JAMLOADED, PRELOADED’s annual game jam competition, remains a beloved fixture in our social calendar, and 2023 was no exception. 

Over the course of two long days, random teams are asked to create games which meet a specific theme. This year’s theme was ‘Limited Spaces,’ and the quality of entries blew us all away.

Among the remarkable submissions were a holiday packing board game, a heist-inspired escape-the-room adventure, a “rhythm and contortion” VR game, a unique body-shape camera game, and a wild physics game that blended the worlds of Star Wars and Feng shui.

Beyond the fun of making, the JAMLOADED provides a precious opportunity to unite our remote and hybrid teams in a shared space for a few days, fostering an environment where experimentation, learning, and fun-failure is celebrated.

While only one game could claim the top prize, selecting a winner was hard! Read on to see the games and the winner.

Cat Burgular

By Team Space Evaders

Inspired by the 90’s classic movie ‘Entrapment’, this VR (Meta Quest Pro) title placed you in the role of a master Cat Burglar (quite literally!). After retrieving the titular ‘cat’ sleeping conveniently in their basket, the player must navigate their way through a series of deadly laser beams with the task of escaping this room.  Contortion, balance, and ensuring that the swinging cat basket did not get fried were tricky.  The rules were simple – No throwing the cat.  No burning the cat.  No burning yourself!

So now we can all safely say we have a newfound respect for Catherine Zeta-Jones!

Limited Head Space

By Team Bit Brawlers

What can probably best be summed up as the perfect love child of Beat Saber and the TV classic ‘Hole in the Wall’, this VR (Meta Quest Pro) title took an modern twist on ‘striking a pose’ using the 3 trackable points of your head and both hands.  A stream of increasingly difficult poses advance toward you and you must ensure that your head and hands hit the relevant spots as they meet you.  With Tron-esque visuals and a trippy soundtrack this certainly tested our flexibility and fast-thinking.

In hindsight, maybe a bit more yoga was needed all round!

HyperVault

By Team Seblyl Davinad

Utilising the body tracking of the Sky Live camera this game creates a series of vault locks that require either 1 or 2 persons to contort into a series of unique shapes of ‘unlock’.  With different game modes (solo, guided, and collab) this was a comedically manic 3D take on Twister-meets-Whose-Line-Is-It-Anyway? and a definite living-room party classic!  Let’s be honest, watching two people try to make the silhouette of an elephant in a handful of seconds is always going to be entertaining.

We loved the extensive back-story and amazing team demo.

Baggage Bonanza

By Team Headcase

The age-old issue of packing for a holiday was the topic for this physical boardgame.  With each player taking on the role of a different family member, an choosing their baggage, they had to strategically collect and ‘pack’ various items in their suitcase.  With additional task of securing ‘key’ items for your particular character (we love the character of the Cat who must pack their can of Tuna!) and players-to-player negotiation possibilities this was a playful take on an often highly stressful moment!

This will certainly make us think as we approach the holiday season.

Feng Squeeze

By Team Limited Technologies Group

We had to leave the best to last, and this year ‘Limited Technologies Group’ took the crown in the company-wide voting to be JAMLOADED 2023 Winners.  Their impressive 3D game combines the peace and tranquillity of ‘Feng-Shui’ furniture arrangement with the manic scramble of the Star Wars trash compactor scene.  With the objective to grab any of the various random pieces of furniture in the room scene and ‘brace’ the closing in walls to stop them from crushing the room to oblivion.

This was a highly addictive and amazingly innovative game that the entire team loved.  Also, it was hard not to vote for a game with the tag-line ‘ZEN-sational crush!’