author: Aleksandra Sokolska
Games Now! 7 Hits Developed in Days
Sometimes you don't need a budget and eight years of work to make a hit. Some people only need a few dozen hours, four packs of energy and a pizza. Impossible? At game jams, it's the rule of the day...
Table of Contents
- Games Now! 7 Hits Developed in Days
- Celeste
- Don’t Starve
- Goat Simulator
- Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
- Surgeon Simulator
- SUPERHOT
SUPERHOT
- Release date: 2016
- Genre: FPP / FPS
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One
Last but not least – the innovative shooter from Poland. SUPERHOT.
It all started during 7DFPS, or the 7 Day First Person Shooter, which tells you about all you need to know about the formula of the event. The Polish team was inspired by the game Time4Cat, in which time only flows when the player moves the cat around the board, and the music video for the song Bad Motherfucker by the Russian group Biting Elbows, filmed entirely from first-person perspective and showing fast-pace and violent scenes from the life of a Russian Secret Service agent. The three separate levels were combined into one short gameplay, which was later made available online as a free browser game.
The idea for a game that would let players kill enemies and avoid bullets like in slow-mo hit the bulls-eye, and the game became an international sensation. You can still play the original prototype here.
The developers, motivated by media success, decided to go one step further and the team sat down to work on a full-fledged production after almost instantly gaining the necessary votes in Steam Greenlight. In May 2014, Superhot Team launched a campaign on Kickstarter – the required amount was raised in 23 hours and eventually reached over $250,000, enabling the team to create the final version of the game.
SUPERHOT was released in February 2016 and absolutely stormed the market, eventually releasing on all leading gaming platforms. It turns out that the fantasy of dodging bullets is hellishly fun in VR – more than 40% of the two million copies sold came from sales of SUPERHOT VR.
Of course, only a handful of games that started out on game jams have made their way from a promising prototype to a marketable hit. Spending a weekend creating a simple prototype is one thing, and making it a full-fledged game is another. Each of the games listed above overshadows hundreds of others, whose lifespans didn't exceed the few hectic hours of game jams. And that's their charm, too. In the end, that is the entire point – letting fantasy run wild and seeing where you end up.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I myself am the best example that participating in a game jam does not mean market success. In fact, it's not surprising because we didn't even manage to complete the prototype. First important lesson – know how much you can chew. Maybe we'll finish it one day. Unless we make another indie, or go for another jam.
