Play game
SUDDEN DEATH!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #247 | 3.938 | 3.938 |
| Enjoyment | #262 | 4.125 | 4.125 |
| Artwork | #1849 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Creativity | #2075 | 3.781 | 3.781 |
| Narrative | #4745 | 2.406 | 2.406 |
Ranked from 32 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
SUDDEN DEATH! makes the countdown the antagonist. Every 10 beats, a giant number counting down to zero fills the arena background, and when it hits zero, the rules of the game itself flip (Reverse Controls, No Shooting, Giant Enemies, and more), forcing you to adapt on the fly while enemies keep closing in. You're surviving waves of enemies, but you're also racing a clock that keeps changing the game out from under you. The whole game show framing has cascading rule-reveal cards, a hype-man announcer, crowd energy, which all exist to make that countdown feel like the real threat.
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Code / Components
A lot of the groundwork was built using a side-project I've been working on, a personal reusable component library for Godot (movement, combat, juice, audio, and UI components authored for this and other projects), stripped down from a couple of my other projects, Hunter's Hand and Dawn Protocol, wherever I could reuse them
Visual FX
Particle Pack by Kenney Vleugels (kenney.nl) — CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain)
Sound Effects - All from free & purchased asset packs.
Casino Audio (1.1) by Kenney Vleugels (https://kenney.nl/assets/casino-audio) - CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain)
Impact Sounds (1.0) by Kenney (https://kenney.nl/assets/impact-sounds) - CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain)
Interface Sounds (1.0) by Kenney (https://kenney.nl/assets/interface-sounds) - CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain)
Ultimate Magic Spells (Sample Pack) by Miguel Lopez ([Commercial license (attribution not required)
Music
"Battle Trance" by AKMV-18 — https://freemusicarchive.org/music/akmv-18/akmv-18-762x39mm-ep-i/battle-trance/ — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike).
Fonts
Ubuntu_Mono - https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Ubuntu+Mono
Special Thanks
GMTK Game Jam 2026 organizers and community!
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Pixel Moon
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Absolutely loved it. Amazing polish, feels juicy as hell, great audio. If this turns into a full mobile game I'm getting it immediately
Thanks so much for the kind words! I'm considering a full release, I have most of it planned out already. I'll keep you posted!
Good job! Had fun playing it. Love the idea of added complexity every 10 seconds, but I couldn't play it more than 3 minutes. due to it being way too overstimming. Apart from that, great interface, amazing music that adds to the vibe of controlled chaos happenning at the screen.
Thanks! Glad you had fun. I get what you mean, I feel the same way playing it haha. I'll definitely tone it down quite a bit if I make a post-jam update.
This has made me nostalgic for Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, which is one of my most-played games ever! Even the distortion effects on the grid are there! That said, this is definitely something else entirely, and I love the idea of the constantly-changing conditions. Lovely music and graphics/shaders too! If I had one complaint, it's that my machine is too slow for this game, but that has nothing to do with the game's quality. Great job!
Thanks for taking the time to leave such an encouraging comment! I definitely took inspiration for the background from Geometry wars! I love that game too. I'm really glad you had fun with it, and that you appreciated the rule changing aspect & visuals. I added a mobile vers toggle from the main menu that might make it more playable on your machine, maybe give that a go. It still works fine on pc, mostly just moves the ui around and turns off some of the more demanding visuals.
That was great! Super fun chaos
This game was really fun! For the first few tries I didn't realize that you could move, but I still got surprisingly far. When I then found out you could move the direction rules suddenly made a lot more sense lol. I think this is a great game jam game because it's simple to pick up but there is still a lot to discover and there is a lot of dopamine kicking, because it's so active. Really good job 👍
When I was testing, it really seemed much easier not moving for the first dozen or so waves! Until you can't shoot obviously haha. Thanks for taking the time to leave such a lovely comment!
Very fun and dynamic
One of the most fun games I've tried from this jam. The visual effects are the chef's kiss.
Wow, big praise! Thanks so much!!
great game! really enjoyed this one, despite it's simplicity.
Thanks! Simplicity was the aim ;)
Great game! I just LOVE the screen effects!
Thanks so much!
A well-polished and responsive game! Nice work! I like the shader effects when the player hits enemies, and the concept of changing the player's state during a random countdown. It is satisfying to play.
Thanks so much! I tried to make it as juicy as I could! :)
Looks great, I really liked it
Really well done. The game is so satisfying and nervous. Love it
Haha thanks! I do get very nervous when I play it too.
Very cool concept, love the rule changing mechanic also. Good job
I'm really amazed by how polished this game is, especially for a game jam game
Really loving this, great job
Thanks Arvie! Very kind of you to say. I had a lot of the combat set up already from another project, so I had the opportunity to focus on polish! Helped a lot.
Artwork & Audio are good matching, feel addicted to play.
If you have the time, please try and rate my game too :D ->
/jam/gmtk-jam-2026/rate/4805712
Thanks so much! Glad you think so.
I'll check your project out too when I get a minute :)
Art and sounds are superb, makes me feel very powerful. The mechanic with the changing rule is very creative. I wish the number in the middle isn't so visually blocking though.
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it - I've heard that from a few people about the number, definitely needs some iterating on! Maybe I'll push it to the backround or somewhere at the top next time.
This was fun to play! Aesthetics (and some gameplay) reminded me of a game my friend made, called We Are Doomed.
Thanks for playing! Glad you liked it :)
Loved the game, it is clearly polished in an amazing way, loved the look of it and the feel, my only problem is that the text blocked a lot of the screen. Other than that, amazing game!!
Thanks so much! Do you mean the countdown text, or the UI? There's definitely room for improvement, I wanted the countdown prominent, but maybe I shouldn't have made it so central.
I'm a huge sucker for games like this! I really like the idea of changing the rules based on a countdown. It could just be me, but I feel like 10 beats was a tad fast. Otherwise, I had a ton of fun!
Thanks Zed! Glad you liked it. I think you're right, I wanted it a bit of frantic energy, but maybe putting it a bit higher would be better. The engine speed increases every rule change too to increase difficulty, but I noticed in the end it's really difficult to react to the rule changes quickly enough!
Like that it has mobile support and think the mechanics are cool and support a little strategic thought nice job!
Thank you! I added it last minute so some of my friends could play without a PC, wasn't as difficult as I thought it'd be.