The Best Games from GMTK Game Jam 2022

GMTK Game Jam 2022 was massive. More than 22,000  people signed up to the jam, and within 48 hours   they had bashed together more than 6,000 games.  That makes it, once again, our biggest jam yet. But it also had, perhaps, the most challenging  theme to date. Participants had to design their  

Game around the phrase “Roll of the  Dice” – and so our brave designers   had to come up with games about randomness,  probability, and rolling numbered polygons. But, I should never doubt these devs. These  games are clever and creative, inventive   and imaginative, fun and fiercely unique.  After players spent a week rating the games,  

I tried out the top 100-rated games.  And then, chose my 20 favourites. So, without further ado – and  in no particular order – these   are the best games of the GMTK Game Jam for 2022. One of the main challenges of this jam was  

Wrangling with randomness. If the outcome of the  game is completely driven by the roll of the dice,   that can rob the player of agency and  reduces the importance of strategy. So, a popular solution was to let players design  their own dice. You’re still at the mercy of RNG…  

But, hey, you’re the one who choose the  numbers. This my favourite example of the idea Rolling for Royalty. The game is a series of simple turn-based battles,  fought with dice rolls. And in between each bout,   your dice are unfolded – and  you can swap out the faces.

Do you want lots of attacks? More shields?   Perhaps a spell, a modifier, or money  that can be spent on even more faces? Then the game adds a further tactical  layer. After each roll, you can choose to  

Re-roll some of your dice. Now we’re adding  a sense of risk and reward – is it better   to just keep that weak attack, or will you  risk rolling it again for something better? I had a good time with this game – and  enjoyed the charming untextured 3D art.  

I could definitely see the idea expanded  further into a full role playing game There’s always some good neon-lit,   high-tempo, score-chasing arcade thrills in  the GMTK Game Jam. This year, the best one was… Diepound. You play as a die, and can click the mouse to  

Ground pound nearby enemies. The  dice-y twist is that when you land,   you get a new number – which dictates how far  away you’ll land when you do the next jump. So you could be left with a tiny one-pip  

Hop or a massive six-pip leap that sends  you over to the other side of the screen. I think it might be fun to have a combo system  that only ticks up if you kill an enemy with  

Your leap – that way you can’t just get rid of  those rubbish one-pip jumps in favour of something   better, but are forced to get up close and  personal with baddies. But that’s just me backseat designing. What’s  here is fast, fun, and addictive. Give it a shot.

Perhaps the most common theme in the jam  was puzzle games where you roll a dice   on a grid. Whether that’s to spell letters, climb  structures, or play rock paper scissors. There are some really clever ones that had me  thinking, but my favourite of the bunch was… Roll of the Dice.

In this elegant isometric game, your die acts like  a stamp, leaving an imprint of its bottom-most   face whenever you roll over these white paper  tiles. To finish the level you must shift and   shimmy around, so you can paint the tiles  to match this map in the bottom left corner

The puzzles are well made – often  just teeny tiny grids that are way   harder than they initially seem. You’ll have  to think carefully about how to spin your die,   without spoiling the stamps  you’ve already placed down

And the game has a simple solution to a  problem faced by a lot of these games: which is,   you can’t always see what’s on the other side  of the dice. Sure, opposite sides always add up  

To seven, but who wants to figure that out? So  Roll of the Dice uses its camera to always show   three sides – and then, with a press of a  button, you can see icons for the other three. The game’s pretty simple, but I  think this would be a great base  

To construct an enjoyable puzzle gem. Randomancer is a highly polished  tower defence game – where your   fortifications are provided at the roll of a dice. Like Plants vs. Zombies, you need to  plop down towers to fend off enemies who  

March along lanes. But instead of choosing them  from a list, you must roll a handful of dice. So whether you get a powerful cannon, a  handy shield, or a bomb is down to chance.   After each wave, you get to add  another die to your collection

That alone would make for a fun game,  but Randomancer has a spicy little twist   that adds a lot of fun and charm. You see, when you lob these dice into the arena,  they are big, heavy, physical objects – which  

Means you can lob them at enemies to do damage.  This adds an extra layer of strategy – you don’t   want to throw all your dice immediately, after  all. And a layer of knockabout physics fun I’m just left wondering – instead  of rolling the dice and then  

Manually positioning the tower  that appears – would the game be   more fun if the towers just popped up wherever  the dice land? It’d be slightly less tactical,   but when you’re playing with randomness it’s  often fun to just lean hard into the chaos.

Another common theme in the jam was twin  stick shooters where you physically throw   a big ol’ die at your enemies. I think  my favourite of the bunch was this one… GIMMIKO The juice in this one is just right:  it feels fab to hike this hefty cube  

At zombie enemies. And the  game has a nice ebb and flow:   you’ve got plenty of power when you’re chucking  the die – but then you’re completely powerless   as you dodge and weave through baddies  in order to pick the die back up again. Of course, there’s more to it than that.  

In between rounds you can spend your cash  in a shop to add special powers to your die. Now, every time you throw it, it lands on a  random number – and plays the corresponding   power. Maybe shooting out bullets, or launching  missiles, or spawning mines, or dropping out bees.  

You can also buy more dice and fill them with  powers, to create an arsenal of magic blocks. I’m not sure there’s too much strategy  involved – I found myself just throwing   dice as often as possible and  hoping for good effects. But,  

I still had a blast with a game that  is manic, silly, and a lot of fun. Not your Pawn! is another die-lobbing game, but  with a completely different feel.   Once again, we throw a giant  die at enemies – this time,  

Chess pieces. And every time the die  lands, it rolls to a random number. This is important to keep  track of, because each enemy   is weak to a certain type of number.  Some will only take damage if the die   is odd when it’s thrown. Or even.  Or above or below a certain number.

Where GIMMIKO is mad and chaotic,  Not your Pawn! is slow, strategic,   and thoughtful. I like both vibes, so  it was impossible to choose just one. In terms of feedback, i’d perhaps recommend  making the numbers a bit more readable.   They’re small and hard to parse, which  artificially increases the difficulty. I  

Wonder if there’s a way to represent these rules  in a way that could be understood at a glance? Here’s a fun one: a twin stick shooter  where time stops between each move Your character, a die with arms, can roll  in any direction – but the distance is  

Dictated by the random number you  roll. When you finish your roll,   you’ll fire out bullets. As long as you have ammo,  that is – you get more by rolling into enemies. This simple set-up leads to a  tense game of cat and mouse,   of steam-rolling baddies,  and chaining together moves

Later, you’ll be able to upgrade your  powers. and then the game adds enemies who   don’t care that time is supposed to be stood  still, forcing you to stop being so analytical,   and start playing on instinct instead. I liked this one a lot. And, kind of  like John Wick Hex, it captures the  

Quick decision making of fast-paced combat  – without needing to be superhuman yourself. It’s always interesting to see  different ways of doing RPG battles.   Sometimes an RPG even borrows from other  games and genres for its fights – like how   Undertale turns into a bullet-hell shmup,  or Puzzle Quest borrows from Bejewelled.

So, it was fun to play… Dice of Fate This is a game that uses Popcap’s Peggle  as inspiration for its fight scenes. On each turn, you place down pins on this  giant Pachinko board. The blue ones are yours,   denoting attacks, defence, and heal. The  red ones are the same, but for the baddies.

You then drop dice into the board,  and each bounce against a pin   changes the final actions of the battle.  There’s a great big dollop of randomness,   but getting to design the board lets  you have some control over the outcome

Like Peggle, the game is pretty simple and  largely devoid of skill – but also, like Peggle,   it’s addictive and engrossing. I could definitely  see this idea expanded further in the future There’s always something fun about games where  you can just break stuff. Just completely throw  

Off the balance. I dunno, it’s just a  joy. That’s why I liked Dice is the Way. It’s a pretty simple card-battling RPG,  with funky graphics and goofy audio.  But see those numbers in the balloon font?   Like your health points, your enemy’s  next attack, or the cost of your card?

Each turn, you can pick one of those numbers  and randomly roll a new one. Perhaps swapping   your enemy’s 80 health points for just 2, or  making one of your cards impossibly expensive. I’m not sure how well this game holds up to  scrutiny – I would often get a bad roll and  

Ruin my entire game – but I’m not  expecting anyone to tightly balance   a game in one weekend. I had just as much  fun seeing how silly things could get. A die doesn’t have to be about being  random. As always, with the GMTK Game Jam,  

The theme is just a starting point  – how you interpret it is up to you That’s what leads to great titles like… Berb Hike. This is a game that uses the unique patterns  on a die to create interesting puzzles.

So, these snowy tiles have igloos – dotted  about like dice pips. When you walk off the   edge of the tile, the die counts down by  one – changing the layout of the igloos.   You can keep going until the  tile is removed entirely.

This can lead to some brilliant spatial-reasoning  puzzles, like this one that I got totally stuck   on during a live stream. Sorry about  that, bet that was a little infuriating. Later, the game introduces palm  trees which count up instead of down,  

And volcanos which bounce between two numbers.  And then puzzles that combine them all This is just a great game, and  a wonderful example of how it’s   important to think outside the box  when it comes to fitting the theme. Next up is Fire and Dice. This  is a charming action puzzle game  

About defending your dragon from attack. Each turn, the dragon throws out a bunch of  dice. The colour indicates the attack pattern,   and the number determines the power. Your  job is to place the dice on the grid in  

Such a way that they’ll do the maximum damage  to a bunch of incoming peasants and soldiers. So it’s part tower defence, part number-crunching  puzzle game, and it looks great too. My only   suggestion? Add a timer! It’s too easy to  spend ages rearranging the dice back and forth,  

Looking for the perfect solution to do maximum  damage. But analysis paralysis ain’t fun – I   had a better time when i played loosey  goosey and took turns as quick as possible. You could probably add other types of dice too,  like ones that push enemies into other lanes.

So, I think there’s more to explore here. But nonetheless, I thought this was really  clever, elegant, and is well worth a shot. One of the more creative twists  on the theme, was using a die   as a level or world. Take, for example… Rolling World.

It’s a room-by-room puzzle game about pushing  boxes and hitting switches. But the rooms all   exist on the sides of a die – so go out a  door, and the whole world twists around. This is important because depending how  you leave the room, the entire world can  

Spin onto its side or upside down. And because  elements in the game, like these big heavy doors,   are affected by gravity, the orientation  of the world can open new pathways. So it’s a tricky, brain-busting, Zelda  dungeon-style spatial reasoning puzzle   that will have you really thinking about  this world as a complete, contiguous space.

It’s a little tricky to get your head around  – I think Holonomy does a better job of   explaining itself, by virtue of being  in 3D and using transparent textures.   But Rolling World’s puzzles just  eke it out for the top spot, for me.

Next up is a game that comes from a team filled  with previous GMTK Game Jam winners. But, you   can see why they’re winners – they just know how  to squeeze the most out of an idea, in 48 hours. Introducing… DIEmunition

This is a frantic shooter-platformer,  where the level is made up of falling dice.   You’ll need to jump between these  tumbling blocks to stay above the acid. But that’s not all: the number on the dice  also dictates how many bullets you can shoot  

While stood on that block. and once you  spend them all, the block will disappear. And so because your ammunition is intricately  tied to your ability to stay afloat,   it really makes you think hard  about every move, every jump,   and every bullet fired. All while frantically  bouncing about and blasting away at enemies.

It’s just a great arcade thrill  ride, which really proves the skill   of these designers. Give this  one a go, after the video ends. In this jam, we saw a lot of games where you do  dungeon-crawling battles by rolling your dice  

Into foes. Like, a lot of them. But I think,  ultimately, I prefer this take on the idea. Maces and Dices is a game where, each  turn, you get a bunch of different dice   that relate to actions. Like moving, attacking,  

And jumping. So you might randomly roll the  ability to move down, up, down, and attack Then, you’ve got to use those powers to move  through the dungeon and attack enemies. You   need to be very thoughtful because once  your dice are done, it’s time of the enemy  

To move. Sometimes, it’s best to get to  safety if that’s all your roll with allow. So it makes for tense, tactical, and puzzle-like  battles. And for an extra twist, the dice are   also your health bar. Take too much damage and the  dice will break, giving you fewer options in the  

Next tussle. Unless you make your way to another  die and give yourself more moves. Clever stuff. Dice are supposed to be random, right?  There’s no way to influence the outcome. Well,   there was a bunch of games in the jam that played  with the idea of fudging rolls, or rigging dice.

I think my favourite, though, was… Jimmy Blitz and the Rocket Dice. In this one you use a very subtle method  to make the dice land how you want.   Rockets. That’s right: each die is equipped with   rocket-powered speed boosters which let you  decide where the die lands, and how it rolls.

All so you can meet criteria like landing  a four, or getting better than a three. Okay, maybe not so subtle. But you’ll still have  to be careful not to twig the attention of the  

Dealer. Spin too much and you’ll go from safe to  sus – and then get a game over if you’re detected. Later levels have you swapping between dice,  or landing in super specific zones. It’s all   done with funny voice acting and a  charming CCTV-style visual effect.  

Some jam games just put a smile  on my face – this was one of them. Another ultra popular theme was “you do  random actions” – perhaps every time you roll,   or every time you reload your gun.  That can lead to a pretty chaotic game.   But, in terms of pure chaos… it’s this one.

Oddwood. In this game, your action changes every time you  fire. Sometimes you’re shooting a single bullet,   or a spread of shotgun fire, or doing a dash move.  Oh, and also you’re spinning around in circles. it is absolute mayhem, especially as the  arena is tiny and the enemies come in thick  

And fast. But it’s, somehow, still completely  playable! You’ve got a nice powerful dodge,   generous health, and regular new upgrades. That makes this ultra polished game just  super playable and ultra compelling.   I had to force myself to put it  down so I could make this video.

Here’s a really creative puzzle game. The  screen is split into two halves. On one,   you’ve got a side-scrolling puzzler about pushing,   pulling, and rolling a die around to weigh  down switches and get up to higher platforms. But you better be careful, because your little  friend is inside the die – and gravity changes  

Every time it rolls. you wouldn’t want to  send your pal into a spiky trap, would you? And so thus begins a bunch of puzzles where  both characters need to collect a star to win   the level – but actions in one can dramatically  effect the other. It’s a clever and original  

Idea for a puzzle game, with endless ways  to explore and expand on the core concept. There’s always one game in the  jam that basically looks and plays   like a finished game. This  year, that honour goes to… Dice with Kali.

This is a super polished, but also ultra engaging  puzzle game about placing down dice – while   following specific rules. Adjacent dice must  be either the same colour or the same value. Things start off easy, but you can quickly get  yourself tangled up in spots where you need a very  

Specific die to fill a gap. And because you have  to use all the randomly provided dice each turn,   you’re sometimes forced to put  yourself in a tricky position. So it’s a game about thinking ahead,  putting out fires before they get too big,  

And resigning yourself to be eaten by  the goddess of death, Kali. Who kind   of looks like a muppet. That would have been  a weird Sesame Street episode. Here’s a really odd one. Where  They Fall is a game about being   a seer. You know, someone who can  – apparently – commune with the  

Gods and turn their cryptic riddles  into messages for kings and leaders. So at the start of the game you tip a  bunch of dice – coloured stones with   special runes on them – onto a map. Then,  a mysterious figure asks you questions.  

You need to divine an answer by  looking at the runes – where they fall,   which way up they lie, and so on. A book,  to your left, helps you figure things out. Now, this is not easy. The book is as cryptic  as the gods’ messages, and I was never  

One hundred percent sure that I was giving the  right advice… and not just a bunch of nonsense. But… perhaps that’s the point. Communing with the  gods isn’t an exact, ahem, science – and   the game does a good job of capturing that mood.  Just squinting at coloured rocks and using that  

To decide if we should go to battle. Imagine how  you’ll feel if the soldiers don’t come back alive. This is a creative take on the theme,  and makes for an immersive experience.   I’d like to see where this  might go with some more time. Finally – would it be the GMTK Game Jam  

If there wasn’t a platformer with a  unique twist? Of course not. So, meet… Roll: The Die. In this one, you play as a square. You  can run around and jump like any other   platforming hero. But, you can also  spin in 90 degree chunks. With this,  

You can paint each of your  four sides with coloured paint. Sticky paint, that is. Touch your blue side to  a blue wall and you’ll stick like Spider-Man,   allowing you to jump off to a greater height.  Eventually you’ll have all sorts of different  

Colours, and so will need to twist and  spin to keep up with the level design. This creates a really unique game where  you’re simultaneously positioning yourself   for a safe jump, and rotating your  body to match the colour. It’s a   rub-your-tummy-and-pat-your-head challenge that  will have your head spinning and your fingers just  

Completely confused. But when you get to grips  with it, it’s a real joy to play. Give it a go. So that’s my top 20. But, as always, some  honourable mentions. Roll to Hit (On) is an   RPG where you can flirt with your team mates,  leading to different buffs and nerfs. Diced Coffee  

Is a manic plate-spinning shop simulator about  making coffee from dice. And Design By Committee   is a game where pesky producers keep changing  the game’s design – while you’re playing it. There’s loads, loads more. You  can play all 6000 games over  

On itch.io – and you can also see  the public’s rankings for all the games.   Have a play through the top 100 and see  if you agree or disagree with my picks. Thank you so much to everyone who took  part in the jam, or just rated some games,  

Or chatted with us on Discord, or watched  my streams. Thanks to my mods on Discord   and YouTube, and to everyone who  made our awesome Team Finder app. An extra huge thank you to my  Patrons. Remember that GMTK Game Jam   has no corporate sponsors – it’s  all funded by viewers like you.

The jam will be back in 2023. So   subscribe to the channel to receive the  date announcement… sometime next year. Thanks, bye!