This years' theme was transition. Bratislava Game Jam 2016 was attended by 41 participants who formed 14 teams. There were 12 games submitted of which the jury choose winners in the Main and Best aesthetic experience categories. The winner of third category - Attendee choice - was voted for by people who attended the public presentation of games.
Our jury consisted of Lara Noujaim, Director of Marketing and Publicity at GameCooks and one of the leading female figures within the game industry in the Arab world, Lucia Šicková, co-founder of slovak game development studio Pixel Federation and project manager of Edufactory, the initiative of Pixel Federation, that aims to encourage innovation in education in Slovakia, Michal Hvorecký, one of the most translated living Slovak authors, who writes short stories, novels,blogs, translates from german and is an enthusiast and supporter of digital trends, Matthias Guntrum of german indie studio Gently Mad, whose game In Between won a a prestigious German Video Games Award in 2015 and Kristian Lukić, curator, theorist and artist who studied art and media theory in Belgrade, developed his own games and mods and organised Play Cultures, an exhibition that focued on the phenomenon of games and politics.
World is devastated, inhabited by godless creatures only. But nature did not yet say the last word and summoned a fox able to recover the springs of life and thus change the the land.
The player, taking the form of a vulnerable fox, gets a chance to discover this mysterious, once upon a time thriving world. The environment is designed to elicit questions, that can be answered just by the player himself. Although the whole world is accessible from the beginning, navigating it is hard because of wandering demons and other obstacles.
Sprout [Windows]Outside is a short first-person narrative game about an old man struggling with loneliness while trying to break free from his daily routine. The player has a possibility to break the circle of his monotony and escape, or he can decide not to do anything and stay in his everyday routine forever. The game uses movie-like cutting between scenes to show a short “windows” of a fast passing time and a blend of hand-drawn 2d graphics with voxel based 3d environments.
Outside [Windows]Little creature is sad, not knowing its' meaning of life. Suddenly, magic appears and shows it the way. Players' goal is to get to the platform colored the same as the creature while being aware of two things - time and black fields. Depressive environment and bad mood continously change together with the music, the background and the character. In the end, one can feel the Christmas time and the creature transforms to a snowman who wishes you a Merry Christmas. Snowman found its' meaning of life - to bring Christmas to everyone.
Transition [Android]The game ACH JAJ aims to subvert the notion of transition/progress of a character in a game by inducing a change in the players themselves instead. It does this by putting the players before difficult ethical and moral dilemmas, where there is no obvious right or wrong choice. The game does not judge or evaluate the choices that players make, but rather tries to provide an opportunity to reflect on their own deep motivations and hopefully learn something about themselves.
The future plan for the game would be to find a set of more abstract dilemmas and deep ethical problems that are relevant now or in the near future, and measure, whether during the playing of the game there is a shift in player's choices in light of previous moral challenges.
ACH JAJ [Windows]Time is continuous, unstoppable process, that changes everything around uncompromisingly. Will a building succeed to survive the ravages of time and obtain the prestigious UNSEKO award?
Future plans - proper level design, more facial expressions, more assets, more sounds, real use of building destruction.
Choose Me UNSEKO! [Facebook]One of the most important changes a person undergoes is adolescence, character formation, learning, as well as first loves and first problems. I am trying to implement all this into my game, underlining the fact, that during this "transition" not only the human itself is affected, but his environment changes as well under the influence of his decisions, achievements and mistakes. The name of my game is Friday, because it captures a day, when in the beginning, we are influenced by our environment (studies, work, ...) but in tne end, we influence it (socializing, interactions).
Friday [Windows]The main idea of the game is the connection of space and people and the mutual transition of the two. Everyone affects everyone else, nothing more, nothing less. Our goal was to elicit feelings in people, or the player, which will force him to think about the world and help him being a better human being. We feel like this game totally does not fit to what we wanted to achieve. :D
ASTRO.IO [Web]We are two programmers, who can never aggree on the platform (iOS vs Windows all the time) and this is how it ended up again now. :)
The game idea is an infinite runner, where one player modifies the environment so the other player can safely run through it. Unfortunately, we did not manage to implement most of the desired game mechanics. Our game relates to the theme "transition" by the modification of environment.
Igor The Fox [Windows]The stars got dime, the universe darkened. Sol is the only being, that is able to bring light back to the stars and thus to the infinite universe. But there is a mysterious force standing in her way. Crystals fill up the empty space.
Sol is a puzzle game, where player searches for path and lights up extinct star constellations. Mysterious crystals are standing in the way, which change position after each players turn, forcing him to find other way. Player can visit each star at most twice, otherwise the star together with the whole constellation explodes. The game area changes constantly and the player is forced to adapt.
SOL [Windows]The game is an experimental transition of the classic arcade game to VR environemtns, taking into account specifics and options provided by HTC Vive hardware. The game features new controlls and game mechanics, providing unique gaming experience.
SNAC~KMAN [Windows, HTC Vive]Cubo is a cube. He’s kinda lost in life, and he got really lazy and fat lately. He can barely move without sweating. One day he decides it’s time for change. But then things spin out of control.
Cubo moves by rolling and jumping. Game reflects it’s moving habits, Cubo learns by trial and error how to find balance between being fat and being fit, live long and prosper.
Finding balance in healthy life is the core statement of our game and reflects this game jam’s topic - Transition.
TOFF Games website with downloadable gameThe game is about catching butterfliess. You must feed the larvae in the garden with flowers so they pupate and transform through various larvale stadia to butterflies. But larvae are very fragile and it's not hard at all to step on them! The game is competitive and for 2 players. And mainly ... if the butterfly flies away, it never comes back.
Butterfly Garden [Windows]