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LynxJam 2021 ended shortly before the Holiday Season in 2021, but for various reasons we didn't have time to cover all of the game submissions from it until now. In a nutshell, LynxJam is part of our annual game jam event where we invite developers to submit games for the Atari Lynx. In 2021 we received 6 new game submissions. These will all be released on cartridge in the coming months, but until then, you can download their ROMs and try them out!
Note: all of the game devs who submitted a game to the jam have been given time to make updates to their game before the final cartridge release, so the version of the ROM that is available on our website may not match the latest version on the developer's itch.io page, so be sure to check those out for any updates.
The theme of this game jam was "Let's make something scary". There were rules too, every developer had to submit a game that was 32Kb in size or less and it had to work both on hardware and via emulation. Apart from that, as long as no copyright or trademarks were violated, developers were free to make whatever game they wanted. Oh yeah and they had to have fun writing their game! So let's see what they've come up with...
This article is not about reviewing each game, we will let you make up your own mind about these, but we do encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments section below, and remember if you love a game to support the developer by tipping for it on their itch.io game page.
Banana Ghost🕸
You're a banana-shaped ghost living in a dilapidated old house, help the lost visitor to escape from it and avoid multiple holes by scaring him!
That sounds easy enough right? At first it is, but it does get more and more challenging. The concept for this game is quite novel (on the Lynx anyway). It's an action/puzzle game with a meta element; the idea of indirectly controlling the protagonist is awesome and fresh. This game makes you time your moves (scares) and think ahead and sometimes even feels like a game of pool, just with pits of death and only a handful of ways out of a room.
Bathman🕸
Vladimir and Letitia have plans to go out for a connoiseur night to taste some fresh blood. There is a nice LynxMas 2021 jam nearby with some delicious nerds from different parts of the world. But Letitia wants to freshen her up and asks Vladimir to heat up the old Cauldron... Keep the kettle warm. Don't cook the devil. And provide all the beauty potions required to keep Letitia deadly.
This game can be tricky to control at first, but once you get the controls it all makes sense. You have to try and balance how warm the cauldron is - don't let it get too cold or too hot. When the temperature is in the sweet spot, collect and drop potions (slime) into the water, but not on Letitia. You have to drop 30 potions in the water to win and your score counts down, so the lower the score the better you're doing!
Black Pit🕸
"Commander, the squad is ready for the suicide mission !" ...So it is quite easy, you are in a labyrinth and you must find the exit.
This game is nothing like what exists on the Lynx, or many other consoles for that matter. It's a survival game where you essentially have to navigate through a maze of monsters, blind. That's right, you can't see where you're going, you have a sonar type device that can be used to sense where obstacles (walls, monsters, etc) are. You also have a computer that keeps track of where you've been. With that you're thrust into the darkness and only your hearing to guide you out.
Krow🕸
This short game tells the story of Krow, the bird who dreamed of reaching the stars! Help him to gather moonbeams to gain enough power to fly stronger, faster and higher... To finally fly to the Moon!
The graphics and music in this game demo are quite amazing and the gameplay feels smooth. The gameplay is straight forward, control the Krow, fly up/down/left/right to avoid the skull enemies and collect moons. Once you've collected 30 moons you reach the end of the game. This is a very nice start to something wonderful and a more complete version of the game will be very welcome on the Lynx!
Sorrow🕸
You wake up in a dark dungeon, without any recollection of how you got there. You are equipped with a sword and some armor. It's time to find your way out.
Is this that Link, I mean Lynx game?! This is a top-down dungeon crawler experience and it's fun, and it is hard. Move from room to room, killing relatively easy monsters at first, then you will encounter monsters that want to hurl stuff at you. There are rooms with power ups, so getting to those is key, but backtracking means you have to fight monsters all over again.
Z.A.P.🕸
Zzzzzz zzz zzzz ZOMBIES! Protect your fortress from the onslaught of zombies headed your way. Put each zombie at peace. Stop zombies attacking people. You can't rest until all zombies are perished!
What else does Z.A.P. stand for? It's up to you! This is a game in the style of tower defence. Your job is to build guns that will keep the zombies at bay. Simple until you realise you're out of energy! Power plants replenish your energy supplies and there is a background energy restore, but it is slow. Find a way to balance your energy consumption vs generation and you can keep killing zombies forever. Oh yeah, all the stuff you build will deteriorate in time too, so it's not a set-and-forget kind of deal.
So what do you think? Which one is your favourite and least favourite? Will you get the physical release when it's available or will you just opt for downloading the freely available ROMs?
-AG
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