Earlier this month, viewers like you were part of another record-breaking, server-smashing,
game-making marathon.
I'm talking, of course, about the GMTK Game Jam for 2021.
More than 21,000 people signed up to take part, and they managed to bash together more
than 5,800 games.
Making it, once again, the biggest jam we've ever held.
As per usual, participants were challenged to design their game around a theme - and this year
it was "Joined Together".
And so we saw a load of games where objects were combined and connected and tied to one another.
Sometimes literally, sometimes not.
Now, while I'd love to play every single game…
I don't have a couple months to spare.
So I crowdsourced it: players left over 150,000 ratings, which left me with the top 100 games
to play.
And I have to say - the quality this year was incredible, with so many creative, inventive,
engaging, and enjoyable games.
But, I can only choose 20 as my absolute favourites.
So, without further ado - and in no particular order - these are the best games of the GMTK
Game Jam for 2021.
Every jam, a game comes along that kinda just blows my mind a little bit.
This time, that honour goes to Rift Shift.
This is a platform game with two little windows that you can pick up and move about.
And, basically, anything that appears in one window will also appear in the other.
And so to get your tiny wizard to the flag, you'll need to place one window in the gap
in front of him, and use the other window to sample a bit of background with some steps.
Now, you've got a route to the exit.
It's awfully clever.
There are also great puzzles that come from moving the rift over the character, phasing
in stuff like doors and pressure-sensitive buttons - before phasing them back out again.
And later levels introduce turrets that can be blocked by creative use of the windows.
This game is part platformer, part selection tool from Photoshop, and all around amazing.
Give it a go.
This year we saw a whole bunch of puzzlers where boxes join together when you
touch them.
I count at least five in the top 100.
My favourite of the bunch, though, was Sleepy Blocks.
This is a game where you control a smiley-faced square in a grid-based world of snoozing friends.
If you enter an adjacent tile, the sleepy cubes wake up and join with you to create
a brand new shape.
And so, thus begins a bunch of puzzles about carefully picking up new polygons in order
to reach the exit.
It's about picking the right path and choosing the correct order.
But then a new mechanic is introduced: cracked floor tiles that can turn into deadly pits,
and must be carefully avoided.
But then, there are puzzles where you want to use the pits, in order to split your shape.
This game has a great understanding of puzzle design and was simply a joy to play.
Okay, let me pick one more game about joining together blocks.
Just because this one is very different.
It's called Puzzle Sigma.
The idea for this one is that you play as a mathematical symbol - starting as a plus
sign - and you can attach yourself to big chunky number blocks.
If you get a number on the left and right, your body becomes a mathematical equation
and the answer can be used to unlock doors.
So pick up a 1 and a 3, and you'll be able to unlock the door marked 4.
It's alarmingly clever and deserves endless points for making a game about maths that's
actually enjoyable.
Things get real complicated when you start playing with numbers bigger than 9, and multiple
symbols, and puzzles where you get different answers as you rotate around.
And at that point, I started to panic.
But if you've got a better nose for numbers than me, I think you'll really enjoy this
game.
If letters are more your thing, though, check out Factori.
Essentially an entire Zachtronics game made in 48 hours, Factori is a problem-solving
puzzler with one raw material - the letter I - and about 26 different products - the
rest of the alphabet.
You see, if you bend, rotate, flip, and combine the letter I - using these colourful machines
on the right over here - it's possible to spit out any other letter.
And so the game is as much about building an efficient factory floor as it is about
thinking creatively about shapes.
How do you make a G?
I guess that's a bent I, a normal I, and a rotated I… yeah, got it!
I can't give it full points for originality - anyone who's played SpaceChem or Opus Magnum
will recognise the core concept immediately.
But it's done with such alarming proficiency that it really does deserve a nod.
We saw a fair few arena battlers in the jam - that's always a smart way to make the most
out of the short time limit.
One that really worked for me was Ghostel.
This is, ultimately, a pretty simple game.
You control two different ghostbusting geezers at the same time - and as long as they're
close enough to one another, a big deadly laser beam arcs between their guns.
Now, anything caught in the middle will be vaporised - leading to a fun and frantic twin-stick
arena shooter where you fight ghosts, cursed furniture, and, uh, the Windows logo.
Play it in singleplayer and it's a game that will test your coordination.
Play it with a friend and it's a game that will test your relationship.
I'd like to have seen a few more twists on the idea, but it's a great start for a game.
Another arena battler I dug was the very innovative Grappling Scarf.
In this one you play as a square with a rather long white scarf, while trails behind you
like the body in Snake.
You can use this as a massive shield to wrap it around the base in the middle of the screen
- and protect it from incoming bullets.
But look at the end of the scarf: it's got a hook, which can be used to pick up bombs.
Now you can drag them away from your base, and hit space to split your scarf in half.
Now you can go off and do more work while you wait for the bomb to blow up.
Later, however, you'll want to go back to your discarded scarf and pick it back up - because
every time you disconnect a bit of your body, you become shorter and less effective as a shield.
It's a weird, but wholly original game where you're having to constantly put out fires,
make small sacrifices for long-term gain, and ebb and flow between bodies that are big
and small.
Safe to say, I liked it.
Here's a theme I wasn't expecting in the jam: using a hook-shot to pull bits of a level,
to rearrange the play space.
Like the very polished puzzle platformer Whale Eater.
My pick, though, is Phasing Puller.
And that comes from a very small restriction on your powers - that happens to change everything.
Your hookshot only works when it goes through one object - that's what powers it to latch
onto something and drag it back.
Otherwise, it don't work.
This leads to a number of clever and thoughtful levels about moving blocks for jumping on,
and powered up energy cells for puzzle solving.
I also liked the minimalist art style: if you've only got 48 hours to make graphics,
limit your colour palette to create a cohesive style in no time at all.
Technology is all about joining things together, whether that's using different dongles to
connect up a laptop, chairing multiple Zoom meetings at once, or physically connecting
phone calls using a switchboard.
In fact, there we two switchboard-based games in the top 100, and while I dug the narrative
thread throughout Hello, Operator, my pick of the pair was Telephone Trouble.
The idea is the same: use wires to make a connection between caller and recipient.
But this one's way more manic: you've got five cables to play with.
Phone calls pile up like orders in an Overcooked restaurant.
You'll be frantically checking the phone book to find people's calling codes.
And - every now and again - someone will need the hospital and you'll have to drop everything
to answer their emergency.
It's a rapid fire, high score-chasing arcade gem with gorgeous graphics.
Give it a play.
Another common element in this jam's top 100 was constellations - such as the stunning
and relaxing photography gem, Star Snap.
But one game just outdid it for me: it's called Peaceful Evening Among the Stars.
It's a puzzle game, about connecting up stars to make constellations.
You can only drag a certain distance away from a bright colourful star, so you'll need
to use other, smaller stars as stepping stones.
Things soon get more complex when different coloured stars are introduced, forcing you
to get clever about overlapping and circumnavigating other stars.
I feel like I've said stars a lot.
Anyway, it's just a polished, professional, and eminently playable game.
Basically, when I've got to rush through 100 games to get the results out for a bunch of
impatient game jammers… well if I end up playing one game all the way to the end…
I think I can safely say I liked it.
There's always a pixel art puzzle platformer or two in the top 100.
This year, one of my favourites was I Gacha Head.
It's got nothing to do with loot boxes or micro-transactions, thankfully.
Instead, it's an adorable game about a tiny man and his giant hat.
The hat gives you the extra height needed to grab keys - but it also makes you too towering
to squeeze through tight gaps.
So, soon enough, you'll need to use a low ceiling to knock your hat clean off - returning
you to a smaller size.
And then, once you've done what you need to do, it's back to the hat.
It's a charming game, packed with puzzles and even bonus puzzles - I'd be keen to see
where the creators could take this with even more time.
Okay. This one almost makes me reconsider the rule that there's no max team size.
It's called Static Cling.
It's a Nitrome-esque platformer where you play as a ball of pulsing energy who always
starts on a plug head.
Now you've got to make your way to the socket, but you're very limited in the way you can
travel.
Like, you can stretch out into the world but only so far because you're joined together
with a power source.
If you link to a bulb, though, you can travel through the wires and pop out on the other
side.
Later, you'll be able to use yourself to power on machines like big chunky doors.
And also transfer yourself into little robots for more freeform movement.
This leads to a metric butt tonne of clever puzzles and set-ups.
Look, you could buy this game on the Switch eShop and not even know it was made in a weekend.
The huge team at Team Bugulon is clearly a game-making monster.
Well done.
Squeaking in at overall rating position 100 is Tether n' Feather.
Or should that be squawking in?
This is a parrot-themed platformer with a big difference.
To get over gaps, you need to do a big jump as one parrot - and then switch to the second.
Now, parrot number two can use their buddy as a grapple point to do a big, looping, arcing
swing before rocketing out the other side and - hopefully - onto dry land.
Later, you'll get golden feathers that let you do more jumps and swaps in mid-air, leading
to frantic back-and-forth chains as you leap from parrot to parrot.
Now, don't get me wrong - it's a little tricky to get used to.
But once you get the rhythm right, you'll be soaring towards the goal in a game that
mixes fast-pace thrills with strategic placement.
Good stuff.
Next up is Mrs. Modifier.
This is an arcade adventure - on a cabinet with not enough buttons for all the actions
you need.
I mean, left, right, and jump won't really cut it when you also need to climb, air dash,
crouch, and drop through platforms.
So, you can open up the arcade machine and rewire the controls for yourself.
Like, make going to the right also perform an air-dash, or have going to the left do
double duty as fall through platforms.
It seems like a clever sight gag of a game, but it's actually a clever puzzler where you
need to assess the screen ahead of you and make decisions about how you can assign all
the necessary actions without breaking things.
I really enjoyed this, and it took a very different twist on the theme.
One of the most popular themes for the top 100 was games where different bits of the
world can be jumbled up and joined together in unique combinationas.
Including a mini minotaur maze, and a clever mix between Minit and Carto.
But my pick of the bunch has got to be the micro Metroidvania, Octo and the Pocket Dimensions.
In this one, you find new rooms as big floating floppy disks - and can then return to a massive
central computer, to rearrange the maze of room tiles to make further progress.
Very cool - though, we've seen similar stuff in previous jams.
What I loved, though, was the clever ways that developer IceburgLettuce built on the
idea.
For example, there are keys to pick up, but they disappear when you use the computer - so
you'll need to ensure that the key room is en route to the corresponding door.
And even smarter, one room has a big bouncy trampoline which can spring you out of one
room - and then over obstacles in another - so plopping down rooms can have ramifications
that spill out beyond their walls.
Ah!
It's basically like that dungeon from Skyward Sword, if Skyward Sword was on the Game Boy.
And if you've watched my channel at all, you'll understand why I couldn't resist this game's
charms.
Next up is Space Scrap Shuffle.
It's not the most attractive game in the jam, but looks can be deceiving.
In this one, you ram your spaceship into floating bits and pieces to add them to your every-growing
Frankenstein's Monsters of a battle cruiser.
Like turrets for fire power, and bulkheads for shields.
And now you can chase down enemies and blow them up - but you'll want to be careful as
any leftover Lego pieces can be added to your own ship.
So you'll want to play carefully - only destroying the command module, but leaving the turrets
unharmed.
Luckily, the game's got a generous tactical pause system for precision decisions.
Another cool idea is that you can jettison bits of your own body and blow them up, in
order to get health for other modules.
There's a lot of decision making in this one.
There's a load more you could do with this game - and it suffers the same balance problem every
game of this ilk has: it's too easy to become utterly overpowered.
But it's a great base for a smashing jam entry.
Here's a really neat game with a lot of potential for growth.
It's called Threadbound.
It starts out as a simple platformer.
Move, jump, push.
But then something special happens: you can open an overlay above the gameplay, and here
you can create a green thread between multiple objects.
And now, when you interact with one - the other one changes too.
Thread two boxes together, and you can now move both just by pushing one of them.
Eventually you'll be able to choose whether to thread your needle through the object's
X or Y axis, allowing for either horizontal or vertical movement.
A platform that goes up, when you push a box to the side.
This led to one of the best individual puzzles I saw in the jam - though, to spoil it would
be a shame.
So I'll leave you to play it for yourself.
Ultimately, there's so much more this game could do: it feels like a cheeky teaser for
the next must-play puzzle game.
Threadbound wasn't the only game to tinker with tapestry.
Like the tricky climbing game Utterly Threadful, or my next pick: Loop.
In a world of sentient buttons and fluffballs, your tiny needlework hero must plop down a
cotton reel and then encircle a bunch of objects in a big loop of thread.
You don't want to capture just any old stuff in your circle: you're given a recipe - some
fluff, some fabric, and some buttons to make a teddy bear - and so must only pick the right
objects.
And I think that's really sweet!
This could have been yet another sci-fi shooter about rounding up aliens and robots in order
to destroy them.
But instead it's about making toys and clothes.
A pertinent reminder to think outside the box when it comes to aesthetics and not land
on the obvious first choice.
I love how a game jam can produce games that are basically just a funny joke.
They probably wouldn't work as a full, paid-for release: but as a one-off freebie made in
a weekend, you can get away with turning your game into a gag.
And that includes Tongue-Tied.
This is a silly game about a girl who has licked an icy pole in the winter, and her
tongue has gotten stuck.
That means you can only move a small distance away - but if you pick up these balls of energy,
your tongue gets longer.
And so in order to escape this nightmare you need to keep increasing the length of your
tongue, carefully wrapping it around walls and thinking about distance.
This lets you get further and further away from the pole - and hopefully, towards freedom.
The final punchline is well worth seeing.
Next up, this is Ball to the Wall.
This is a frantic football-style rampage of a game.
You're joined together with a massive pink ball that makes it awfully hard to get anywhere
fast.
But, if you stand behind it you can give the ball a big kick - and use it to smash through
enemies and walls alike.
This does fling you forward, so you'll need to be quick on your toes to reposition yourself
for the next kick.
Or, to use your ball as a shield as it does double duty as a way of deflecting bullets.
This is a fun game, with a lot of charm.
And finally, this is SparkLink.
This game is all about controlling two characters with completely different rules, options,
and even input methods.
The spark is controlled with the mouse, and can basically go anywhere your cursor can.
The robot is controlled with the keyboard, is more concerned with gravity and ground,
and only works when it's joined together with the spark.
And so we get a bunch of really cool puzzles where you need to think critically and carefully
about how these two very different characters are going to move in order to get to the goal
- and help, but not hinder each other.
This is a polished and very smart game - go check it out.
Okay, I wanted to leave you with some honourable mentions!
Though, I should state that every game in the top 100 was amazing and well worth playing.
These are just a few games I wanted to highlight.
Horse Divorce is a barmy Sokoban puzzler about a two headed horse who must find its other
head for a smooch.
UI Warrior is an inventive game about using bits of the interface as platforms: it almost
made the video, but I think we have enough puzzle platformers in here.
Holosaur and Twominator are two games about using your past self to solve puzzles, but
unfortunately I highlighted something similar in the past.
And Top & Tom is a brilliant twist on the endless runner genre - with a really mean
difficulty curve.
So there we have it.
You can browse all 5,800 games over on itch.io - and you can also now see the public's rankings
for all the games.
Thank you so much to everyone who took part in the jam, or just rated some games, or chatted
with us on Discord, or watched my streams.
Thanks to my mods on Discord and YouTube, and to everyone who made our awesome team
finder app.
And thanks to my Patrons, as always.
The jam will, of course, be back in 2022.
So subscribe to the channel to receive the date announcement… sometime next year.
Thanks for watching.
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