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 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).

I built this game with Aardman to help promote the Sony/Aardman release of the awesome and hilarious film The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists.

Lob eggs at the targets on stage until you’ve knocked them all down. Then take the gold you’ve earned and upgrade your fruit-slinging weapons in the shop.

Play The Pirates! Land Lobber.

To advertise the kids laser-tag toys Light Strike, I built a simple target-range game. It was created over the course of a couple of days, with supplied graphics from Chris Minett.

Even though this was a super-quick build, there was still time to work a little depth into the game. The gun has a 3-round auto, and using it will help you score higher. Don’t hit your own team colour too, and aim for the centre of each target for maximum points! There’s even a faux-3D effect on the gun lasers.

Play Light Strike

Bounce Timmy as high as you can in this gentle-paced dreamy casual game. Land on the squishy cushions to leap up again, and pick up bonuses for a boost! Log into your Facebook account in-game to compete against your friends.

A new genre of physics-word-game! Not half as silly as it sounds, give this thoughtful and laid back game a go. Rearrange the letters to form a word. Try to find the perfect word for each level’s particular prose.

Play Prose and Motion now

Update: A few people have been asking what the music is for this game. There are actually three tracks that get seamlessly blended mid-game. It starts mellow, then ramps it up a bit, then ends melancholy. The idea is to shuffle you through various moods reflected in the levels, but at a mostly unconscious level.

Anyway, the music was purchased from the excellent sounddogs.com. Unfortunately the licensing agreement with them means I can’t make them available for download. They’re rather expensive to download just for your own enjoyment too – they’re intended for inclusion in a project like a game or TV production. Anyway, the preview IDs (you can search for these on the site) for the music pieces at Sounddogs are:

1: 729807

2: 405637

3: 559477