TOJam #3

By: Derek Yu

On: July 22nd, 2008

Jim McGinley, author of the amazing Mario Inna Space, informs us that the 3rd Annual Toronto Game Jam ended last month and was a resounding success. The theme this year was “cheese,” and entrants were asked to develop a game in 3 days that incorporated cheese, a goat on a pole, and the sound of the TTC subway door closing. 34 games came out of the jam, and it’s pretty impressive (and unique) stuff.

Here are the ones that Jim recommends to TIGSource readers:

a game about bouncing (First Place, depicted above) – an atmospheric abstract game where you have to “grab” bumpers and dodge missiles. Faint smells of Everyday Shooter and fl0w reminisce… and no, that sentence doesn’t mean anything, but it sounds like it does!

Debugger (Second Place) – a game where you smash bugs by hitting keys on your keyboard. Each key corresponds to an area on the screen.

Cheese is War (Third Place) – a multiplayer-on-one-keyboard game where the goal is to topple a tower of cheese onto your opponent.

flowers of error – a drag n’ drop “anti-shooter” by Jonathan Mak and Pekko Koskinen.

Super Cheese Repulser – a one or two player game where the gold is to get a piece of cheese to a mousetrap using a “repulser.”

Office Smash – smash up your office using physics!

Goats Amoré – in Jim’s contribution to the competition, you play a cheese that has to earn the respect of other cheese in order to find a goat. Um.

Some of the games require XNA Framework, and Office Smash requires Unity. But if you wish to live vicariously, there are videos of each game accompanying the downloads. Thanks, Jim!

TIGdb: TOJam Games (still being added)