18 : Killin' machine

My submission for the GMTK Game Jam 2026 with the theme "Countdown". I made this game jam in duo with my friend Jimmy Fromonot who was in charge of the programming.

In this game, you are locked inside an underground fighting cage. There is no way out, only the next opponent. Face relentless waves of enemies, rack up your score, and try to survive as long as you possibly can.

Short scope and prioritizing

Score and Review

For this game jam, with over 10 600 games, we know we had some difficulty explaining how the game works, and it shows in the review and the score :

Overall, we made it to the top 15% even with such a difficult time explaining the game, which is great I think!

Here are some reviews :

What I learned

I learned that a good tutorial isn't optional for a game that is so tightly related to its system and not very intuitive at first. We made one that was complete, and that doesn't really let the player "learn" by itself and is more of an overview of what's possible than a real tutorial that helps the player understand.

Next time, I'm gonna put a lot more effort into making everyone understand and having more fun!