The Arbitrary Game Jam 18 (TAG for short) is a monthly game jam that is hosted by the previous month’s winner. For this jam, three themes are randomly generated. This month’s themes are slewed, defacement, and king Charles spaniel. Developers must use at least one of these themes. Along with the randomly generated themes, the host choose two bonus themes that are completely optional. These themes are adolescence and gigantic. There were a record breaking 48 games in this jam, all of which I played and recorded in my compilation video series! Below are my favorites, in a random order.

Dinosaur Gets REALLY Drunk is a super challenging game where you are a dinosaur who is trying to get drunk. In order to drink, this dinosaur must type out a jumble of letters. The player can take as long as thye need to type this out. Easy right? No. As the dinosaur gets more drunk, the letters slide around and jumble, making them harder to see. One wrong letter, even if the player just gets the capitolization wrong, will make you lose a life. After three mistakes, the dinosaur passes out and the game is over. I really enjoy typing games! This simple game, with pretty cute graphics, is very challenging.

Alcoholic Simulator 2015 is another short but challenging drunk game. In this one, the player must control a wonky hand that needs to pick up beer cans and pour their contents into a glass. Once the glass is full, the player must drink it. In a sort of Surgent Simulator style, this game is difficult to control, in a funny way. It is quite challenging to get the beers to pour into the cup as appose to on the table and floor. Personally, I have not been able to get any beer into my cup, but I have had a hell of a lot of fun knocking beers off of the table!

Bort’s Bender is a game about a boy named Bort who has gotten high on the substance Notcohol™. Now, Bort had decided to skateboard through the museum, painting over all of the famous works of art. The museum is full of guards, only they are dogs! The player must tag paintings, jump over dogs, and try not to get caught up in the trippy floor. Each painting has a health bar, so to speak, so Bort must spray the painting until the health bar depletes. Jumping on dog’s heads and fully destroying paintings will earn the player points. For every 10,000 points, the player will gain a life. Try your luck ruining a museum.

King Spaniel: Royal Run is a beautiful endless runner where the player plays as a King Spaniel. At first, the game is sort of slow, but over time, it does get quite fast and challenging. The Spaniel must also collect food while he is running, so that his stamina continues to increase. One cannot run on an empty stomach! There are also dog or king related collectables that can be collected during the run and added to a showcase. Avoiding obstacles and collecting food can get hard over time, as stated the game gets faster. At one point, around 4,000 points, the game started to just blur by for me, making it pretty challenging. This game is simple, but really well made.

Logitwist is a different sort of game for this jam. The player can play through 4 levels trying to find the end door. There are spikes, like most games, but the way this puzzle is, is unique. The player is able to move the room around to find the exit. The room can be moved 90 degrees, to throw the player to a new wall. There are also some levels that contain buttons or portals for the player to also use to complete it. Turning on all buttons reveals a secret room. I am not quite sure what themes were used in this game, though the player does seem sort of slewed in the beginning of the game.

Bubblegum Punk is a fast, Sonic inspired game where the player must put grafitti tags over the Big Brother and obey signs around a town. The player controls a girl on skates who is able to zoom around the level in order to quickly tag all of the signs. There is a short time limit, but with each new tag, a couple of seconds get added to the timer. After all the signs are tagged, the player is able to move on to the next level. This game is pretty simple at first, though it gets harder as the player needs to dodge thrown beer bottles and police. Even more so, there are red railings that the player can slide fast down, but for some reason it is hard to switch ways on this rail, or jump off of it. This is a gamejam game, so it might possibly be fixed in the future. This game even contains a boss battle at the end, where the player must face a cyber-looking police ship. Its quite a challenge!

Check out some of the other TAG Jam games here! I hope that next month we get even more entries!

#BubblegumPunk #Logitwist #KingSpanielRoyalRun #BortsBender #AlcoholicSimulator2015 #DinosaurGetsREALLYDrunk #TAGJam18