It’s always a fun and amazing opportunity to see young developers take part in a Game Jam. It’s a time to test out everyone’s experimentation, imagination, and stamina towards game building.
Along with the CiGA (China Indie Game Association), Cocos was excited to bring together teams from all over our hometown of Xiamen and neighboring cities to compete for some fantastic prizes. Altogether, we had 20 teams, or over 100 people, complete their game in less than 48 hours. For many, it was their first real game!
Before we talk about the best games shared in the competition, we have to talk about the theme. The 2021 CiGA Game Jam theme – Xiamen was “derailed train” and “People who want to get it back on track.” Most people from this theme built many train-based games, but a few stood out from the pack.
We were amazed at the quality of some of these games from both an art style and how they created new and interesting gameplay. For them to come up and implement in 48 hours is an amazing feat.
Let’s take a look at our big winners at the event
Third Place – Link Team – “Maid Orbital Algorithm”
The team came in with a hilariously great idea of a two-player battle, where two maids are trying to collect train pieces to build a train to move their master before time runs out. The game allows you to not only build your tracks but sabotage the others. The entertainment value really comes through in their game. The team consisted of five college students from the Xiamen Academy of Arts and Crafts of Fuzhou University.
Second Place – Garden Baby Team - “Walk The Train”
This six-member team from Xiamen University came up with the idea of having your train actually come alive!
A young girl finds this living train and has to walk it home on a leash, trying to keep it out of danger. The game comes with some fun puzzles that have you trying your best to keep the train out of temptation. The cleverness of the game anime style makes you wonder if there’s a manga already for this.
First Place – Girl Begging Group – “Dreamcatcher”
This two-member team, just out of high school, came up with “Dreamcatcher.” It’s straightforward and subtly amazing with a puzzle game similar to the game "Snake," but with a train game twist. Players must keep the train going as you add more track to the board. Though the concept is nice, the added art and sound design really make this game special and interesting.
The fun in this game comes from the complexity of the board. As you add more and more tracks, more boxcars are added, and while you can add or rotate twisting tracks, you can’t delete them. The team mentioned that they wanted to express “Excessive restraint that eventually leads to chaos” The game ends when the train derails on an incorrect turn or bumps into itself.
For being a 48-hour game, this has great potential to be even more with more fine-tuning.
Honorable mentions
Though these games didn’t "make the cut," they were all very amazing, including an endless runner of a boy running above the rooftops, an “angelic” conductor trying to move his train, and racing away from a blob.
We want to end by thanking everyone who came to the event and for those who stuck through the 48 hours of game jamming. Cocos has always insisted on making game development easier, and for those teams that used Cocos Creator for their games, we give them an extra thanks for their love for gaming and love for Cocos.
