EdenSpark Game Jam #3: The Team's Commentary

1,000,000-Star Hotel

“We really enjoyed this game — it feels very true to life for anyone involved in management or running a business. At first you gather resources by hand with a single hired worker and the most basic set of hotel services, but then, by reinvesting, you hire helpers and free up your attention for the next strategic decisions — which upgrade will bring the most profit. The only thing: we were left with the feeling that the upgraded forest and cave locations don't give a noticeable boost to resource gathering — the results weren't much higher than on the starting map. Gathering 50,000 wood for the final upgrades also turned out to be too grindy — but up to that point, the game is addictive and engaging!”

Aether Grid

Community Choice winner. More about the author and the game — in the winners announcement.

“A great game — the energy and atmosphere are top-notch, and the jam's theme is woven elegantly into the card suits. The first time we tried it, it felt a bit overwrought, with a lot of rules to keep track of. But on a second attempt it became clear that each new rule is exactly what lets you push one level further, and overall the game has a pretty solid learning curve. Our suggestions are minor: polish the tutorials a bit, and maybe add progress saving so you don't have to start from zero every time.”

Aegis of Olympus: Tower Defense

“A good tower defense that plays the jam's theme really well. We enjoyed thinking through which towers to place to clear a level. We didn't always manage to beat a level on the first try — and that speaks to good level design: you really had to think about how to counter each particular stack of enemies. On the technical side, one note: all textures should have been set to filter=Point, because the pixel art ended up looking blurry. But that didn't get in the way of engaging, well-balanced gameplay.”

Penta Theatorum

Dev's Choice III winner. More about the team and the game — in the winners announcement.

“As always, "3D Artel MISIS" team delivers great art and atmosphere. The game feels genuinely ambitious in scope, which we respect. We especially loved the idea of Souls-like hexagonal chess built around the elements. The one snag: we ran into a lot of failed attempts trying to clear the first level with the hero we liked. It wasn't until we watched the game's own replay that we realized you can actually restart from the first level — that wasn't obvious at all — and that not every hero is equally suited for a first run. For future jams, we'd recommend paying more attention to the learning curve and balance: less content that's easy to grasp beats more content that takes hours to figure out.”

Sosalik

“The game's title describes the gameplay really well XD. The atmosphere is excellent — we'd love to see more Souls-like games in a Slavic setting. It's a shame there wasn't enough time to balance the bosses and polish the controls: if you approached an enemy from the wrong angle, the third hit in a combo would miss and you'd take damage. It's also worth looking at performance — locally we saw big spikes in the custom postfx shader.”

Temple Wars: Zodiac

“We tested your game on a previous version of EdenSpark, which had a bug with the sprite sorting order — we recommend re-uploading the game on the new version, keeping in mind that the Z-order has been inverted. We're big fans of RTS games and played several rounds to get to know the game better. We liked the unit detail, the original economy, and the building rules. What the game lacks is a smarter enemy AI — one that also captures cells and at least attacks the player's units, not just the main building. Thank you for taking part and for your bug reports — they genuinely help make EdenSpark better. We'll be glad to see you at the next jam: we're sure that with the experience you've gained, you'll be able to show your talent even more and compete for the top spots.”

Alchemical Skies

“The game reflects the jam's theme really well. The element-combining mechanic adds variety to the gameplay. What it lacks is smarter enemy AI — we'd like enemies to aim at where the player's ship will be, taking its current velocity into account.”

K4os 3lemental

“The game's idea fits the jam well — different elementals, each with their own set of abilities. To unlock its full potential, it would be worth fleshing out the elemental's abilities in more detail and strengthening their impact on gameplay, as well as making the zones more meaningful for player behavior — nudging players to use them depending on the type of monsters in each wave. We'd also like to see more polish, so that some gameplay elements are clear right away rather than after a series of trial and error.”

Catalyst

“A good idea that fits the jam's theme well. The style is minimalist and pleasant. We tried to get as far as we could, but a bug in determining the shooting direction made the game very hard to play. The error is probably related to the game being developed for a specific resolution — to avoid this in the future, it makes sense to test the game at different resolutions right in the editor.”

Space Alchemy

Dev's Choice I winner. More about the author and the game — in the winners announcement.

“The game beautifully captures the jam's theme. It's visually appealing and genuinely gripping — you're constantly on edge, having to balance the whole ecosystem. It took a few tries to stop making the mistakes that would end a run, but once we found the balance between the core elements, growing our planetoid became a real joy.”

Embersis Awakening

“A very atmospheric game that explores the theme of different elements. A great idea, beautiful visuals and music, pleasant controls. The process of creating new elements is absorbing. Maybe we're just more used to casual mechanics, but at a certain point we missed the ability to build generators for higher-rarity resources — so you don't have to go through the whole chain from first-tier resources every time.”

Compound Interest

“An interesting idea that combines an active quest system with a rich narrative layer and a well-developed resource management system. A pleasant visual style.”

Elementa Drop

“The element idea is very good, but for this genre it seems to lack some extra action — for example, scoring points for the final element or having elements disappear when merged: right now the session length is limited by the size of the ‘jar.’ A very atmospheric and visually stylish game.”

Shadow Twin

“A very pleasant platformer with stylish art. Outside the context of the jam it was fun to play, but the influence of the jam's theme on the gameplay doesn't fully come through.”

Elemental Breakout

“An interesting reimagining of Arkanoid through the lens of the jam's theme. Familiar, well-tuned Arkanoid mechanics and absorbing gameplay. Making blocks breakable only by matching elements adds a layer of challenge: you have to control not just the ball's position, but its element too.”

PawnCraft

“We tested your game on a previous version of EdenSpark, which had a bug with the sprite sorting order — we recommend re-uploading the game on the new version, keeping in mind that the Z-order has been inverted. The game has a nice style, the interface is simple and uncluttered, and overall it's visually pleasant. The quality tutorial deserves a special mention — without it things would have been really tough. But even with the tutorial, we couldn't clear the first level: it might be worth adding a separate tutorial page on how to beat the first level — we tried to make a ‘bishop’ move, but there simply were no diagonal moves. Still, it's clear a lot of work went into this, and only a little more polish on the difficulty curve was missing. We'll be glad to see you at the next jam and wish you success with EdenSpark!”

Elemental Cycle

Dev's Choice II winner. More about the author and the game — in the winners announcement.

“The mechanic of elements affecting one another was woven into the block-puzzle gameplay really naturally, and it adds a lot of variety. The result is a light, easygoing journey that's still genuinely hard to put down. In places we wished we could rotate a piece — but that's just one direction the game could grow in.”

Forest & Valley

“A classic RTS — a very ambitious genre for a time-limited development period. For a genre like this, we'd like to see more polish and content to fully bring it to life. Even so, the game manages to convey the core mechanics, show its potential, and set the mood of the genre — and that's really good.”

MagicMaze

“Really fun gameplay, but it took some time to figure out. A tutorial or a training level would make the first minutes of the game more comfortable.”

Exile Punishment

“A very atmospheric horror-styled resource manager. Lots of interactive elements. Unfortunately, without hints or a tutorial, some of its potential stays untapped — we couldn't get all the elements.”

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.

And if you want to put this advice into practice, join the fourth EdenSpark jam. The theme is “Forbidden Knowledge,” and the jam runs until October 31 — so there's still plenty of time to assemble a team and build a game. We'd love to see both returning participants and those who are just thinking about giving it a try!

Join the conversation: