Bloodbound: My GMTK 2026 Entry

GMTK 2026

GMTK 2026 was a 96 hour game jam. It also happens to have been the largest game jam of the year. Larger even than the Global Game Jam. With more than 37k people signed up and over 10k submissions, this game jam had a ton of competition.

This year's theme was "Count Down".

Rankings

I am very happy with how Bloodbound did. As a solo project with so much competition, averaging top 12% and hitting top 3% in it's best category feels like quite a feat. Below are the rankings Bloodbound received (submission page).

Artwork: #331 (Top 3%)

Audio: #996 (Top 9%)

Enjoyment: #1130 (Top 11%)

Creativity: #1234 (Top 12%)

Narrative: #2483 (Top 24%)

Average: #1235 (Top 12%) (10,556 total entries)

Development

Ideation

With the theme "Count Down", I was very interested in making a game that uses a countdown as a mechanic, but also using word play. I spent at least an hour trying to come up with something. I eventually came up with the idea to make a metroidvania where entering a room decreases a countdown. I was happy with this direction along with a "Count"/vampire theme for the art direction.

Here are some of the notes I took and brainstorming I did during the game jam. It shows some of the initial thought process to come up with the idea. As well as some scratch notes as I progressed the idea into game mechanics, level planning, and a UI mock-up.

Artwork

I knew with my limited time and minimal art skills, a pixel art game with a strong color palette would do me well. After browsing lospec until I found something red (for vampires), I got to work on some simple assets.

Aseprite and Tilesetter made the art process quite simple. I honestly was quite happy with my initial placeholder artwork and the character and tile set barely changed throughout the rest of development. Of course, I did have to add lots of other assets like items, particle designs, icons, etc.

Level Editing

I knew that I was already quite ambitious making a metroidvania in 4 days. To help me develop it, I built some tooling very early on that would help me preview and edit the levels/rooms of the game. Godot's tile system also helped greatly of course.

Programming

Realistically, the programming in concept is quite simple for this game: a character controller, room navigation, pickups, and death/respawning. Having done lots of small prototypes recently and other game jams, building out these systems was not too difficult. Frankly, for a 96hr jam, I might've over-engineered some of the internal systems. However, this is one of the things I love most about game development: making a robust, clean system that is easily expandable.

Pitfalls

Scope

Scope is the classic, primary difficulty of a game jam. As a solo dev on this project, that is even more apparent. All of the game jams I have done have been solo projects, so luckily I was relatively prepared. I thought I had done quite well with my scope planning until at some point I did some math.

I don't remember the exact numbers but the amount of levels I had planned was looking like it was going to take a long time to create. Unfortunately, a lot of the mechanics and layout that I had planned didn't have an easy way to trim levels. In retrospect, I should have anyway to put some more time into other things.

Audio

I pushed off audio until the last day. All music and sound effects were done last minute. I've definitely learned to do audio throughout a project in the future. Luckily, I am happy with how the audio turned out. Simple 8-bit SFX did the job.

Play Testing

With the level creation taking me so long, I didn't have a flushed out world to play test early enough in the process. Because of this, the game difficulty turned out more difficult than I desired. Luckily I had a few friends able to play test the game which allowed me to fix the worst of the level problems before the deadline. In the future, I'll definitely adjust scope to allow more playtime throughout.

Conclusion

Overall, I had a very fun time with this project. One of the benefits of a solo project is that I don't have to slow down for communication. However, the downside is the amount of things I need to build myself. I spent a ton of time on this project. Though it was very fun and super fulfilling, I'm hopeful in trying future game jams with a team.

Bloodbound turned out very good. I'm happy with the style, gameplay, size, and feel. Though I had many ideas that didn't fit into the scope of the project, there really isn't anything large I would change about the end result given the time constraint. Especially with the reviews and the ranking it received, I'm proud of this project!

Thanks for reading this far if you did. Please go give the game a try if you haven't already!

Screenshots