GMTK Game Jam 2026
The GMTK Game Jam is an annual game making marathon, where individuals
and teams try to make a game that fits a theme, in just a few days.
The theme for the year 2026 was Countdown.
This game was not part of the jam, I made it months later to find out whether
the idea I had works. Also, as an experiment, the prototype was built with AI,
which goes against the spirit of a game jam, but the point was to test what
current models can do. The original specs are in PROMPT.md (in
Italian).
Project GLASSWING
A small top-down escape game with a captured spy in a secret lab.
Nineteen days undercover to get inside the Varga Institute.
You reached sub-level 3. Then someone recognised your face.
They took your gear and locked you in a holding cell.
The lock is cheap. The guards are not.
Getting out comes first.
If you can, bring back proof of Project GLASSWING.
How it plays
- Every run starts in the cell, with a countdown: the patrol checks the
cells every minute. When the time is up, the guards catch you and take you
back. It's a capture, not a death.
- The lab never changes during a game: rooms, doors, items and notes are
always in the same place, so every run teaches you something.
- Items are physical (a screwdriver, a staff badge...). They open doors
and boxes. After a capture you can hide only one item from the guards;
everything else is confiscated and goes back where you found it.
- Knowledge is permanent: notes, signs and logs you read go into your
journal and stay there for the whole game, without taking an item slot.
Some of what you learn opens things that no item can.
- Escaping is the goal. Bringing back the GLASSWING report is optional,
and the escape screen tells you whether the investigation is complete.
- No combat, no dialogues: the scientists are busy and the spy has no gadgets.
| Action | Keys |
|---|
| Move | WASD / arrow keys |
| Interact | E / Space |
| Journal | J / Tab |
| Pause | Esc / P |
MVP
The MVP is written entirely with Claude Opus 5.5 starting from human-written
specifications, in order to evaluate the game idea and the capabilities of
modern AI models.
- Player moves and collides correctly with walls and obstacles.
- Static map with 6 rooms, player can move between connected rooms.
- Player can collect items, discovered information is added to the journal.
- When the timer reaches zero it triggers the capture event.
- Player can choose which items to keep (with a limit), unselected items are lost.
- A new run begins in the cell, with the timer reset.
- Reaching the exit concludes the run successfully.
- Investigation can be completed or left incomplete.
Roadmap and improvements
- A shorter countdown, tuned together with room sizes, walking speed and
actions that take time (e.g. unscrewing a panel).
- Final pixel art, more scientists, rooms and items, sound.
- Keypad input: type codes you have learned instead of opening locks automatically.
- Procedural labs: every New Game generates a new lab from a seed, with new
codes and item placements, while all the runs of a game keep the same lab.
- Dependency graph: ensure that items required to proceed are always reachable.
- Timed events (alarms, doors locking, people moving), saving to disk.
