The gm(48):Space was a 48 hour jam where developers needed to make a game using Game Maker. The theme of this jam was “space”. There were many games entered in this jam, I recorded all of them in my video compilation series. Below are some of my favorites, in a random order.

Enter the Black Hole is a space shooter that has you going beyond space and into a black hole. A black hole has been discovered within travelling distance of Earth.. It would be a dangerous mission to head towards it, but you have always wanted to solve the mysteries of space, so you decide to go. You are not going on this mission alone, thankfully you have Brava, Baldwin, and Ebba. Each of these crew members have a specific job; one deals with shooting, one bombs, and the other a shield for your ship. After each wave of enemies, with some shooting, some using lasers, and some just dashing towards you, you will have to make a huge decision. The black hole affects your ship as it sends out pulses of energy which break sections of your ship. This has to be fixed before you move on, so you must choose a crew member to sacrifice their life to fix it. That will then also cause the function they operate to be unavailable. You must choose wisely and make their deaths worth it.

Float is a puzzle platformer that has you using power stones to connect power sockets, opening doors and leading you to new areas. You are in some sort of spaceship that is powered by different power stones. These stones come in a few different colors, the first color you will see is blue. The blue stones can be picked up and placed in grey power sockets to then make blue walls disappear or open doors. Once you are able to go through the door you will then move on to the next, more challenging level. Soon the spaceship starts showing you other power stones. The brown stones cannot be picked up, for example, and must drop into the sockets. Collect all of the power stones and make your way through every area of the ship!

Space Smashed is a simple space shooter, with a hilarious back story and some really awesome graphics to match. Your Aunt Gertrude, a 60 year old women with a bit of a drinking problem and a habit of telling wild tales, has found herself flying through space on mysterious flying objects. Your Aunt believes a flying wedge of cheese came straight for her head, so she threw back her glass after finding it empty. Then, a huge bottle of wine came to her rescue - except it was flying straight towards here! The glass flew into the cockpit and hit the pilot in the head, so now she must fly through space on the neck of the wine bottle! So now, you are basically playing a space shooter in outer space with various wine-related food! Last as many waves as you can as cheese wedges chase you and bottles or grapes shoot at you. You are able to shoot corks out of your ship to defend yourself.

In IMA-48 you play as a lovely little robot who is looking to protect the moon. You are a robot that is issued as IMA-48, or Information Machine & Armament Model 48.It is your job to survey the moon and guard it from predators. This is why you wear an adorable robot-version of a uniform. Today, is one of the more busy days for you, as meteors start falling from the sky at a very rapid rate. You must use your gun to break apart these meteors before they completely cover the moon. There are two types of meteors; green meteors that just give you points and red ones that also give you health. If you hit either of these rocks in the air, you will gain more points, but you can also shoot them once they are on the ground. As they fall, meteors potentially can hit you on your head if you are not paying attention. This can cause you to lose a point as it does damage to your machinery. Try not to become too damaged while protecting the surface of the moon!

Stranded is a platformer that has you collecting energy sources to try and fix your ship. You are the captain of a crashed ship. Your crew died in the crash, leaving you alone on this unknown planet to attempt to survive. Your ship is very damaged and not even your radio works, but your scanner has detected some energy sources nearby which you think can be used to power your ship. So you must go out and try to collect these crystals on this mysterious new land. There are three crystals in total, each one giving you a new ability that will help you overcome obstacles and make it to the next crystal. This world is by no means easy to travel around. Spikes and various types of aliens dot the surface and underground. There are also teleporters here and there, acting like checkpoints and showing a map, allowing you to teleport to other checkpoints. Will you be able to reach all of the crystals and make it out of this planet?

The Planet is a space shooter that has you protecting the last planet with human life on it. You are the last ship protecting Earth. It is up to you to keep the meteors and invaders from damaging the planet. As you move around the planet, you will use your energy. You don’t have much of it to use in one go, so sometimes you might become temporarily immobile by using it all. Your gun also has a cooldown between uses. Other alien ships come into the range of the planet and shoot at it. These enemies, meteors and your own bullets can all harm the planet. Earth does heal itself over time, but it is quite easy for it to get too damaged and explode altogether. Destroying enemies also causes power ups to drop from time to time, giving you better weapons. The moon also orbits the Earth. Be careful of this - if it, or anything else, hits your ship you will die and the game will be over. This adds quite a lot of challenge; keeping yourself and Earth alive, but the Earth also needs you to protect it from the dangers of space!

Asteroid Rage has you launching asteroids at oncoming human spaceships to take revenge on them! Humans have been building on your land, destroying your people, leaving only fragments floating around space. You have kept most of this rage deep inside you as the humans took over, but now it is time to fight back. You must ram into the flying spaceships, causing them to crash into other nearby ships, destroying as many of them as you can! As you look for a place to ram, you will see a few different types of ships. Some explode in place, others whirl around a bit before dying. You can line up your asteroid and move swiftly towards the ships. Once you make contact, your control over yourself ends, causing you to continue drifting in whatever direction you were aimed at. During this time, a counter will show you the amount of time you have to gather as many points as possible. If you get enough, you will be able to go to the next round. This game is super challenging, but really great fun!

SpaceShifter has you playing an alien that has crash landed on earth, but has the ability to shapeshift into different animals after collecting their DNA. This will prove to be quite helpful, as when you crash landed on the planet, it scattered parts of your ship all over the place. Now, you must embark on a quest to find all of these pieces, while using different animal’s abilities to reach them. As you are just a small alien, you do not have a very big jump for example. Animals like frogs who can jump high, or chickens who can glide down, can really help you get that extra reach. There are many other animals that you will need to take advantage of so that you can complete your mission and get home. Even with the ability to become any animal, this game is still a challenge to collect all of the parts and fix your ship!

SPACECATZ - KITTEN EDITION is a space trading game where you play as a little cat! You are a cat who is intergalactically trading food, technology, and medical supplies throughout the galaxy. You can buy items at various planets then bring them to other planets where the item is more scarce. There, you can sell it for more money to invest in your trading company. Prices for items change all of the time, sometimes dramatically, so watch out before you sell. You can see all of the prices of various items on the starmap, before you decide where to travel. Once you have a destination picked out, it takes your ship some time to get to it. After you arrive, you can spend your cash expanding your ship or picking up more goods. This game is very adorable and quite relaxing to tune into from time to time while running in the background.

A Game About Something is a strange, yet interesting different take on the word, ‘space’. Instead of having a game in outer space, this game takes the theme Space to mean an area around you. You are in a simple looking world, walking around talking to people and interacting with different objects. Most things can be interacted with, though they don’t have much meaning to the game - you are just meant to explore and see what you find. Trash cans, for example, tend to drive the character crazy if you interact with too many of them, yet trees will always give you the same line. Some other characters are sometimes around, giving you different bits of speech. Many times in this game you will be told that the developer didn’t do a good job or that they didn’t complete a specific thing, but that just adds to the charm and oddity of the game. Take some time to explore around, there are a few secrets to be found.

Cosmic Combat 2 is a challenging shooter that has you flying through space, trying to stop a black hole from forming in the middle of our solar system. An evil man has decided to create a black hole in the middle of our solar system. You are the best combat fighter and the last hope for the world. You will need to command your ship, destroying waves of enemies, in hopes to stop the evil person. As you play, you are able to pick your route and see how many waves you will need to defeat before landing again. When you are docked, you can use scraps that have fallen off of other ships, to either upgrade your ship or repair your health. Your ship only shoots where you are facing, so as you move and turn, your bullets will align with the nose of your ship. This game has a sort of danger to the fighting; you want to be close enough to other ships to pick up tons of scraps as they die for upgrades, but distant enough to avoid damage. Your life is not shown, so you never know how close to death you are.

SpaceBurgers is a challenging burger restaurant management game in space! You are the proud owner of a burger joint in space. This means that you manage the expenses, buy ingredients or upgrades to your shop, and make burgers for the astronauts floating around in space. In each wave, different astronauts move across the screen ordering burgers. You must push the button next to the right ingredient to cause one of that item to float out. Then, you must catch the right ingredients to assemble the burger, before tossing it out into space to the customer who wants it. This is a very tricky process;ingredients tend to float around everywhere as you have to aim and may miss the customer as they move along. You need to be an expert to grow your business. At the end of each day, you must take the money you earn to restock the ingredients as well as buy upgrades that help you get cheaper food, or more tips. Are you up for the challenge of creating burgers for astronauts?

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