Writer Mike Walbridge’s goal: play every Molyjam game and tell you about as many as he can. Want to know more? Click here.
196: These automatic arms.: “Game where your arms are controlled by a psychopath who keeps firing guns at innocent people. You must turn away from them and run.”
This is the most creative and best-implemented version of the “uncontrollable arms” tweet, despite its minimalist art style. There was a unique pause mechanic, a theme, a story, and characters that manage to involve you in the game. I also enjoyed the challenge of figuring out the best way to get through the rooms. It is difficult to successfully mix strategy and player’s real-time responses in a 2D top-down room-to-room game, but here it is.
195: Huggy Bear: “You are a bear but for some reason your oxygen comes from hugging people. Problem is that hugging people breaks their bones.”
I think this is the only one of the many bear-related games I enjoyed.
163: Nebulous Hero: “I’d like to make a game where the tutorial comes up after the credits.”
In this game, you are not told how to play until you go through it. Once you go through, you are told some of the game’s instructions. This keeps going for multiple steps, but the game goes in a surprising direction. I like how a platformer made in 48 hours managed to pull the classic “you don’t know what you think you do, even about yourself” move that BioShock, System Shock 2 and other games have pulled off, but this probably can only be done on a small indie scale as people don’t like having the genre or purpose of a game switched mid-course. That it can be done at such a simple level, though, is inspiring.
146: Plug and Slay: “What if you lived in a world where all guns are required to be plugged into wall sockets?”
Better than Tether, which I had said was the best plug-based game. An amazing versus mode version of the plug tweet. It is not downloadable at the moment, unfortunately, but you can still watch the video. If this game hadn’t been made, we’d still know this was one of the better tweets to make a game from. That wouldn’t still mean this was one of the best implementations of the tweet.
141: Pause ahead: “What if the pause button was a weapon? Until developers think outside the box we’re going downhill.”
A simple and plain use of the concept, but very well-executed.
92: Cellxplosion: “What if everyone in the world had an explosive telephone in their body? If you could find out their number you can detonate their phone?”
Ha! Typing of the Dead, only in 10-key mode. The zombies come at you and they all have numbers. Type the numbers and they die. You have to dodge and 10-key at the same time! Really fast and big zombies come at you with bigger numbers, but give more points. I salute these guys. Definitely the best score-based game from the jam.
77: Pause Pirate!: “What if the pause button was a weapon? Until developers think outside the box we’re going downhill.”
Nice short-stage version of the pause stuff. This is one of the few games that pays a lot of attention to level design. You could easily make a level editor with this, and a time-trial version, and add in some more mechanics to make it a great app.
55: Washing Machine Carnage: The Cleansing: “What if your body was a washing machine and you had to wash your enemies before you can kill them?”
Extremely creative and a different tweet. A simple and very new mechanic, spinning using the right stick. Also the finding the right item to spew back out. Also… you’re a washing machine! The execution is poor, but the concept here is one of the most distinct out of the jam and has a lot of potential.
51: On Bullet’s Time: “You have 1 bullet. Once fired it enters slow motion, can take hours to reach it’s target. Things you do from then on affect it’s direction”
Proof they didn’t have to go for drama! Instead went for a different way of doing points or action. This is very unique. You are trying to manual manipulate an object to get through an obstacle course, only it’s the object, not you. This could be mechanic in another Portal.
49: Parkamour: “Romantic parkour game in which you and the love of your life must hold hands and jump around a city evading death and injury”
This is a nicer exploration of dual action. I did it with both hands and it forced me to coordinate even with myself. In person, you would have to get someone to say “jump” at the same time. Much better implementation than some of the others.
45 Dokideux Panikku: “Imagine if your player avatar feared you? became anxious if you press the buttons too hard and fast etc?”
In this auto-scrolling platformer, the more you press any buttons, the darker the screen gets. This not only prohibits you from seeing where to jump, it also can be the death of you. This is one of my five most favorite games of the jam to actually play and I think it should be made into a full release. Just use less annoying sound effects. Seriously, make it!
41: Blindness: “I also love the idea of playing a character who is PRETENDING to be blind, so you have to keep bumping into things to not arouse suspicion”
This one actually has some good mechanics and a good story at the same time. They take away everyone’s eyesight. I like the seeing mechanics that represent opening and closing your eyes. It is simply the use of fog-of-war mechanics from a strategy game applied to a stealth game. This could be adapated for an awesome section for an FPS. “My eyes hurt! Can’t open them and see light without taking damage!”
13 Bowling for Zombieland: “Survival Horror combined with Bowling”
The only game to use Facebook. It uses your profile pic as the ball holder. Then it has random FB pics from your network as the people you save. Is there a Facebook game that has done this yet? Humorously used FB content in the context of a game? If not, this is ingenious and is a much better than the stupid avatars used by the current three consoles.
Next week, Mike wraps up and talks about the lessons he’s learned along the way.
