By Belladonna Bennett
The latest Sensei Game Jam at Code Ninjas has come to a close, this time themed around the idea of “Polar Opposites”. Our Senseis once again brought out the best of their creativity and coding skills and we could not be more excited to show off the winning entries.
With this jam we had two categories to compete in. Today we’ll be looking at the winners submitted for the MakeCode Arcade category.
MakeCode Arcade Winners
First Place: Ivar – Ange-Evry from Blackheath, UK
An impressive top-down puzzle game that sees the player navigate 25 grid-based levels while avoiding enemies. The twist? The enemies always move in the opposite direction to the player. This entry is hard to put down with each level having a satisfying solution that makes you say – Oh go on then, just one more.
Guest judge Eden Trujillo (Narrative Designer, Blizzard Entertainment) comments, “Incredibly simple to grasp and play—could absolutely see an addiction forming to this. … I loved the opening cinematic, it was simple, endearing, and immediately engaging, but the ability to skip it is good for replayability.”
We asked Ange-Evry how Code Ninjas has impacted him as a programmer, “I started at Code Ninjas 2 months ago, and since then have really enjoyed working there and seeing how interested all the kids are. Explaining programming concepts to others has made me a much more methodical coder and I have become better at planning how my code is going to work before I start writing. This game jam in particular really helped me to develop my creative and design skills.”
Second Place: Maggie-netic – Jacob Armstrong from Burlington, ON
‘Maggie-netic’ is an action-adventure game that sees our titular hero navigate through each level armed with a powerful magnet. The player must use this tool to push – or pull! – their way through each puzzle by sliding blocks and avoiding dangerous enemies along the way.
This entry garnered high praise from Eden Trujillo. “Great work on this one! The tutorial being introduced with the new devices rather than in a large amount of text made learning the game effortless. The idea was solid with very fun execution of puzzles, and the frog attack is my favorite ever now.”
And on how Code Ninjas impacted him as a programmer, Jacob says, “Teaching code feels very different from other aspects of problem solving – normally, I always think about finding the most efficient solution, or the one that’s easiest to implement, or sometimes it’s fine to just use the first one I think of as long as it works. But with teaching at Code Ninjas, I’ve had to consider a different criteria for the ‘best’ solution – the one that is easiest to understand. It’s a unique way of thinking that I really enjoy, and I feel like it has forced me to consider aspects of coding and problem solving that I never would have thought about otherwise.”
Third Place: Repel and Attract – James Goodwin from Yardley, PA
Unlike our first and second place winners, ‘Repel and Attract’ is a 2D platformer that sees the player manipulate their own magnetic field to jump, swing, and dodge their way through the levels. This entry does a great job at flexing what MakeCode Arcade can do with player physics, implemented by James in an inventive, fun way.
Guest judge Eden Trujillo said there was a “REALLY good tutorial—simple and engaging while also expanding on and settling the Player into the setting (Amp is such a clever name). I really enjoyed this one, and could see myself really settling in.”
Finally we asked James how Code Ninjas impacted him as a programmer. “Code Ninjas offered an opportunity to widen my knowledge into more coding interfaces and languages like JavaScript and C#. Also, by teaching and helping to debug Ninjas and their projects respectively, I myself gained a greater understand of coding and debugging.”
Congratulations to Ange-Evry, Jacob, and James!
Runners-Up
Of course, there are a couple more entries that we enjoyed too much to not mention, so we would also like to congratulate our runners-up, Snailblazer and Subject:0!
SnailBlazer – Jett Lee from Burlington, ON
SnailBlazer, by Jett Lee, from Burlington, ON, has the player pilot a rocket-powered snail through a high-octane gauntlet of obstacles. As Jett Lee puts it, “You’re not just any snail now—you’re a SnailBlazer.”
Subject:0 – Trent from Mill Creek
Subject:0, by Trent from Mill Creek, sees the player take control of a test subject who must complete a mysterious series of trials by harnessing their negative and positive energies. Guest judge (80HD Games, Creative Director and Audio Designer) was certainly a big fan of this one, as he mentioned “THIS WAS EXTREMELY COOL.”
And there we have it! Those were our podium winners, along with two incredibly cool runners-up. We want to extend a big thank you to our guest judges for providing their feedback to our Senseis, and of course a big-big-BIG thank you to the Senseis themselves for their incredible entries!
Stay tuned for when we announce the winners in the Unity/Godot/Unreal category!
