory, and i can totally see the potential of getting bigger and better Trash-fighting weaponry to take on huge, WALL-E style trash mountains.

Wish there was some audio feedback for the fire and hit, perhaps some trash busting particles. Chill music though

Great work!

I really wanted to play this one more! SO much potential here that I really hope you guys keep working on it. Clever concept and great fit with the theme. Hilarious

Excellent work with the models

Excellent work on the music! 

Great job with the menus, and i love the camera indicator when i'm using mouselook.

Let us know when the Jam version goes to 1.0 and we have levels! Awesome work

I absolutely loved this game! 100% could not win until i ran straight up to the bow of the boat and stood on the thing until i could jump off to bear island

zomBeans with photorealistic arms = creepy

high quality bears for the island -- check

epic pirate tunes -- check

hilarious menus and text throughout -- check

Great work overall!

it's a beautiful game! Thank you for sharing. we only disqualified it from the jam because it did not meet the rules. Best of luck to you!

I loved this collection of fall-themed mini games. I mean, even the artwork was Fall (Autumn) themed!!

The pachinko level select is awesome. I think if players didn't know to click the green squares at the top, they might get confused about how to spawn the balls.

I loved the fall flatulent chicken game! I dare anyone to beat my score of 16 :D

The falling ceiling game was WAY too hard for me! I literally could not beat the first map

The dropper was also challenging but doable.

Great choice of music! Loved the menu transitions on the main screen -- that was a nice effect!

Clever and exciting submission! I loved the inverse kinematics, and the feel of going down the stairs. I especially enjoyed the piano level AND going all the way off the map and falling down after the level was completed haha. I wish there was a hidden easter egg for going the wrong way :D

The UI was very polished for the main menu, character select, and settings. Impressive save system as well! The memes on the wall were just perfection *chef's kiss*

I think with more time you could do more levels, secrets, challenge modes, and maybe even more unlockable characters!

Great job!

I quite enjoyed this game, in fact i got to the point where i over upgraded my booster and immediately shot into the sky and now i'm at like 10k altitude and 90 distance! ><

I loved the changes to the player character, especially the wing suit :D

I wish there was some audio effects, maybe some textures on the ground and buildings, and perhaps some type of scrolling background so i knew i was flying sideways or upwards. Likewise, I would have loved some particles or similar indication that I was boosting.

Thank you, but this entry was disqualified. It was not created for this jam, and it does not fit the theme. Good luck to you!

Resources

Many of the assets are eligible for use in the jam but check the license before using and provide credit in your game’s description! Thank you to the GMTK Jam for most of the items on this helpful list!

Art

• OpenGameArt (2D + 3D)
• Kenney (2D + 3D)
• Game-Icons (2D)
• Textures.com (Textures)
• Poly.pizza (3D)

Fonts

• Fontsource (Fonts)
• Font Squirrel (Fonts)
• Google Fonts (Fonts)

Audio

• Incompetech - Royalty Free Music (Music)
• Free Music Archive (Music)
• Freesound (SFX)
• OpenGameArt (Music + SFX)
• Kenney (Music + SFX)
• Soniss (SFX)

Tools

• BitFontMaker2 (Fonts)
• Photopea (Art)
• sfxr (SFX)
• Chiptone (SFX)
• Bosca Ceoil (Music)
• BeepBox (Music)
• Lospec (Palettes)
• Easy Releasy (itch.io page designer)
• Tiny Tools (More!)

Tutorials

• Hackington's YouTube (Videos)