Here at GameJolt, two weeks ago, was hosted a very interesting challenge we can not afford to miss. We, as indie games fans, want to cover the event and make some articles on our website about the games made in this jam. We are doing it and from the day this is posted some more articles will be published and more games will be featured to our audience. The thing is, we have our five favourites and wanted to share all of them with you.
For those who don’t know, the #badboxart challenge was a 48h game jam in which every developer has to decide their own theme from a vast gallery of existing game covers. The common factor of all them is, bad art, non representative of the game inside and a bit crazy/inappropriate/trash.
Let’s start from bottom to top, explaining a bit the game and giving our personal opinion about it:
5: Guts’n’Blood
The fifth place is for this little piece, a game made under 5 hours that has much more potential than the most complete ones. We play as the son of a barbarian chief and our goal is to retrieve the stolen crown of our father.
A simple gameplay gets us clicking two buttons in order to attack left and right while we increase the amount of guts on the pile where we are standing on. Slowly rising to lastly get the crown. As I said, it’s very very simple, but the reason is on our top 5 is because of the concept, the neat art done and the production level achieved in such time scarcity. A game that could be further developed to become a daily arcade game to wear with us on our devices.
You can play it on it’s page!
4: Tongue Pong
The old-school gameplay from the original pong using a sexy sking and a mechanical twist, the ice cream will be sent back to our adversary after licking it, so be sure to extend your tongue at the right moment with the exact direction to trick your opponent.
The original art was from a mature game, soft porn game from the late 80’s, and it’s very interesting how the developer used the whole theme to create something completely different. Very funny to play with a friend and challenging at times. You have some character designs at your disposal in order to differentiate both players. Well polished game, old school mechanics and lots of laughs, it was a really enjoyable yet unexpected game.
Optional nudity, player discretion is advised when playing the game
3: Astronautica
After entering a black hole you are stranded, lost in space with no clue how to get back on your ship. Your on board computer reaches you to give enough clues to move and complete the level. Move crates and open a path till the next black hole, who knows? Maybe is the best way to be back at home.
Cute puzzle game, we have at our disposal 3D powers that allows us move one of the layers from the two the level is made of. Using that we have to place wisely the crates to access the exit or to trigger platforms that gain access to it. The idea is great and the execution flawless. A 12 total levels designed in crescend difficulty to defiance our problem solving skills. Perfecto to sit, relax and think the best way to complete each puzzle.
Highly recommended to play it, you won’t regret it!
2: Rise of the Water Monsters
You play as Drancon, the volcano. Your peaceful days has come to an end, the water monsters are here to shut your fire down. You can’t tolerate it, so start shooting flame balls to those who dare approach the crater. As the game progresses the amount and level of enemies you have to face will increase, but you will have some active skills to help with the cleaning. Timing and wise use of those abilities will be key to success.
Awesome game, it’s visual design is perfect, loved it! The experience is very challenging and requires from you some concentration and focusing to annihilate those blue nasty and annoying creatures. Congratulations to the developers, they made a nice looking and completed game. The game experience is very well adapted to a shooter stylish game where trigger and mouse pressure is the mechanic to master in order to achieve the main goal, survival.
Don’t miss it, very cool game feel and awesome experience while playing it!
1: Rockin’ Skyball!
Last but not least, a funny arcade game that will challenge you while playing awesome music to keep up your heart beats in order to maintain the concentration and focus on kicking the ball. The main mechanic is easy to learn but hard to master. You have to trigger the ball at the right moment to make an effective shoot, if not, you will lose that opportunity to eliminate an enemy. You will face several challenges along the 12 levels of this fast paced arcade shooter.
The theme is well adapted and the execution is simply perfect. For us is the best of all of the games from this jam. The only one that was able to keep our faces in front of the screen trying to beat that nearly impossible 10th wave. As said, the music fits just on it’s place, helps maintaining the perfect mood to fail and try that will make you addicted to it.
To fully understand what is it to be a Skyballer you should play the game and try to dethrone us from the second place at the leaderboard. Keep attention to the tutorial, master your skills and attack fast to quickly get rid of the most annoying enemies.
We have a playlist where we host all the game we are writing about, so be sure to check it out and follow for further interesting games.
Hope you enjoyed this article and find interesting our game choice. Soon we’ll keep you informed on other Jolt related projects we are involved in.
PS: sorry if anything sounds weird, we are used to write content in spanish and sometimes is hard to make sense in other languages.
6 comments