The CGA Jam was a game jam that challenged developers to create a game using the CGA 4 color Palette with 8 bit or chiptune sounds. There were four different themes for this jam; History Repeats, Always Faster, Gravity, and WildWest/WestWorld - developers could use one or more of these themes. 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.

Golden Sword of Dragonwalk is a captivating narrative adventure that puts you in the shoes of a curious child, exploring her grandma’s house! You are playing as a young granddaughter, looking for adventure deep inside your grandma’s ancient house. She has left you with your lame seven-year-old neighbor to look after, but that won’t stop you from enjoying the passages and mysterious of this house! You and your neighbor, Stacy, explore around - until Stacy opens an ancient passageway and a dying knight staggers out.

This knight spends his last moments warning you of an evil coming through the passage - one you must not let come into your world. You, hopefully with the frightened Stacy’s help, must try to protect your world from whatever is in this other kingdom. The knight has given you a golden sword and spoke of someone who might help you, but first you need to make your way into his world. This game is very well written and full of childlike wonder, attitude, and mystery!

Snacktime for Snakes is an optical illusion arcade game that lets you become a snake, eating mice around a bumpy field. The environment you can travel around is in flux, becoming bumpy in places, as well as changing color. These colors go through white and vibrant blue, sometimes even appearing in a striped pattern. There is a white mouse in this area - one that you must find and eat before the timer runs out. At first, this may not seem very hard, but each time you eat a mouse, you become a new snake!

The old snake you controlled is still on the field though, simply slithering around. These snakes won’t hurt you, but they sure get in your way and sometimes block off the mouse - if you are able to spot it that is. Snaketime for Snakes is a super fun twist on a classic arcade game, made challenging with the color pallet limitation!

Guns ‘N’ Stallions is a western shooter that has you shooting down some bandits who have taken over a moving train! You are a hero, a hero on a horse slowly making your way towards a train full of bandits that need to be stopped. Along the way, you must shoot down those in front of you before hopping on the back of the train and making your way to the front. Each train carriage is full of not only bandits but also bags of money and boxes. These money bags can be picked up for points while the boxes can be used to hide behind.

Bandits do shoot back, so you must make sure to reload your gun and always be ready to take them down. The train is very, very big - so it may take a while to get through the whole train to the end. There are a lot of cash bags to collect along the way, but you must be careful and avoid all of the dangerous baddies! Good luck saving this packed train.

CGAdventure is a mysterious adventure game that puts you deep inside of a strange maze. There is a rather curious person inside this maze, and they seem to know more than you, but they don’t stick around long. What’s left are the walls around you and tons of monsters to do battle with! As you move around, you will run into dragons, skeletons, and mysterious floating blocks. All of these monsters have different attacks, but you can attempt to defeat them to become stronger yourself.

In a battle, if you lose, you don’t die. You just don’t gain anything and might have to come back to defeat that enemy again when you are stronger. This maze is mysterious and full of lots of strange creatures. Hopefully you become strong enough to defeat them all - as well as lucky enough to find your way out of this maze!

G3SL: Guntastic Gundventure of Gun S. Linger is a simple but silly western ragdoll-esque game where you are shooting down a beautifully dressed individual in the wild west! You are a skeleton, taking on some randomly generated people in the skillful art of a western shootout! You need to shoot the other person on the screen, but your ragdoll body doesn’t give you much control. Instead, you may find yourself awkwardly flopping about and being shot at.

I really enjoyed flailing around in this game, throwing bullets out from my skeleton body and defeating the really lovely looking enemies. It’s almost more of a toy than a game, but it’s a super fun toy at that!

Drone Commander has you commanding a fleet of drones! Your drones will help you take on wave after wave of aliens deep within the galaxy. You can command the different formations that these ships will fly around in, as well as guide them around the universe. Each ship has a set shield that acts as a health bar and a fuel bar. As you command the drones, they will run out of fuel, so it might be a good idea to top up by floating around fuel power ups.

Aliens will arrive and attack your fleet as they approach, darting around your ships. You need to keep your ships close enough to aliens to attack them, but make sure that you are not dominated by the alien ships. As you lose your fleet, you will need to explore the map and find planets to use to your advantage. These planets can pull ships into them, using their own gravitational pull, which you may be able to utilise to destroy the alien ships following you. Your fleet will not replenish, so this is the best way to stay ahead. Hopefully, you can succeed in controlling the galaxy with your own fleet.

Where Seldom is Heard lets you take control of a mouse who is impersonating Elvis. As an Elvis impersonator, this mouse has decided to have commentary on the state of social media. Because of your commentary, you have a lot of negative words and comments being thrown at you. You must find your way through all of the negative words and find people who agree and support you. Once you find those people, you must bring them back to your group.

As the negative words and mice wear you out, you start to slow down. You can always go back to your friends in the giant heart to feel better, or latch onto positive words to help yourself out. There are plenty of mice that support you, you just need to find them and bring them back to your heart. In Where Seldom is Heard it is difficult to see around the area, but that adds a lot to the unique game!

Witch ‘Em Up is an adorable shoot ‘em up that has you playing a witch, trying to make your way through the world. This game auto scrolls, so you must move around the environment, dodge bullets, and destroy any monster in your way as you do so! Witch ‘Em Up is complete with bosses at the end of each level to challenge you further, if you can make it past the enemies and to the end that is!

Being a witch on a flying broom, shooting down bats, floating eyes, and evil rabbits on land is quite fun to play as. The environment does get more challenging as you make it through more levels, but the gameplay being intense is a good thing - it will challenge your witch abilities and make you learn how to dodge efficiently.

Pistol Packin’ Possum sees you taking back your hometown in the wild west, after a gang started causing trouble. You left your home for the last few years, and in the meantime, a gang of horrible animals have started to run things. Well, you are back, and they cannot continue to ruin everything you used to like about this place. You must take part in an old fashioned shoot out against each gang member, killing them so they cannot hurt what you love anymore.

This game is very simple in it’s gameplay, you need only shoot the enemy when you are told to shoot. It is predominantly a test of reflexes - be faster than the enemy to get your shot in first and kill them. The graphics and story behind Pistol Packin’ Possum really makes it a fantastic game. Each character has their own style and attitude to them and the graphics are wonderful - bringing an old look to the game. I’m not the best at killing off the gang, but I really enjoy trying!

Those are all of the games that really stood out to me in this jam!

#CGAJam #GoldenSwordOfDragonwalk #SnaketimeForSnakes #GunsNStallions #CGAdventure #G3SLGuntasticGundventureOfGunSLinger #DroneCommander #WhereSeldomIsHeard #WitchEmUp #PistolPackinPossum