A few dozen indie developers gathered in Winnipeg (and on the internet) this past weekend to work on some games. Er, a game. One game. But that one game is a bunch of games. I promise, this’ll all make sense in a second.
LOOK AT THEM GOOOO. (photo by @kertgartner)
So Many Rooms is the result of The Room Jam, wherein a bunch of developers all worked together to create 640×480-sized Flash games over the course of 48 hours. The primary rules? All games must use just the arrow keys (and X / Z for actions), and must have an entry and an exit door. The resulting product is one huge, varied, semi-seamless game with about a zillion (well, not quite a zillion) gameplay types, art styles, and attitudes. And it’s great.
Right now, there are exactly 30 rooms in So Many Rooms, with additional rooms on the way in the future. There’s a full list of rooms right here, but you’ll probably have more fun if you go in blind and play through them end-to-end with no expectation of what’s coming next.
So far, I’ve encountered a traditional platformer, a shmup, a Mega Man parody and a deer-throwing golf game. If that combination doesn’t sound like something you’re interested in, you’re on the wrong website, pal.
Click here to play So Many Rooms!
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This was a blast. So many games that just aren’t ready for prime time interspersed with some good ones. Lots of very standard platform jumping. Wall jumping seemed to be a theme with them all.
The Assent was by far my favorite. It had the same sort of frantic insanity of … a game that I can’t remember the name of. The one with the circular rendering of the level with a red wall chasing you…. Gah, it’s gonna bug me until I find the name or someone else responds. Anyways, Assent was a lot like that, only difference being a sense of “I can beat this thing” and a profound sense of accomplishment for getting just a little bit further. There was also the one called Lava Temple, but Assent was tenser and I enjoyed it more. Plus it had cool visuals. I would love to see more Assent.
Super Rooftop Fighter Chopper was a lot of fun, tho I don’t know if I need to see more of it then.
How the world ends was cool. Managed to beat that one in one try, but I really felt like i was thinking, so that’s good. And there could definitely be more to that one. I mean, what’s with the razor you get?
Parasite was innovative. you have to be hurt to progress. Clever.
Golden Boy vs Lazers (or as I like to call it “Golden Hitler”) was a real thinker too. I kept trying to be quick when I really needed to be clever.
So many good games, I could just go on and on.
The game you’re thinking of, Joe, is madness MADNESS madness!
Having played them all (meaning all 30, which is how many are up right now) , I’m noticing my favorites lined up with yours pretty evenly. The Ascent was awesome; gorgeous, incredibly polished, and tense. I would have loved at least a couple of checkpoints, but whatevs, they only had 48 hours. Super Rooftop FIghter Chopper definitely makes my list too – that bullet-deflection mechanic was extremely satisfying.
The third in my top 3 is probably Gauntletkaruga. The name tells you exactly what it is, and it’s as fun as it sounds. I do wish it’d let you move/shoot diagonally, but, again, 48 hours.
Magnum Opus Room and Brownian Motion were great, too. And there’s at least a half-dozen others I really enjoyed on top of those 5. Man, what an awesome project. I can’t wait to see the games that get added!
Are you thinking of Nebulus? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acp9ixaKFZk
It was madness MADNESS madness that I was talking about, but you are a studmuffin for mentioning Nebulus. I was actually thinking about that game while I was playing but didn’t mention it in the comment since I sometimes feel like I’m trying to show off my old school cred too much.
Magnum Opus Room was one that I actually skipped. There was just too much to juggle. Does it have an ending worth the pain?
Brownian Motion on the other had was another shining gem in this little collection. Loved it.