GameDev.TV 2026 Game Jam — Connections

So, I plan to submit to the 2026 GameDev.TV Game Jam. The theme is Connections.

There was a lot of speculation on the discord server about what the formerly blurred image showed. The fact that the image showed Devin plugging two things together and made me think that it might be something about electricity. So, with the theme revealed, what are my plans? Well, two things come to mind at the moment.

Human Conduits

The first thing that came to mind is that the human body is a decent conductor of the electricity. I have been to an escape room where we had to join hands to bridge a circuit in the room. I think one could probably make an interesting puzzle game involving human ragdolls, and connecting limbs, to solve a problem. and, of course, there can be all sorts of humorous exaggeration of the effects of the electricity.

A Robot Odyssey

Then, there’s the idea of implementing something like Robot Odyssey (playable online or in the Thomas Foote Java recreation).

Robot Odyssey is a digital logic game developed by Mike Wallace and Dr. Leslie Grimm and published by The Learning Company in December 1984. It is a sequel to *Rocky’s Boots, and was released for the Apple II, TRS-80 Color Computer, and MS-DOS. The player is readying for bed when, suddenly, they fall through the floor into an underground city of robots, Robotropolis*. The player begins in the sewers of the city with three programmable robots, and must make their way to the top of the city to try to find their way home again. Most players have found it challenging.

Implementing the entire game, of course, would be outside of the scope of a game jam, but demonstrating working circuits and a few puzzles seems feasible. The next question is whether I want to do the traditional 2D graphics, or something 3D. I think I will do the wiring as a 2D UI either way.

Other Possibilities

Of course, there are a lot of other possibilities. I could do a dating game, something involving a “missed connections" classifieds section, a game involving matching Capoeira or wrestling moves as you "connect”with your opponent... It’s a nicely broad theme, which is nice.

(Current) Final Decision

I think I am going to try to build a logic system like Robot Odyssey. Because there’s only 10 days (and one of them is basically gone), I am going to have to be agile about it. I think my first step is going to be setting up the components and wiring and having them run on clock ticks. No placement of them using the UI, nothing fancy, just showing the electricity flow from one component to the other, and some basic logic, like OR gates, AND gates, and XOR gates. For those unfamiliar with the game, we had those gates, as well as Nodes that allowing branching output, and JK Flip Flops.

Screenshot from the original game

If that works, the next step is getting the UI to allow you to draw the connections between the objects. Then, placing them. Then, from there, is having them drive the parts of a robot, and having that do something.

Another screenshot from the original game

The relevant bits here is that the four cardinal directions have a thruster and a contact sensor. In the upper left, you can also see a grabber, with an input to cause it grab the next thing it touches, and an output indicating it has grabbed something, and an antenna, which allows robots to communicate. And, well, that’s basically it in terms of the tools the game gave you, having you then use this (as well as miscellaneous other widgets like specialized sensors that could be used to determine whether your robot was touching a specific object or the shield which would shield you against roving magnetic storms) to solve everything from simple movement puzzles to navigating a minefield to replicating the ignition sequence of a Ford Pinto (yes, that really was one of the later levels).

Oh, and there was a novelization, and it’s even more bonkers than the game, and oddly relevant to our current point in society…

[embed]A Robot Odyssey Odyssey Decades ago, I experienced Robot Odyssey on my family’s TRS-80 Color Computer, and it was awesome. The basic concept of…medium.com