What’s Kajam?
Kajam is Replit’s official game jam where members of our community build games, play games, and sometimes even win cash prizes for their games in the span of a single week! This year, from June 25th to July 2nd, Replit spiced things up with a grand prize of $10,000, category prizes of $5,000, and a new Crowd Pleaser prize of $1,000. The catch? The games had to meet the theme: SPICY!
During the jam, participants collaborated and got help from mentors on our Discord, audiences sampled and judged the games for themselves, and some players even documented their journeys!
In the end, we received over 190 awesome submissions this year, battling to win the grand prize! But only one could beat the heat. Our judges (PolyMars, CodeWithHarry Metal and Coffee, Ania Kubow, MindJoy, Tiga Wu, Lee Fleming, Vimlark) carefully reviewed each game to decide the ultimate spicy winners…
This year’s winners:
Most Creative - SpicyBoyTimeToShine
Play as a little spicy fella trying not to die alone in SpicyBoyTimeToShine by @introvertices. This game won Most Creative through its unique puzzle gameplay combined with time sensitive parkour-like controls. Not only was this game fun to play, the art and sound design is very well done.
Help this happy spicy pepper get home!
Best Story - Frank's Adventure
Frank's Adventure follows the story of science-wannabe, Frank, who lives with his mother while he tries to get rich by selling his spicy peppers. Unfortunately, making spicy peppers isn’t as easy as it seems. The story in this game is a huge reason to play, enabled by the fantastic voice acting. The voice acting is so good it’s easy to overlook the quality artwork and entertaining gameplay loops. Hear for yourself and help Frank get rich on spicy peppers!
Most Polished - Deliverwing
Deliverwing is a game by @zekehernandez two birds must deliver hot wings without spilling them. I (Nathan) had the privilege of playing this game in our closing ceremony, and I must admit it’s a lot more challenging than it seems at first. But Delivering isn’t just challenging, it is polished. Everything from the dialogue to the art to the controls and gameplay is pristine. If you’re looking for a challenging and satisfying game to play, give Deliverwing a try.
Most Hilarious - The Spicy Interview
A man going through a rough patch decides to spice up his life by responding to a job offer unlike any other in The Spicy Interview by @isaacpante. Can you answer questions in your spicy job interview to make sure your beaver employer is satisfied, while also holding on to your dignity? This game is absolutely hilarious, hence the award. If you want a good laugh, go find The Spicy Interview.
Best Kaboom Game - Go Chef
Do you have what it takes to cook the tastiest, SPICIEST food to win the cooking contest Find out in Go Chef by @rbSparky. If you had asked me how someone made this game, I might say Unity or Godot. But no, as spoiled by the “Best Kaboom Game” award, this game was made using Kaboom.js. @rbSparky showed us what's possible when building with the Kaboom.js game library. See for yourself!
Best Crowd Pleaser - Spicy War
The Crowd Pleaser award was a new addition to this year's Kajam. To win this award participants not only had to build a game, they also had to create a popular TikTok or YouTube Short. We loved @CoderGautamYT's video for Spicy War. We liked it much that we made our own video to announce the award!
Grand Prize - SSSPICY
The grandest of the prizes goes to SSSPICY by @torcado! YAY!!! Once upon a big orange board, a hungry snake went looking for food, and stumbled upon a peculiar, spicy pepper. Help this snake eat all the peppers and get back to its home without getting launched off the board!
Judges loved how innovative, creative, and satisfying this game is. SSSPICY is a puzzle game which involves the controls of “snake” with puzzles vaguely calling back to the classic game Bloxor. The quality was unmatched, the puzzles were challenging, and we can’t wait to see what @torcado makes next. Block off a few hours on your schedule and get lost in SSSPICY!!
Honorable Mentions
In addition to our prize winners, there were other phenomenal games that we'd be remiss to leave out:
You can watch Kajam’s closing ceremony on YouTube.
Thanks to everyone for participating this year in the Kajam 2022 game jam. We had so many great submissions, and we can't wait to see you next year!
