Miracle Jam – Winners Announced!

Miracle Jam – Winners Announced!

Miracle Jam served as a catalyst to encourage the unconventional and deeply personal. We encouraged jammers to explore making personal games as a form of self-therapy and deepening ones understanding of their own psyche. The very first instalment of Miracle Jam wrapped up last weekend. We had over 40 participants from all over the world and a total of 8 games submitted! The jam far exceeded our expectations and we thank all of you for putting time into sharing a little piece of yourself.

Theme

In 48 hours jammers were asked to make “A Love Letter Game”…

“Whatever it is you love most in this world. That thing you hold close to your heart, be it a person, a pet or your favourite game. We would love to see games intended as love letters to that special thing of yours.”

Forget Me Not – Most Beautiful Visual Award

“While there were several nuggets of beautiful visuals in many entries, I would like to give the Beautiful Visual Award to ‘Forget Me Not’ by Elliot Chester and Andreea Mazarianu. Playing through the game got me transported to all of those non-conversations we all have with our pets, where we talk while knowing we will never get an answer back. Yet we find solace in those conversations, sharing our worries and frustrations. Trying to communicate that when we leave, we will come back. Cause isn’t that the most heartbreaking feeling, leaving your pet while not being able to make them understand we will return. This game is simplest yet perfect little homage to our beloved pets. And that feel of simplicity is only strenghtend by the beautiful visuals provided. Showing us that with a few well placed lines you can get your point across. The choice of using a watercolour art style is well thought out and goes hand in hand with the theme of the game. The blinking animation and falling petals are nice touches that make the game feel complete. This game made me smile. As a sidenote to the artist: I do hope you explores this art style more as I believe it is definite proof of your skill.” – Camille Carpentier

Them: Companions – Accessibility Award & Spin Tingling Audio

“Whilst many games entered into the Miracle Jam were accessible in a range of admirable ways, I’d like to give the accessibility award to Them: Companions, the personal love letter to our companion pets by Illien Alizée. The clear & contrasting gameplay elements as well as clear sans serif fonts create a visually very accessible game. The persistent and clearly presented control scheme and HUD alongside generous balancing ensure the tightly balanced experience is widely accessible. And finally the alternative input scheme gives flexibility to players with mobility impairments.”- Joe Kinglake

“The Spine Tingling Audio Award will have to go to Illien Alizée’s “Them: Companions”. We had multiple entries with beautifully composed sountracks but Them: Companions was the only game that painted a full soundscape covering every single gameplay element with accurately designed sound effects. From the footsteps to the eerie ambience, from the ghastly whispers to the cute jingle when you rescue all pets, the sound of this game truly is spine-tingling, and the fact that Illien designed it all herself just makes it extra special.” – Enrico Ercole

Homeward Bound – Most Heartfelt Game

“Homeward Bound by Kaitlin Haughton and Gina Loughlin has a special place in my heart. Not only did all the judges reacted strongly to the ending with a very genuine emotional response on Enrico’s live stream, but it’s a wonderfully complete entry for the time that was given. This was an entry I shared with my sisters and mother which they adored. This led to nostalgic conversations about our own old dogs and reminiscing of fond memories. Homeward Bound is relatable and touches on a genuine part of the human experience. The game very balanced visually and very well executed with little bugs. There’s so much potential for further depth in the gameplay here, I’d love to see this developed into a full release. I love the choice of green that’s used and its audio really helps establish a pleasant outdoorsy mood that feels like a walk in the park. The world needs more games like this!” – Brad Smith

Entries

We adored all of the entries in their own way. All of your games will have a special place in Miracle Tea history. The personal expression that individuals were willing to share was deeply meaningful and encouraging to see. You can play and follow teams from all of the games submitted for Miracle Jam #1 below:

Honourable Mention

Shout out to The Tower of Memories team and their commitment and drive! It was great to see you so active within the game jammers voice chat over the weekend and we look forward to seeing more of all of your work in the future!

Thank you!

A goal with Miracle Jam was to create a wholesome community offering a safe space for struggling creatives to express and share themselves however they see fit. This goal is already starting to emerge and we’re excited by what this space will one day grow into.

Thank you to all the jammers that participated in Miracle Jam for sharing a little part of themselves to the world. Shout out to our judges for giving us their support and time. Make sure to give Joe, Camille and Enrico a follow and send them some love for helping us out!

Look out for more events from us in the future. We’re still very new to all of this and we learnt so much from organising this event as a result. If you have any suggestions on how we could improve the jam feel free to reach out to us in our commune.

– Miracle Tea

A Miracle Tea Game Jam!

A Miracle Tea Game Jam!

We’re hosting a game jam online for the first time on Friday 13th –  Sunday 15th November 2020. We have a bunch of Ruya related prizes that we’re going to give away to entries that are selected by our wonderful list of industry judges.

Miracle Jam serves as a catalyst to encourage the unconventional and deeply personal. If you have something to express that you feel you can’t express anywhere else. This is the place to do so. We applaud and encourage personal games as a form of self-therapy and deepening ones understanding of their own psyche.

You can find more information about Miracle Jam on on itch.io.

Participants can also join our Discord where the theme will be announced. A handful of developers, artists and other creative types are hanging out there as your read this so come have a chin wiggle. Don’t be shy, and if you are you’ll fit right in!

– Brad

Ruya – Version 1.7

Ruya – Version 1.7

Hello to you wonderful people! If you were unaware we recently did a BIG UPDATE to Ruya for you all.

Here’s what’s new:

◆ Controller support!
◆ UI overhaul with new animation system.
◆ Frame rate no longer drops when opening and closing options screen.
◆ Reduced overall sprite count.

Updated Platforms:

iOS AppStore
Mac AppStore
◆ Google Play
Itch.io
◆ Steam

We’re really proud of it as there’s now full controller, keyboard and mouse support. This opens up a wave of potential in terms of accessibility! Before the game was mouse only but now players are able to interact with Ruya in multiple ways opening the door to the types of people that can use the game with ease as they see fit. Accessibility is something we’ve been thinking about a lot lately thanks to our buddy Joe who’s a big advocate for it on our Twitter feeds. Hopefully we’ll be picking up some wisdom about input remapping in Unity overtime and maybe you’ll start to see some that being embedded into our games in the future.

Free to swing any suggestions our way for future updates you might want to see in Ruya to our Twitter DMs or ping us an e-mail. In the meantime we’ll currently focusing on Alula and some other secret stuff, so keep and eye out for that.

Give a follow to our coder Tom on Twitter for all of his hard work and making this update possible. You can read about some technical details on UI optimisation and controller support in Unity3d that went into Ruya 1.7 on Tom’s blog post here!

– Miracle Tea