so sorry to wait one entire month to get this out! thought i had posted it until just before starting to gear up for our next jam, apologies. this one is on me, amber autumn. but, we're here now with our five award winners!
first of all, we want to thank everyone so so much for participating. we're slightly embarrassed, because we have a confession to make: when we started this jam, we intended for it to be a physical games only jam, and just... forgot to write that in the description. we got some game submissions we are thrilled to have encouraged into the world (i am beyond honored someone made a dyed-in-the-wool sonic inflation game for one of my game jams), but ultimately the world we live in is of analog games and neither of us felt qualified to give prizes out to the video games. if your video game didn't make the cut, we're so sorry, it's nothing personal, and we did play all of them that our hardware would run. i do encourage everybody to poke around there, there is a real swath of interesting stuff.
but now! the winners themselves!
MOST LEFT FIELD IDEA:
i mean, just delightful, right? inventory management puzzles as a core gameplay construct. nothing like any rpg i've ever played, maybe the game out of all eligible games in this set i am most likely to actually play.
MOST ORIGINAL COMBINATION OF IDEAS:
what else could it have been? you're trying to do a heist but you're also a variety of vermin. just a cute little two-pager which says what it wants to say and gets out.
MOST AFFECTIVE CORE SYSTEM:
it's difficult to match the pathos of physically sending a letter to someone far away, describing your life but never quite able to fully share it. this game taps into that and lets you dream your worlds together. gorgeous.
BEST WRITING:
Their Miserable, Greedy Hearts
oh, my heart! it starts from such a strong premise of BEING the wish granter, and the prose and prompts are wall-to-wall evocative as hell from there. it tells such a strong story before you even play it.
BEST VISUAL DESIGN:
this was the easiest prize to award, it is extremely uncommon to find a game released on this scale which looks half this good. clean, evocative, professional, i found it hard to believe this wasn't made by an entire games company.
and those are our winners! i would extremely encourage you to check all of them out, and again, if you didn't get an award this time don't worry, we did check out every game submitted and we are so beyond thrilled that you gave this jam a shot. see you all next time!