Gamedev.js Jam 2024:
Challenges winners,
and expert feedback

Gamedev.js Jam celebrated Web games - build an HTML5 game within 13 days of the jam on a given theme, it runs between April 13th, 5 PM CET and April 26th, 5 PM CET 2024.

Below is the list of winners from all the Challenges: Open Source, Build it with Phaser, NPC, and js13kGames. Judged by experts and awarded with prizes. There are also top5 picks by experts along with their feedback.

Check the detailed list of winners from:

• Open Source Challenge by GitHub
• Build it with Phaser Challenge by Phaser Studio
• NPC Challenge by OP Games
• js13kGames Challenge by Enclave Games

Top5 picks with feedback from experts.

1. 1. Puckit!
   Absolutely stunning! Everything about this game is slick. The graphics are perfect, the audio is great - especially the effects (the music loop is a little short perhaps), the controls feel lovely too. An amazing example of what's possible for a game jam! Easily app store / Steam quality with a little more variety (extra bonus pieces and so on). I would have loved a 'free play' mode, so I could just keep on going as long as possible and making a shot didn't cost any power :)
2. 2. Mech Motion
   Oh this is just beautiful! The little robot is super-cute (reminds me of Wall-e) and the gameplay is simple while being a real challenge. Presentation is slick as can be, too. The only thing I didn't appreciate at first was that you get more cards - I thought I had to collect all the power with just my opening cards, which I knew was impossible :) But once I realised that you get more cards (and rules) and just have to ensure the battery doesn't drain down, then I was consumed by this for far too long. Great stuff!
3. 3. Power-Up Adventure
   So good and so frustrating in equal measure! Such a brilliant concept, too - the way the power-ups speed towards the player adds a whole other dimension to factor in when timing dropping them. Visually it was brilliant and I loved the music and effects. Solid, polished, mostly on-theme and unique. I feel like a nice player affordance would be for you to drop a 'marker' at the top when you use a power-up, like a ghost-marker, so you can see it on your next playthrough. I appreciate that may make the game easier, but believe me, by level 5 I really needed it! :)
4. 4. IONCLAD
   Really nice game! I loved the plasma effects, the waves of aliens, the smart bombs and the super-loud thumping music :) I do feel like there just weren't enough friendly ships to help restore your power, so it ended really quite fast, no matter how carefully I tried to manage my shots. Which is a shame, because I wanted to play more and more :)
5. 5. Chrono Switch
   The shader effects really help the pixel art come to life here, and I love the details in the backgrounds and environment. Controls were simple and fluid and I sadly I always felt like when I died, it was entirely my fault! Thank you for the checkpoints, I think I would have given up without them. I got a good way into the level and liked how it progressively got more complex - that sequence where you drop down a long way and have to toggle the spikes on and off quickly was pretty evil! A nice concept, on theme and polished. Well done!
6. 6. Powertoys
   Who doesn't love playing with radio-controlled toys? I certainly do and this was no exception. I loved how you had to literally use the controller to make them do things, and swapping controller swapped the toy. The camera zoom feature was very helpful and I enjoyed my time controller the race car, digger and helicopter. I still think the race car was the best of all though, especially with its sound effect. Perfectly on-theme, too! And really nice visuals. Great stuff.
7. 7. Circuit Rescue
   Just superb! Excellent puzzles, totally on-theme and great presentation. I like how the hue of the scene shifts slightly each time you retry it (and retry I certainly did!). On a big screen it was a bit of a mouse-race to click things fast enough, but I still totally enjoyed my time with this.
8. 8. NanoRevolt
   This is pretty epic! Nice platforming action. I managed to make it to stage 5, although honestly only by jumping over (instead of killing) most baddies on the previous stage. Waiting for your shot to power-up took a bit too long I think (especially as it was essential) but the level design was nice, it ran fast, the graphics were superb and with a little more work with would be truly awesome :)
9. 9. Shinobot
   I really enjoyed my time playing this - the controls were slick, the attacks satisfying and hitting Turbo mode was great fun! I feel like it was crying out for joypad support, because I would so often dash when I meant to throw a projectile :) Maybe having Up to jump instead of Space would have made the controls feel a little less crowded? Regardless, though, this was polished and fun to play. I did feel a little guilty for killing those creatures though, they looked kinda cute and harmless!
10. 10. Power Crisis
    Oh dear, I lost so much time to this game! Excellent graphics, perfectly on-theme and stupidly addictive. Would be nice to see it expanded with maybe AI opponents.

Honorable mentions:

• I am Survivor
  Inversed Vampire Survivors! Great idea and well executed! I loved wiping out all the heroes, I just wish there was more of them to defeat :) I think it could do with keys to select the zombie type, and more 'puzzle' like levels, but I appreciate this was a short game jam. I think you're onto something here, well worth exploring further outside the constraints of a jam.
• Let Him Brew!
  Wow, this game is huge! I had real fun crafting potions and making the villagers test them :) It was very satisfying to get 3 stars! The only thing I struggled with was remembering which ingredients made which potion (I thought that would appear in the potion book, but I couldn't see it?). Great game though, especially for such a short timescale.
• Charge Guardian
  Beautiful pixel art and animations! Controls felt a little strange (enter to fire?!) but they were easy enough to grasp, and then it was all about the waves and zapping and zapping. Have to admit I didn't last very long, it's pretty unforgiving! But I tried and tried again because it was so nice to look at :)

1. 1. The Power Of Two
2. 2. Power Down
3. 3. Power Racer
4. 4. Synaptic Harmonics
5. 5. Bulbs
6. 6. CPU Merge
7. 7. Pixel Power
8. 8. Star-Hopper: Ring Rescue
9. 9. Red Right Fist
10. 10. BoxPushing
11. 11. Powers of Dropping
12. 12. Lumi-Snake
13. 13. Cube Star Rescue