The Best Games from GMTK Game Jam 2023

Earlier this month, I challenged 23,000

game designers to create a 
brand new game - in just 48 hours.

And, what's more - the game had 
to fit a very difficult theme...

That's right. Roles reversed.

I wanted to see games that let us become a 
character that we don't normally get to play.

Like, instead of controlling 
the buff knight in a suit of

armour - what happens if we get to play 
as the army of enemy skeletons, instead?

As always, the community rose to the challenge.

They submitted over 6,800 games.

Making it, once again, the 
biggest jam in itch.io's history.

Sorry about the servers.

I played through the top 100 rated games, 
and picked out my 20 absolute favourites.

These games are clever, creative, inventive,

and annoyingly good for games 
made in a single weekend.

As always, the results are in 
no particular order or ranking -

and this year, I've bundled them into groups 
that show off different takes on the theme.

Okay. So, a very popular take on the theme 
was to make a game with a hero character,

who moves through the level by themselves.

And you've got to help or hinder them, 
by taking on a completely different role.

Take, for instance, Princess Paladin.

Here, the titular princess is 
very much the main character

as she takes on waves of demonic 
bats and slime-spitting snakes.

You, on the other hand, play 
as her measly minion sidekick.

So you dash around the level to 
pick up weapons and health potions,

which you can then yeet towards 
to the princess to help her out.

Which means you're basically playing 
as Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite.

But it's surprisingly fun 
to play in the support role.

For one, while it can be tricky to 
work alongside an autonomous AI,

these cute thought bubbles help make the 
princess's decision-making more transparent.

And there's some clever design here as you juggle 
your own needs with those of the so-called hero.

When you pick up a health potion, for instance 
- you have to ask yourself: who needs this more?

You or me?

Another take on this idea 
can be seen in LedgePainter.

You're a game dev making a fancy 
3D shooter but - alas - your

playtesters can't seem to navigate 
the level without some assistance.

So, it's time to do what all 
triple A games do and paint

the way forward with bright yellow splotches.

The game's split into two halves:

you've got the editor where you lay 
down your paint, from a limited supply.

And then you can hit play to see how the 
AI-controlled character handles your stage.

You can also look at The Tutorial,

which is also about painting a level layout 
to give commands to an autonomous hero.

So those are games where you help the 
AI-driven character reach their goal.

But plenty of games went the other way, and 
instead pitted you against the protagonist.

Bready or Not is clearly inspired by 
the breakout hit Vampire Survivors.

But instead of playing as the whip-wielding 
hero, you're now commanding the army of enemies.

Each one is on a different cooldown timer,

so you need to bounce between the 
different birds to create a varied team.

When you do enough damage, you can pick 
from a random selection of upgrades -

from faster cooldowns, to twice-as-many spawns.

Now I have to admit, the similar entry, Vampire:

No Survivors, is probably a little bit 
smarter as you must carefully spend a

limited pool of resources to build 
the most effective army of enemies.

But I slightly preferred playing Bready or Not -

probably because there's something wickedly 
fun about spawning such a massive pool

of pigeons that it literally 
breaks the game's audio system.

Another popular approach for this 
theme was to take a well-known game,

and completely flip it on its head.

So, Inside Job is an upside-down tower defence

game where you place down the 
minions, rather than the towers.

You've got a bunch of different baddies to 
pick from - each on different cooldowns -

and you have to carefully deploy them 
to overwhelm the opponent's defences.

Sometimes that means making 
sure many enemies arrive at

the towers simultaneously, 
so some slip by unharmed.

Or using a costly power-up to 
temporarily shut down the defences.

Bonus points to Tower Attack, which also 
toyed with the "tower offence" concept.

Another genre that's ripe for 
reversal is the stealth game.

In Sneakerdoodle, we actually want 
to be spotted by patrolling guards.

You play as an attention-hungry pooch 
who wants to be chased by humans.

But not caught and cuddled.

So you need to intentionally trip 
these wandering view-cones...

and then make a dash for it 
before you're actually caught.

This leads to some surprisingly clever levels as 
you dart under tables, squeeze through tight gaps,

and carefully choose the order in which you get 
spotted, so you don't find yourself trapped.

Retro games also provided a good 
opportunity for role reversal.

In Bricker Breaks Free, the game 
starts with a very familiar set-up:

a paddle firing a ball towards a bundle of blocks.

But then things change: the camera 
swaps into an isometric view and

you're now controlling the entire field of 
blocks as a single, amorphous character.

Now you're moving through corridors 
of enemy paddles and wandering balls.

You can shoot at the paddles to destroy 
them, but this actually uses your blocks

as ammo - making you a tiny bit 
smaller with every shot you take.

And the smaller you get, the more 
vulnerable your core becomes.

However, it's not all bad being small - you can

use your slimmed-down structure 
to sneak through tight gaps.

This is a fun, frantic, and very 
clever twist on an arcade favourite.

I just love games that use the 
character's shifting size and

shape to organically change 
the way you play the game.

Kinda like... Snake, which actually 
inspired two games in the top 100.

My favourite, though, was VERSUS SNAKE,

which turns the sedate Nokia phone favourite into 
a legitimately scary first-person horror game.

So you need to find all the apples in 
the room and feed them to the snake.

Or you can throw them far away 
from you to distract the giant

cobra and give yourself a chance to get away.

It plays on the familiar AI 
patterns of the original game,

but turns it into something completely fresh.

Real-world games were also at the 
mercy of our clever game jammers.

Descriptionary is a really 
imaginative rethink of Pictionary.

Basically, the character tells 
you what to draw - just squares,

lines, arches, and circles, with vague 
directions for where they should go.

You can then doodle that in the box below.

Your job is to guess what you've just drawn.

It's a bit like translating the same message 
through 4 languages on Google Translate -

you know, things start getting a bit wonky, but 
you can still figure out the original intent.

This game is super polished and well worth a play.

I also want to give props 
to The Last Piece Standing,

for being a rare chess-based 
game that I actually enjoy.

You play as the king, and have 
to destroy a bunch of enemy

pieces that are slowly marching towards your army.

However, you can borrow the powers of the other

pieces to make massive jumps and 
diagonal leaps across the board.

This turns each bout into a 
careful positioning puzzle.

Good stuff.

Another way to interpret the theme was to look at 
the different roles in games and relationships,

and let us take the side that 
we don't usually get to play.

Take, for instance, Get Packing where we become 
the shopkeeper NPC from your typical RPG.

In each round you have a limited amount 
of money to spend on the weapons, shields,

food, and potions, brought in by the 
brave and copyright-dodging adventurer.

You then flip to the store room where you 
embrace your inner Leon S. Kennedy and

try to squish all this stuff into 
the cramped confines of a crate.

What's more, certain items can 
affect their surroundings - so

don't put a magic flame sword next to 
your bananas, because the fruit will go bad.

Sure, we have seen games about being a shopkeeper,

but this was still a cute game, 
and is worth checking out.

Another game to do this was Crabjuice.

It's clearly inspired by the horrible headcrabs

from the Half-Life games - those mutant 
chicken nuggets who pounce on your face.

But here, it's used to make 
a excellent puzzle game.

Playing as the headcrab, you have to get around

these cramped levels by leaping 
from one human's face to another.

Soon you'll be flinging yourself into switches to 
open doors, narrowly avoiding enemies with guns,

and ricocheting yourself off 
walls for a better vantage point.

Pets and Pokemon were also 
common targets for role reversal.

We're so used to playing as the human that

we don't stop to think what 
it's like to be the animal.

Not so in Walkies - a game where 
you play as a bone-hungry dog,

who is cruelly constrained by a 
tight leash and a strong owner.

So the owner wanders around 
the town automatically,

giving you a small radius to explore for bones.

And also ways to gain power - you 
can get pets from passing humans,

say, or use fire hydrants as a handy toilet.

Once you're powered up completely, the screen 
zooms out and now the dog is totally in charge.

You can zoom around at double speed 
and the human is powerless to stop you.

It's a fun back and forth 
of power and powerlessness.

Meanwhile, in One Day Better, you play as a 
cat who tries to help its depressed human.

The dude wakes up in a funk - a fuzzy 
fog of thoughts clouding their mind.

Left to their own devices 
they'd happily sleep in all day.

But their faithful moggy can use 
a few tools to get them going.

So you can meow to get the human's attention.

Scratch at stuff to make 
them move towards objects.

And even headbutt the human's legs 
to get them to move between rooms.

Using these three commands you can make your owner 
tidy their room, have a shower, and eat breakfast.

It's a heartfelt and touching little game

about the restorative power of 
animals, and I really liked it.

Another take on the theme was to 
give you a pretty standard game.

and then pull the rug from beneath 
your feet by reversing the roles.

Take UVSU.

It's a platformer where you have to get 
the angel to the goal before time runs out.

Seems simple enough? But 
then you replay the level,

but now as an imp who has to kill the 
angel before they reach the door.

And then you play it AGAIN, but as 
another angel who now has to reach

the door while dodging the imp and its bullets.

Hopefully that made some sense.

Basically, you're simultaneously 
killing and dodging yourself and

must think several steps ahead so you 
don't screw yourself over in future runs.

I think you just need to 
play this to really get it.

It's a wonderfully clever game.

Not surprising, when you learn that 
it was made by the developer behind

Toodee and Topdee - which also 
started life as a game jam game.

Reversal Rooms also begins as a basic platformer.

But then, in level two, your jump 
button actually controls the spikes.

Then you control the spring.

And then the door.

It's a manic context-switching headscratcher that

basically feels like Wario Ware as 
a platformer, and I really dig it.

And then Ragdolf looks like your average 
putting simulator - but then this happens.

Oops.

Turns out you need to use the ball as a 
bounce pad to get you around the level.

It's actually way more than a 
slapstick sight gag, though:

it quickly turns into a tricky platformer where

you must carefully time your swings 
for the correct power and angle.

I played through this entire 
game with a big smile on my face.

Highly recommend this one.

And then the final twist on the 
theme was to go completely meta.

Let's start with Pause to Play, which makes the 
pause menu an active participant in the puzzles.

So pausing the game doesn't actually 
stop the action - but it does flash

up some buttons which can be 
used as platforms to get around.

Then, the options sliders 
can be used as lifts - but

they change the settings as you go up and down.

You can zoom the camera, for instance, 
to turn your character into a tiny speck.

More ideas are explored as the levels go on.

It's an inventive puzzle platformer with 
plenty of room to grow into a full game,

if the designer wishes.

A tip of the hat to The Adventures of Raddish Boy, 
which also uses pause as a game mechanic.

We also saw games that reversed the 
roles between player and designer.

In Making the Game, you start with 
a platformer that is far too easy:

just a brief stroll from start to finish.

So you have to choose the next avenue for the 
designer, from a list of three random choices.

Each time you expand the game, 
it gets harder and harder,

but you've got to complete the level to carry on.

When the game gets so difficult that 
it's just incredibly tedious to play...

it's time to hit release.

Maybe a little dig at your humble host? I 
dunno - but I still liked this game a lot.

We also saw games that reversed the roles so hard,

that they actually incorporated 
the game jam into the game itself.

There was, of course, Video Editor's Toolkit which 
lets you play as me, editing this video right now.

AI MARK: "A brief interlude for our 
sponsor, please check them out".

But I'm gonna give the win to Our Dearest Player,

which emulates the experience of being 
a game jam judge, in this exact jam.

You play through a handful of simple 
reversed-role games - including a

surprisingly good Flappy Bird clone - before 
handing out stars in different categories.

There's even a broken Web GL page, which 
makes the whole thing super authentic.

And then finally...

Streamer Screamer is a wonderful 
fourth-wall-breaking meta comedy.

This game features a jibbering Twitch streamer,

who is showing off some low-rent 
horror game with a spooky villain.

But then... the screen pans up to reveal 
that you are actually playing as the villain.

You're carrying an iPad showing 
the stream, meaning that you can

triangulate the location of the streamer 
and sneak up behind them for a jump scare.

You don't want to make the 
game too scary though - you

want to vary your approach to build 
tension - and raise viewer numbers.

Plus, you'll want to hold 
back to hear the streamer's

inane babbling about Disney World and dreams.

This is a genuinely galaxy-brained game 
idea and needs to be explored further.

STREAMER: "Oh my god!!"

So, there we have it! By reversing roles,

these clever game designers found 
fertile ground for brand new game ideas.

We helped and hindered AI-driven heroes.

We turned classic game ideas on their heads.

We took on unfamiliar roles.

We saw surprising twists on familiar concepts.

And we went so meta that the fourth 
wall shattered into a thousand pieces.

As always, I want to shout 
out some honourable mentions.

Firehose is a manic score-chasing

arcade game where you play as a 
firefighter... who starts fires.

You can only move as far as your hose 
will allow - so you'll then need to

hop into the firetruck and drive somewhere else.

The Contrarian Press sees you make 
the judicious use of censor bars to

rewrite newspaper headlines, and make new stories.

It's all presented with 
arty cut-out collage images.

And Spared is a bowling game 
where you play as the pins.

You've got to dodge at the last 
minute to avoid being struck down,

and different bowlers with special 
powers are introduced to mix things up.

To be honest, I can easily recommend a dozen more.

So you can now head to itch.io and find the full

list of games - and the public's 
rankings for all the entries.

Have a look through the top 
100 titles, at the very least.

Thank you so much to everyone who took 
part in the jam, or rated some games.

Thanks to all the mods on Discord,

to everyone who made our awesome Team 
Finder app, and to Leaf over at Itch.io.

An extra huge thank you to my Patrons 
who fund GMTK Game Jam - and mean we

don't have to get corporate sponsors involved.

The jam will be back in 2024.

So subscribe to this channel to receive 
the date announcement next year.

AI MARK: "And that's a wrap 
for 2023. See you next year".