EdenSpark Game Jam #2: The Team's Commentary
Direct feedback from the developers on every submitted entry: what stood out, what could be improved, and where to take each project next
The second EdenSpark jam turned out big and diverse — the “Mass Control” theme brought in 18 games across all kinds of genres, from incremental simulators to soft-body platformers, from space thrillers to raft races. That alone is a reason to thank every team that carried their project all the way to submission.
We decided not to stop at the traditional winners announcement, but to go one step further and give the floor to the EdenSpark developers: let them say directly what stood out in each of the 18 games, what could be improved, and in which direction each project is worth developing.
If you find a specific piece of advice next to your game — consider it a personal invitation to drop by Discord or Telegram, where the team is always happy to discuss the details and help.
Astro Physic
“An excellent puzzle game that's genuinely fun to play. The mass control theme is handled well. Thanks to this game, we've added JSON de/serialization and support for arbitrary file formats to the public API. Add progress saving and a starting UI with a tutorial — and the game becomes practically production-ready.”
Flood Defense
“This game turned out to be an excellent stress test of EdenSpark's capabilities. As developers, we genuinely enjoyed fixing the edge cases that surfaced thanks to this project. The fluid simulation and the way the author implemented the video intro were particular highlights. To improve the gameplay experience, it's worth working on optimizations for lower-end hardware — things will get noticeably smoother. The EdenSpark team is ready to help.”
DEAD WEIGHT
“A game that's literally about controlling mass on a scale — and the gameplay turned out addictive. To add some extra tension, you could put colliders on the boxes and balls so players can't just pile objects up in a single spot. True, that would also mean adding rails to the scales — but those are the pleasant details.”
World Subjugation
“The game is similar in mechanics to a marble race and could evolve in two directions at once — as a spectacular simulation, or as a strategy game where the player manages resources and commands an army. Right now it lacks controllability: it needs the ability to mark a priority cell for capture, more variety in units, and a more developed economy. The game has big development potential — it would be great to see a sequel.”
Galera Racing Club
“The game delights with its atmosphere. The visuals, music, and set dressing come together beautifully and create the feeling of personally competing in the Olympic games of ancient Greece. It's a great showcase of the HDWater component — fully realized here, at 100%. To improve performance, we recommend using daProfiler and disabling unused 3D effects in RenderSettings. It's also worth finding out what takes up most of the shadow rendering time — some meshes could probably be marked as static. Gameplay-wise, it would be great to add hull durability, so you could sink rival boats and have to watch out for crashing into the columns. And of course — more locations and more boat types.”
Split Blob
Best Game II winner. More about the author and the game — in the winners announcement.
“The author gave their puzzle game a distinctive twist with soft-body physics and played the mass control theme brilliantly. The levels aren't boring — some are genuinely challenging. As a direction for growth, it would be interesting to see more variety in the blobs' physical parameters — different stickiness, different bounciness.”
On Raft
“Pleasant minimalist graphics — and despite the simplicity of the gameplay, the game pulls you in. The sea courier theme could be expanded with various threats: a whirlpool, a pirate ship, a sea kraken. A simple economy would also fit maritime logistics perfectly — earn money for every delivered cargo, buy upgrades. Start on a raft that fits a couple of boxes, finish on a proper container ship.”
Eden Hill Climber
“Playing this brings back real nostalgia for the game from the button-phone era. Great that it now exists on EdenSpark too. Unfortunately, we got stuck on one of the hills 🙂 As for development ideas — think in the direction of reimagining the classic. For example, draw the hill as a stock chart and make the rider a desperate Wall Street trader. Theme, set dressing, sound design — plenty of room for atmosphere.”
Rush Express
Best Game III winner. More about the author and the game — in the winners announcement.
“The author of this game is a true physics developer — there's no other way to explain how they built such good car physics within the jam's timeframe. Major respect. Despite the inverted controls, you get used to the car quickly — and start genuinely enjoying the package deliveries. The jam's theme is played to 100%, and the game itself looks finished. If the author decides to develop the project further — the difficulty curve is worth some work: the first level is a very simple straight-line drive, while by the end you want masterful serpentine roads with turns and elevation changes.”
Dark Mass
“We liked the game's lore and overall atmosphere. The difficulty curve is excellent — there was one level we were stuck on for a long time and only managed to beat the next day. It felt like if there's a capture-a-cell mechanic, there should also be the reverse — ‘leave a cell’: a couple of levels could be built around that combination. We especially appreciate that the author is an active EdenSpark user who keeps bringing their ideas to life both in the jams and outside them.”
Catch N Match
“Pleasant atmosphere and charming pixel graphics. The first few levels are actually not that easy — but after a couple of economically savvy upgrades, things get much easier. It might be worth considering dynamic difficulty adjustment — for example, through a greater number of sharks. Although finding perfect balance is always a hard problem.”
Hypnojab
The jam's double triumph — Best Game I + Community Choice. More about team Moodneys — in the winners announcement.
“As they say, ‘we live in a society.’ The game hits a very modern nerve — widespread gadget addiction, in which catching flies with a net becomes an act of liberation. The pleasant pixel art and the original design of the game field and the upgrade tree are a joy. It would be great to see more games from this team — we wonder which of society's sore spots they'll play on next.”
Diet Runner
“We liked the game's lore — it touches on real social issues around excess weight and diabetes. It feels like expanding the gameplay into the task of assembling a balanced meal could produce a hit. Right now the game asks you to maintain a weight equilibrium, but in real life we maintain an equilibrium of proteins, fats, and carbs. Picture this: a little character runs through a morning level with the task of putting together breakfast, and the track offers both chocolate burgers and various ingredients — you need to assemble a balanced meal, otherwise the character eats nothing but vegetables and doesn't get the protein they need. The game has great potential — good luck developing it.”
Extract Hauler
“Team LOGEECK already took part in the first jam and proved themselves strong 3D content creators. In Extract Hauler they've once again done an enormous amount of work on the visuals and assets. The opening screen looks gorgeous, and the scale of the sky city is striking. It's clear there wasn't enough time left to flesh out the gameplay — but we're confident the project can be brought to a production-ready state.”
Knuckles
“It's great that the author decided to recreate a game like White Knuckle on EdenSpark. That said, we never quite figured out how to climb the towers 🙂 We wish the author the best of luck developing the project on our platform.”
VoxMass
“Voxel graphics that are easy on the eyes. It's genuinely fun to watch the laser cannon take enemies apart ‘brick by brick.’ We'd love more variety and balance in the weapons and enemies. In this genre, what hooks players most is the puzzle of figuring out how to defeat a specific enemy. For example: an enemy with a PIN code — to destroy it, you have to guess the code by hitting specific blocks on its body. Develop the game in this direction, and it becomes truly gripping. Performance can be improved by clearly separating static and dynamic objects — saving on shadow and GI calculations.”
BULKHEAD
“An original idea, and the atmosphere comes through brilliantly — you feel personally responsible for other people's lives. The open-space feeling could be strengthened with a night sky. We also spotted a bug: entering unexpected text into the console throws a number-parsing error. As ideas for expansion — more levels, from very simple to hard, plus a star system, so players want to save 100% of the people on each level.”
The Weight of the Crown
“A really great game. The style, visuals, and audio made a strong impression. And most importantly — the game makes you think about what power, responsibility, and the search for compromise really are. We'd love to see a polished version: with clearer wording — we personally didn't immediately understand who the ‘northern princes’ were, and it's not always obvious whether a given parameter will change positively or negatively depending on your decision. A separate idea — introduce a ruler-approval / legitimacy parameter to model phenomena like ‘unpopular’ decisions and political populism. Or go even further — put the player in the seat of a real historical ruler during one of history's difficult periods.”
Thank You — and See You at the Next Jam
If there's a specific technical suggestion for your game in this text — the EdenSpark team is ready to discuss it in detail. Write to us on Discord or Telegram — we're already talking directly with several authors, and it's never too late to join in.
The third jam kicks off on August 1 and will run for a full month instead of the usual two weeks. We'll announce the theme in early August — right there, in our communities. See you then!
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