Adventure Jam 2023

[heltenjon]

So, while we wait for https://itch.io/jam/107-adventure-game-challenge ... I thought, why not check out that other adventure jam on Itch, https://itch.io/jam/advjam2023 or Adventure Jam 2023?

And I did, just to find that it had 332 entries! 

No way am I playing all those, I thought. But just as devilish, I wondered, what kind of game actually comes last in this? So I decided to check out the one on the bottom before actually looking at the good games. Thus this first post (if there are others) is just about NOT recommended games.

Card Investigation - Didn't work because of missing files.
Memory Magic - No game to download.
Trek in the Woods - Missing files again.
Harrys_Friends - Game in quarantine, not downloadable.
Space Asteroids - Clearly not an adventure game from the screenshots, so I didn't bother. A comment says ads fill the screen.
Byte Adventure is a platform game. Not recommended, although I did play it and finished it in a couple of minutes.
Fall on Monster Bomb Attack - also quarantined.
Wildwood Nightmares actually is an adventure game, but it is not finished, so it's more of a tech demo now. Not fully playable, unfortunately.
Cool and Slimey Adventures- this looks like it is the same game entered twice. Kind of a short platform game. I played it and beat it in a few goes, so it works, at least.
Rocket Bouncer - This looks like it is made with love, judging from screen shot and description. However, it is clearly a platform game and very far from an adventure, so I didn't want to play it.

So there you go. I wanted to just check out the last one, but ended up checking out the ones placed from #316 to #306. There are clearly some really good games here, too. I hope to play some of them next. 

[heltenjon]

I always meant to come back to this jam and write about the games here, but life happened and time passed. Even so, yesterday, I played Shadows of Serenity. This is a cyberpunk investigation game and well worth a look. Corners had to be cut for the game jam, but the graphics, writing and voice work is impressive. (Although the characters talk "literary", not realistically.) The game itself is made in Unity, and some of the voices are made using AI trained by using the developer's friends, much like @AndreasBlack is doing in his project.



I also ignored some games:
Bat Swarm Demo is a platformer.
Flittery Fly describes itself as "Flappy Bird, but harder".
Robot Game is a shooter.
Space Asteroid is a shooter.

[heltenjon]

I have played some games from this jam together with my son and some other young people.

EVA is a point and click adventure, made with Unity. This is a pleasant short game, even though it is somewhat rich with cliches. You wake up with memory loss and discover that you are a doctor. The story is told by discovering scraps and remnants as you explore. What or who is EVA? The game has two different endings, too. This game took 16th place in the jam.

LUCID is a point and click adventure, made with Unity. This came in second in the jam, and it certainly is a lot of fun to play! Great graphics, good music and several crazy characters are spread out in a dream-like landscape. Family friendly, too. Recommended!

Mr Baldman and the Hook Quest is a platform game. A bit like Bionic Commando, the hero can shoot out a sort of hook on a chain. He can use this to swing, climb, jump or pole vault in order to get past the obstacles. Plus for a really silly storyline involving hot dogs as the one ingredient that can make humankind's hair grow again. Another plus for having several ways of getting past the obstacles. (Much due to the game mechanics.)

Cookie-Salad is a platform game, somehow set in Ukraine. The player controls a cookie, who needs to rescue all the little cookies while battling salad ingredients. Jumping, crouching and building up speed while manoeuvering tricky maze-like levels is the order of the day here. Very fast, very difficult, at least some levels.

Adventure Portal is another platform game. The player jumps on platforms, searching for a key to unlock the portal to the next level. Pretty standard. Made with Unity.

Yet another platform game was Mannequin of Time. This one actually made 15th place, which is not bad for a platformer in an adventure game competition! Well, it still is a platformer, but the Mannequin from the title makes for a different kind of tactic. The player has the ability to make a Mannequin, a sort of shadow of the player, record some seconds of movement with that one, then play it back and freeze it in place. The player can use this as a stepping stone, have the Mannequin positioned on a pressure plate or similar. The player and the Mannequin also have different weaknesses and abilities. I liked the thought involved in this, although I only saw the end of the game thanks to letting my son man the keyboard. 

We played Amari, which was a very short point and click adventure. It is very nice visually, with a distinctive style. The story had to do with helping an animal spirit finding peace, and despite the dark colours, it wasn't a horror game, as I thought when loading it up. I liked this a lot, mostly because of the storytelling, as the puzzles were very easy, to the point of being automated if the player carries the correct item. But it's definitely worth the five to ten minutes it takes. Despite being #31 overall, it was #3 in atmosphere, which correlates well with my impressions of it.

Adventurer Runner is a side scrolling jumping game, kind of that one with a dinosaur that runs when you don't have an internet connection, except with no variety and some bugs which makes it possible to jump on thin air.

We briefly tried Clicker Simulator, which has the player clicking the mouse button endlessly, then buying upgrades in order to make the click worth more points. This can actually be fun for a short while if others are playing it at the same time, making it into a competition. Otherwise, this seems pretty boring to me. And in an adventure jam setting? Hm.

I can also mention that Shards of God had a demo in this jam, which placed in 24th place. The now finished game, is of course an absolute AGS masterpiece going far beyond the jam level games, which I have praised enough in the game's own thread right on this site. But I'm sure you all have played it by now, right? Right?