Fo Free

Every year in the lead up to the Game Developers Conference, a game jam is held on a 52-hour train ride that goes from Chicago to San Francisco. The jam, affectionately calledTrain Jam, is something I look forward to following along with on Twitter as the cross-country train ride is something I’ve always wanted to do and some really neat game ideas come out of the entries.

As with most game jams, Train Jam usually has a theme that they relate to the long journey across the country, and this year’s theme was “Odyssey.” A lot of unique entries came out of the jam and are available to play atitch.io. With 80 games submitted, there’s about every type of interpretation of the theme that you could think of.

Article image

My personal favorites from the few that I’ve played so far areCard Odyssey, a strategy card game where you need to kill your enemy but only at the right time, and the ASMR action gameWhisper. I don’t know howWhispercould be turned into a full game but just that one little bit they put up is great!

If you’ve had a chance to play any of the entries, let the devs know what you think of their work as a lot of times these jam entries go on to become larger full-release games.

The ghost at the end of the hallway

Picking up the smiley face post-it off the broken mirror

John and Molly sitting on the park bench

Close up shot of Marissa Marcel starring in Ambrosio

Kukrushka sitting in a meadow

Lightkeeper pointing his firearm overlapped against the lighthouse background

Overseer looking over the balcony in opening cutscene of Funeralopolis

Edited image of Super Imposter looking through window in No I’m not a Human demo cutscene with thin man and FEMA inside the house

Looking at the ghost of Jackie inside the lighthouse