deeperbeige.com

This chaotic physics game was built for the annual GMTK Games Jam 2026, where you have to build a full game in just 4 days to fit the theme “Count Down“.

I had the idea to make a game where you had to get chips to various targets such that they count down to exactly zero. Just one more and you BUSTED!

Play Zero or Bust in your browser (and click the fullscreen button in the bottom right of the game for the best experience).

Instructions
Drag and throw: Click and drag items to throw them around.
Experiment: Different items can be dragged on different levels.
Hit the targets: Guide chips to the targets. When they touch, the chip’s value is subtracted from that target.
WIN: Get all countdown targets to zero…
LOSE: Go even one point over on any target, you’re BUSTED!

Controls
Left mouse click & hold: Drag item.
R: Quickly restart the level.
Left/right arrow keys: Skip to the previous/next level.
M: Toggle music.

Trailer

Postmortem

Traditionally, I like to enter this jam each year as a sort of long-term barometer of how my fatigue is recovering. Games Jams are meant to be exhausting, and this one was no exception. I spent roughly 52 hours over 4 days, and ended up top 10% for Creativity and top 25% for Enjoyment. I’m really happy with those results.

I also ended up making 16 pretty good levels (all available via the arrow keys), a juicy fail sequence, lots of sounds, and graphics via the excellent Shapes plugin. I was determined to keep the scope limited, and that let me add a fair bit of polish. I submitted my entry about an hour into the final day, then recorded/edited 2 hours of gameplay into a trailer, walkthrough and speedrun videos. I also made an animated GIF for the main logo, showing the title and a short section of gameplay. This should entice people to play it, although I didn’t get all that many ratings compared to previous years.

The only ‘bug’ (as far as I know) is that the text often layers incorrectly. This was because I tried to use Textmesh Pro for infinitely scalable text, but it doesn’t sort nicely with Shapes. I decided it wasn’t that detrimental, and anywhere it interfered with gameplay I sorted it. I could have sorted it all, but I estimated it would take a full day… There were better things to spend my limited time on.

Walkthrough

Speedrun

Screenshots

This Scrabble inspired game was my entry to the 2025 GMTK Games Jam. Due to the limited time, it’s missing a lot of polish and features, but it is basically functional. Barely!

The theme for this year was “Loops”, and I wondered what Scrabble would be like if you played on a hex-grid, and only scored if you formed a loop with existing words. And if everyone played on a globally shared board, and you could play at any time. With no limits on tiles either!

Anyway, to play click the link below, and put it into full-screen. Drag the board to scroll around, mouse wheel zooms in/out. Type in your word and drag it into position, right-click while dragging to change the direction of your word. You have to type the full word, and it must overlap at least one existing tile. If it makes any other words, they all have to be valid too.

Play Scrabbaloop

For example, here I’m adding the word TREATIES, which doesn’t form any new loops. This won’t score, but it will set me up for my next word…

…CENTER. This scores my added word, including a double letter bonus on the R. It also scores TREATIES and ENTER.

I wanted to add the following features, but ran out of time:

• Leaderboard and personal rank. Actually, I got the back-end of this done, and you can see it in json format here. Use a prettifier to make it readable: Leaderboard.json
• Reject repeated words. If you look at the top-right, you can see someone has found an exploit where they can loop XXX endlessly. You should be able to do that, once. Again, I set up the server database to easily add this, but didn’t get round to the game side
• Realtime feedback while dragging your proposed word. I had this working most of the way through the event. I added a switch to turn it off as it made it very hard to debug while building. My plan was to turn it back on at the end, which I did. Sadly it started corrupting the DB! So I was forced to turn it back off
• Way more feedback about scores
• Sound/music
• Loads more polish in general

Anyway, time makes fools of us all, and I had to submit it before the strict deadline. I doubt I’ll go back and add these features. The concept isn’t really all that much fun, mainly because hex grids are bad for Scrabble-style word games. You have to ignore 2-letter words as you make them with most of the new words. You get a lot of accidental 3-letter words too.

Created in just 4 days for the GMTK Games Jam 2024, this unfinished mess fits the theme Built to Scale in a unique way: You have to build a contraption that can scale to the top of a tricky tower of obstacles. Think “Getting Over It” mixed with “Fantastic Contraptions”.

Play Build Scale Build Scale in your browser. Best in fullscreen mode.

Instructions

• Try to get to the top of The Tower.
• Load each of the included examples. Some of them can get to the top.
• Keys are entirely configurable, but WASD is what I tend to assign to the various elements. You can explore and reassign them by clicking parts – an inspector opens above the parts list on the left.
• Try to modify one of the included examples.
• Explore all the parts.
• Try all three environments.
• Mourn over the loss of the share/browse features.
• Laugh at the lack of polish/sound/music.
• You can make some very interesting things with the editor. Sadly there’s no tutorial.

Screenshots

Postmortem

Well that was a bit intense. I was way too ambitious in my initial concept, and while I had intended to do the jam in the original 2 days, in the end I did all four (spending a total of 53.5 hours). I know Mark’s (Brown, the Jam’s organiser) intentions were that nobody had to crunch, but that’s just not what devs will do with extra time!

Meet Arthur Owl and his clever game Word Block. With around 3000 free puzzles and even more in downloadable packs, you’ll have plenty to do!

Let Arthur Owl guide you through this blend between a 3D crossword and a category quiz. He’s on hand to help you learn the ropes and give you hints when your vocabulary fails you. He’ll even teach you how to make your own puzzles.

Includes around 3000 free puzzles and a fully featured editor to make your own. Submit them for inclusion in future user packs!

There are six premium-themed puzzle packs available to purchase, each with special custom backgrounds and 2x custom comment puzzles.

Features

• 3000+ puzzles, ranging from trivial to taxing
• Hints for when you get stuck
• Fully featured puzzle creator mode
• Daily puzzle mode with streaks
• 7 visual themes to suit all tastes
• Fully adjustable settings
• Personal puzzle statistics
• Over 90 achievements
• Leaderboards for every puzzle
• In-game store for extra packs and hints

NEW DLC: Unlimited Hints!

Lovely write-up of this DLC on gamesardor.net

GET THE GAME!

Free on Quest 2/Pro/3/3S

Free on Rift/PCVR

Free on Steam VR (abandoned since nobody was playing it)

Join the Discord!

This backwards version of the classic casual game Peggle was built in 48 hours as my entry for the GMTK 2023 Games Jam. The theme for this year was “Roles Reversed”, and the suggestion was to play from a perspective we don’t usually get to play. So I built a game of Peggle, but rather than controlling the ball launcher, you play as the pegboard.

All 6 levels are unlocked, and each one changes the mechanics from the previous ones a little. It runs in the browser too, so it’s very easy to start playing. No need to download and install anything.

My entry came 805th out of almost 7000, which is in the top 12%. I’m pretty pleased with that!

Play here: Reverseggle (for desktop/laptop browsers).

This minimal multiplayer online game was built in 48 hours as my entry into the GMTK 2022 Games Jam. The theme for the jam was “Roll of the Dice”. In this game you roll your character/team at random, which is then permanently fixed if you play in the future. Then you attempt to take over other teams’ nodes in a persistent territorial battle.

To take over a node, you have to crack a code that the previous owner set. If you watch them set it, you can see the code they were using at the time. Otherwise you have to play a sort of Mastermind/Wordle minigame to crack the code with logic and guesswork.

Give it a go if you like, but don’t expect the server to be full of players. One of the ways I rolled the dice was to attempt something really quite ambitious, but despite getting it to work technically well, it hasn’t been very popular.

You can check out the game here: Windows download.

Take flight in the latest installment of the hugely popular Hanna in a Choppa series of games. This time, in fabulous 3D VR on the Rift and Quest, rather than crappy old 2D Flash. Guide Hanna through 10 bonkers levels each with hidden secrets and achievements. Train your pet elephant Stompy, steal honey from pesky bees, humiliate upgraded OXOBot at his own game, and of course The Button makes a spectacular return.

Join the discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/VmA5fWPryw

Get it FREE for Quest and Quest 2 via Oculus App Lab
https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3599849596718662

Get it FREE via SideQuest
https://sidequestvr.com/app/2979/hanna-in-a-choppa-3

Get it FREE for Rift (includes 10+ unlockable custom items for your Oculus Home)
https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/6436508716374995

It’s fire evacuation drill time at the alien nursery! Can you get them all out together? Careful, they like to stick together like glue…

Built in 48 hours by one man for the GMTK Games Jam 2021. The theme was “Joined Together”. Can you solve all 15 levels? Don’t worry if not, you can always skip levels with < and >, or watch the full walkthrough.

Get the game and walkthrough video on my itch.io page.

You have a magical sky crane, and a construction job to do. But the traffic hasn’t been stopped. You’ll just have to work around them I  guess. Don’t worry if a few innocents end up  in the water in the process. I’m almost sure they can swim.

• – Controls are all on an XBox controller, and are shown  in game.
• – Features 6 incredibly detailed challenging  levels.
• – No winching the cars to the goal. Your mum didn’t raise you to be a cheat!
• – Built by a team of one, in about a day and a half. For the GMTK Games Jam.

No need to complete levels if you don’t want to. You can skip back and forth as much as you like.

This was my entry to the second largest games jam in the world. Well over 5000 entries from over 18000 participants! It ranked in the top 20% of entries, with a top 10% rating for fun. I’ll take that as a win, especially as this was my first completed jam since my brain surgrey. I tried to enter GMTK in September 2018, but had to sleep for several days after just 3 hours of work on it! I had to sleep for several days after this too, but I got to the end and made it a proper entry in the jam.

Check out the game on deeperbeige.itch.io to view the trailer/walkthrough videos, or download it to play for free if you have an XBox controller.

THE EASTERN EDGE – THE FEVER-DREAM SURVIVAL-SHOOTER WHERE YOU PANIC-LOAD EVERY ROUND WITH YOUR BARE HANDS, BECAUSE DEATH IS ONLY EVER A FUMBLED BULLET AWAY.

Test your nerves and your gun skills without all the abstractions of the modern FPS – no auto-reloads, power-ups or recharging health bars.

This is a VR game exclusive to the Oculus Rift and Rift S that I worked on as the main developer with the incredible team at Shadow Industries.

Out now, you can buy The Eastern Edge on the Oculus Store here, and see the official website here.