ECHO TEAM ran a 24-hour game jam at our office space at Pier 38 a few weekends ago, and it was a blast. The theme was GROWTH. We had four teams in total, and in 24 hours (+1 bonus hour!) of intense production, we came up with four complete prototypes:
Beardy
Beardy is amazingly fun beard-construction game for the iPad. Drag and drop beard components onto the nose, and watch as they hang and sway with the utmost of realism. Accordian soundtrack and very manly sound effects complete the immersive beardcrafting experience.
By: Brendan Mauro, Brian Cronin, Zach Saul and Pat Swieskowski
Winner: Best Game, Most Manly, Best Stretch of the Word “Game”
SeedBust
Seedbust is an ambitious location-based mobile web application that lets you plant trees in real-world locations, and spread the seeds far and wide.
By: Finn Kelly, Chris Turitzin, Andrew Lee, David Kurtz, Dan Walton
Winner: Most Ambitious, Best Tech, Best Use of Theme
Top Kill Prime
Top Kill Prime is a Space Invaders like game with a brilliant twist. Enemies scroll down the screen, and start relatively powerless. However, enemies evolve based on a genetic algorithm, so the enemies that you fail to kill end up selectively breeding into stronger opponents. I would love to see this mechanic at work in a larger title!
By: Cristine Yen, Aaron Perry-Zucker, Max McGuire, Chris Cornell
Winner: Best Look
Frabulous
Frabulous is like Scrabulous, but instead of connecting letters to make words, you connect your friends based on their commonalities. So you’d get maybe three points by stringing together three of your male friends, but you’d get 15 points by stringing together three friends who went to Columbia, and 30 points by stringing three who like the Greatful Dead.
By: Andrew Fong, Gabe Smedresman, Will Tsui
Winner: Most Innovative