[In honour of our friends at the Toronto Game Jam hitting their 10th (10th!) year, we asked Al Donato to write some capsule reviews of the games made last month over 3 days. You can check out 105 TOJam 10 games here. Congrats to everyone who made a game — these were just a few that caught Al’s eye.]

[vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2′] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] Cosmic Couch Cleanup Chronicles by Camp Cult
Camp Cult perfectly captures the last-minute panic of cleaning filthy furniture in the equally alliterative Cosmic Couch Cleanup Chronicles, where you’ve been hired to clean someone’s couch for 27 seconds before their mom arrives. You’re not exactly in a living room. You and the disgusting couch transcend space and time, existing in a pocket dimension where the starry sky is eternally eating itself. A glitzy gold knockout title greets you before whisking you to your invisible boss. Storytelling is sparse. Your unseen host’s randomized laments before every round speak less than their mess. Watching incredulously as illicit substances, USB drives and forks spill from the cushions mimics real-life bewilderment at the knicknacks you’d find there in your own couch if you’d bother to clean (which you won’t, let’s be honest). There’s great satisfaction in indiscriminately vacuuming chunky low poly syringes, toonies, bobby pins and keys. All are equal in the void.[/vc_column][/vc_row] [vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2′] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] F Minus 1 by Infinite Solutions
If you thought Mario Kart‘s rainbow road was hard, this one will have you weeping uncontrollably. You pilot a red ship through the vast expanse of space, racing your way across a twisting techni-coloured highway as your spacecraft leaves trails of glittering stars. The game controls and the shtick of adhesing to walls are a steep learning curve. Drifting off-track happens frequently, so the quick restart function’s pretty handy. Still, losing’s pretty fun too – once you find yourself spinning out of control and falling into the abyss, cruising towards the massive planets you’ll never reach as the electro-synth music washes over.[/vc_column][/vc_row] [vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2’] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] Tentacular Madness by Ryan Miller
Lovecraftian’s the genre that keeps on giving, with the latest installment courtesy of this endless shooter. You zip around in a jetpack firing at a tentacled abomination, while evading the whipporwills chirping your ensuing death. The physics and player movement are well-executed, with every slight sway and drop into the sickly green fog escalating the atmospheric creepiness. Add in the growing bird frenzy following you, and the cosmic horror waiting below is all the more terrifying.[/vc_column][/vc_row] [vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2′] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] No Sudden Movements by World8
This simulation of a real-life encounter one of the developers had with a moose is short, but manages to recreate an essential Canadian experience – driving down an empty road in the middle of winter and peering into the dark ahead, watching for telltale antlers. Just do as the name says.[/vc_column][/vc_row] [vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2′] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] INFINIDEER by svblm
Svblm’s signature pastel savagery and quality music production collide to form the cheerfully fatal INFINIDEER. There’s something cathartic about this game. I don’t know if it’s being tasked as an endlessly reincarnating deer running headfirst into traffic or the relief of watching yourself getting rear-ended and causing a seven car pile-up. (The latter I can probably attribute to my recurring fantasy of some rich guy hitting me with his car and getting him to pay off my student debt, but whatever.)[/vc_column][/vc_row] [vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2′] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] The Arm by Dom+Nat
You are an arm named Arm and all you do is punch pig-snouted purple monsters until they burst into meat and bones. What more could you ask for? You can choose to charge your fist for a helluva knockout or rapid-fire punch like you’re from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. It deals less damage than the screen-shaking charged punch, but the satisfaction of seeing a flurry of fists onscreen is worth it. Kudos to the developers for making the monster’s quips charming as heck, as if they were greeting an old friend/opponent.[/vc_column][/vc_row] [vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2′] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] IT’SALLCOMETOTHIS by gemsoup
This two-player game is so not a staring contest. It’s the final showdown between bitter rivals (in this case, a goat, someone who looks like they stumbled out of a shoujo manga, and another who looks like an aged saiyan from Dragon Ball Z.) You just so happen to be fighting with your eyes. It can get pretty intense, but the occasional action panels flying behind them that are literally just close-ups of their eyes are hilarious.[/vc_column][/vc_row] [vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2′] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] Expong Whispers by Chris Baragar
A space sci-fi Twine game of bygone love, mutiny, eavesdropping and saving humanity. Also, you whisper “dicks” at a machine, so that’s pretty cool. Sci-fi jargon is explained through nifty, occasionally fourth wall-breaking, asides. Liked the varied ways hyperlinks would morph, sometimes into definitions or become truer meanings; a welcome change of pace from how many Twine games’ links lead down a rabbit hole of routine clicking to-and-fro. The writer’s voice is concise and dry, making fantastic use of timer functions and Twine’s interactivity to enhance the storyline.[/vc_column][/vc_row] [vc_row][vc_column width=’1/2′] [/vc_column] [vc_column width=’1/2′] NMTV by jeo77
Any game where the developers tells you the scores mean nothing and advise against running it for too long’s bound to be good or computer-crashing. In Neon Mountain Television’s case, it’s both. My system overloaded after the first minute into this. When I rebooted, a ton of my memory was eaten and I had to clear disk space just to finish writing this review. I can’t tell if this was intentional modern art shitnanigans meant as a metaphor for how MTV eats your brain, just a program glitch or some impressive melding of both. I guess that’s TOJam for you. If you’re into artsy OCAD stuff meets internet memes and tongue-in-cheek skit humour, you’ll dig this. (You can watch a playthrough of the game without fear of getting your computer messed with here.)[/vc_column][/vc_row]