JamClown

About the game

JamClown takes place in an old circus big top that has been turned into a cannon factory. On the top screen, a conveyor belt runs under a row of pipes, carrying three spots at a time: two hold cannons, and one holds a penguin. On the bottom screen are three big red buttons, one for each position on the belt. Press the button under the penguin and you score a point; press the wrong one and you lose a point. Then the belt moves on and the next row arrives.

A round lasts exactly one minute, measured by a little clock model that slides along the top of the screen. When the time is up the game keeps your best score, and Start begins another round. It is a reflex game: the faster you read each row, the more points you can fit into the minute.

The game was made in a single weekend by Lorenzo Langlois for a game jam whose themes were "circus" and "industrial", as his first Nintendo DS project. The models, textures and sounds are his own. As he notes himself, the sound effects do not play quite the way he intended, and the game has no music.

Playing it here

This is a homebrew game made for the Nintendo DS: a new game by an independent developer, not a commercial release. It runs here in the DeSmuME emulator and needs no Nintendo BIOS or firmware. Both screens appear on the page, one above the other (side by side in a wide window); the bottom one is the touch screen.

Click Play. The round starts straight away: click a red button with the mouse, or tap it with a finger, to fire at the position you think holds the penguin. When the minute ends, press Enter (the DS Start button) to play again. F2 saves the emulator state and F4 loads it.

Controls

On a phone or tablet the DS buttons appear on screen, under the two screens (or on the sides, with the device lying down), and the bottom screen works as the touch screen.

Tips

Look only for the penguin. The cannons are all alike; your eyes only need to find the white belly.

Do not guess. A wrong press costs a point, the same as a right one earns. A moment's wait is better than a coin toss.

Keep your hand over the buttons. With a mouse, rest the pointer between the buttons so every move is short.

Credits and licence

JamClown is by Lorenzo Langlois and is under the MIT License, with models, textures and sounds made by him. We build the ROM ourselves from the author's source with the BlocksDS toolkit; the licence text and the exact source are linked from this page.