Hosting a game jam was a distinct highlight of the year for AudioMob, at a time when we’ve had much to celebrate.

We’ve seen our audio ad platform debut, integrating into high profile games while making significant impacts for brands. Our team has grown, our community has formed, our platform has matured, and we’ve come a long way in a short time.

But the jam brought us something very different. It was a chance to see how highly creative small teams deploy our ad tech in innovative ways. It brought insight and experiences that let us consider how we more meaningfully serve and support all developers. And as a team that adores games and game development, we found it hugely rewarding and exciting to see ideas become playable entities through the jam process.

The stars of the jams are, of course, the teams. We were simply the facilitators, who provided the concept, support and ad technology our teams needed. So let’s look at each of the completed, submitted games from our brilliant teams.

Game: Dirty Drifters (1st place)
Team: Yup Studios
Genre: Driving

Our wonderful first place game - made by two computer science students now moving on setting up their own game studio - was eye-catching, responsive and intuitive, full of personality, and heaps of fun. A little subversive and packed with smart satire, it presented a getaway driving game viewed through the lens of television news, and smartly parodied broadcast journalism, movie cliches about the police force, and even advertising itself; all while making audio ads feel a meaningful, complimentary part of the Dirty Drifters experience.

Game: Roadtrip (2nd place)
Team: ThomasTheDev
Genre: Driving/Autorunner

While the automotive wasn’t part of our jam theme in any way, a driving game also took second place. Roadtrip offered a smart blend of convention and innovation, bringing something familiar enough for wide appeal, with gameplay nuance that made it distinct and highly engaging. Great looking and high performing, it presented a first-person autorunner driving game that gave you control over speed, introducing all kinds of engaging strategic nuance. And the way in which it implemented Audio Ads into an in-game phone on the car dashboard was elegant and deeply technically impressive. 

Game: Air Drop Farm (3rd place)
Team: Toby R Atkinson
Genre: Simulation/Farming

Our third placed game offered a highly ambitious 3D farming and simulation title, with a lot of functionality and gameplay diversity achieved in a short time. Players can tend to their land, establish the infrastructure of their farm, and optionally call in airdrops of needed items by listening to an audio ad. As the ad played, the airdrop came in, carefully integrating the experience of listening to the ad, seeing the reward, and being able to continue to play on. Air Drop Farm’s ecosystem of items and economy were also thoughtful and impressive.

Game: Save the Bee (4th place)
Team: Valancosta Games
Genre: Autorunner

An autorunner with an important message, Save the Bee focused on sharing insights on the plight and environmental value of honeybees. Made by a tiny team, some placeholder assets were used - meaning that as well as delivering a highly playable, tight and engaging game, the creator managed to present a vertical slice within the confines of the game jam, that made a convincing case for a more elaborate, feature rich final game. With pitching prototypes so key to building a sustainable studio in game, that was rather impressive. And as it was? The gameplay and ad integration were both superb.

Game: Domes and Carson
Team: Dr Cenk Kökler
Genre: Adventure

Very different from our other entries, Domes and Carson presented a genuinely hilarious, charming and characterful spin on the classic point ‘n’ click adventure. A detective thriller, it also employed an intelligent torchlight mechanic to both constrain and focus gameplay, asking the player to move through darkened areas to find clues and points of interest. It left us longing for more, and feels full of commercial potential.

Game: Unidentified Signal
Team: ShawarmaCat
Genre: Adventure/Driving

Eerie, beautiful and rich in style, Unidentified Signal puts you behind the wheel of a truck carrying a large scanning apparatus, and asks you to track down anomalies in a gloomy rural region. Using the car radio to scan for unusual frequencies offer a very smart way to integrate audio ads, and we left the game with our heads full of a feeling of classic sci-fi, from TV shows like The Twilight Zone to works by authors such as Ray Bradbury. It's a place we’d happily revisit again. 

Game: No Time To Reload
Team: Rocketeer
Genre: Shooter

This eye catching run ‘n’ gun was full of promise, and brought a sense of classic isometric shooters like The Chaos Engine, as well as modern examples such as Nex Machina. Impressively, it adapted and contained the form to make it suitable for mobile, and was presented through a sharp aesthetic that kept our attention. Like all the games above, it absolutely brought a sense that it has the potential to blossom into a commercially successful game.

Game: Space Marmalade
Team: Unodus
Genre: Shooter

Created by a team that met and collaborated through the AudioMob community that formed with the jam, Space Marmalade innovated the 2D shooter form by placing the player on a two-dimensional grid that would shift in shape around 3D forms. Simple in its gameplay and highly captivating, it demonstrated a lot of innovation in one of the gaming mediums’ oldest forms - after all, Spacewar! Was developed in 1962. There were whispers of the classic wireframe tunnel shooter Tempest to Unodus’ creation, but it was certainly one of the most distinct games of the jam.