The Global Game Jam was last weekend, and a lot of amazing games were made (for a recount of how one went down check out Jason’s awesome dev blog). A full run down of the more interesting Boston offerings is coming soon, don’t worry!

The current front runner for our favorite GGJ game? That would have to be RunRunRunJump, a delightful and short game by Owen Macindoe, Scott Macmillan, Daniel Perry, Alex Schwartz, and Stephie Wu. The game is a simple platformer, but what is interesting is that the environment literally tells you what to do – if the ground says run, then run! If it says jump, then jump! The soundtrack is especially amazing as it is self referential as well – listen for a few seconds and you’ll know what I mean.

Of course, the theme of the game jam was deception so you should expect a couple of twists to be thrown at you as the game goes on. Keep playing though – the victory screen at the end of the game makes it all worthwhile.

One important thing to note is that the game requires the Unity web player to work, download it here. And then go play RunRunRunJump!

2009 was an awesome year for games! And we played a lot of them! Here’s a recap of the great games we played this year. If you haven’t tried them yet, now’s your chance! They are all FREE and just waiting for you to enjoy them.

Our year started off with a great little platformer called Eversion that has a scary twist (a retail version is in the works). We then laughed a ton while living out the Olympic dreams of QWOP. There were a few fun games in the Boston Global Game Jam, and The Redistricting Game taught us about how messed up our current electoral system is.

The Legend of Princess gave us a glimpse of what could have been a sequel to Zelda 2 (on the NES), and Dino Run ate up a bunch of our time as we ran away from Armageddon with our dinosaur brethren. Speaking of dinosaurs, have you checked out Robot Dinosaurs that Shoot Beams When They Roar yet? It’s a pivotal work in gaming. Gemcraft is an addicting little tower defense game with a fun chromatic twist, and Facade is an older game (2004 or 5, I think) but still a lot of fun to play today.

Effing Hail is a neat little flash game where you destroy buildings, airplanes, and satellites with hail, or if you are in a more constructive mood you can try building with Grow Cube. Don’t Eat the Mushroom (and Knytt Stories) is a hilarious game about what happens when you do (or don’t) eat the mushroom, and is a must play for any serious gamer. Finally this year we enjoyed racing through the apocalypse in Canabalt, and subsequently relaxed with the music of Auditorium.

These were all terrific games, if you haven’t tried them yet be sure to go play them all now!

Last weekend was just chock full of games, with MIT’s battlecode final tournament, the robotic competition final tournament (post coming soon), and of course the Global Game Jam, the latter of which produced a bunch of terrific games!

The full download list for all the games made at GAMBIT are posted here. Of special interest in my opinion is Move Mouse to Fulfill Destiny, an artistic title by Dan Roy, Will Jennings, and Filippo Beck Peccoz. You can read the description about how you are a farmer making friends, but if you ask me it’s much more fun to just play without thinking too much. The Beat is an interesting two player puzzle game which is all about timing your actions with the actions in the world, and was made by Marc Flury, Jesper Juul, Van Nguyen, Randy O’Connor, Filippo Beck Peccoz, and Daniel Costello. You can’t play it alone so be sure to find a buddy! It has an especially entertaining “scream” option, which doesn’t seem to accomplish anything but sure is fun to do.

Of course there were several other games made at GAMBIT, and hundreds made all over the world! Check out as many as you can at the GGJ game browser.