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Hey fellow jammers!

Are you thinking, "I really want to make a game using AI, but coding and complex setups look way too intimidating..."? If that’s you, don't worry—you are definitely not alone!

I wanted to share a unique, ultra-lightweight 2D game engine called "TinCLE". It was built specifically to make co-developing with AI as smooth and frictionless as possible.

I’m not here to push this engine on anyone. I just wanted to share it as a helpful tool for those who are hesitant to start because it "looks too hard." I really hope it gives you that little spark of excitement to take your first step into this jam!

🌟 TinCLE - Game Engine of the AI, by the AI, for the AI.
👉 https://michyox.itch.io/tincle

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🤖 What exactly is TinCLE?

In short, TinCLE is a minimalist C-based game engine designed so you don't have to read the manual—your AI does.  Just feed the spec sheet (`SKILL.md`) to the AI, and it will output 100% working code on the first try (Hmm... probably!).

While modern game engines are incredibly powerful, their complex APIs and massive documentation often cause AI to hallucinate and generate buggy code.

TinCLE strips away all that bloat. It's built on top of SDL2—the most standard library that every AI (Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) has already learned billions of times. Because of this, the AI inherently knows exactly how to write perfect code for it from the very first prompt.

🚀 Real Results from My Students!

You might wonder, "Does it actually work?" Well, the students in my game development seminar have already tested it, and the results are absolutely mind-blowing!

• Case 1 (Co-developing via AI Chat):
  One student, following step-by-step coding instructions from an AI chat and simply copy-pasting the code, managed to build a fully playable "OutRun-style pseudo-3D racing game" in just 2 hours!
• Case 2 (100% Autopilot with an AI Agent):
  Another student used an AI agent (Claude Code) with folder permissions. They gave it a prompt: "Make a mahjong tile brain-training game." With just a few test plays and minor feedback from the human, the AI automatically built and spat out a deployment-ready ZIP file in just 1 hour!

🛠️ How it works (It’s incredibly simple!)

1. Drop the included `SKILL.md` file into your favorite AI (Gemini, ChatGPT, etc.).

2. Tell the AI: "Using this spec, write the code for a retro arcade shooter!"

3. Copy the code the AI gives you, paste it into `game.c`, and hit the build tool!

You don't need to spend months studying C programming. Just pitch your awesome game ideas to your AI copilot, and let it act as your personal lead programmer!

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Final Thoughts

"I want to make a game, but I don't have the skills yet, so maybe I'll skip this jam..."

If you’ve ever felt that way, this is your sign to team up with the ultimate AI sidekick and experience the magic of bringing your ideas to life.

If you're curious, come check out the TinCLE page! I’ve also secretly sneaked a backlink to this game jam at the bottom of the page (shhh, don't tell anyone!).

I can't wait to see your wonderful ideas brought into the world with the power of AI. Let's have some fun and happy jamming!

Welcome to the jam! And thank you so much for asking these wonderful questions. First of all, your story is amazing, and this jam is exactly the perfect place for your first-try! I'm so glad you found us.

To answer your questions (and thanks to you, I have officially updated the jam guidelines!):

1. Are teams allowed?

Yes, absolutely! Teams are 100% welcome. You can collaborate with other users as you like. Just a quick heads-up regarding the itch.io system: since this jam is configured as "Submitters Only," only the main representative who submits the game will have the right to rate other projects.

2. What does COLA mean?

Literally, it means the carbonated drink (Cola)! However, you are completely free to interpret it however you like. If you want to base your game on Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), a futuristic sci-fi soda, or any other creative acronym/pun you can think of, go for it! As long as you can explain how it revolves around 'COLA', anything goes. Happy brainstorming! If you choose a very unique or non-traditional interpretation, just leave a short comment or note in your game's description when you submit it so that voters can fully understand your awesome concept!

Thank you again for bringing this up. No need to apologize at all-asking here in the community is the most perfect and efficient way because it helps other developers too!

Good luck with your development, have fun with your team, and I can't wait to see what you create! ✨

Thank you for playing!

And I'm grateful to have received this feedback. Whether or not to display hints in real time on the game screen remained a dilemma for me right up until the release of this version. In the end, I decided to remove all hints, but after that, I was worried whether players would be able to solve the puzzles on their own.

I plan to continue refining this game to make it even better. Your feedback will serve as an important guide as I do so. Thank you!

Haha, a "Professional Reacts" video would be amazing! If a real expert reacts to my drug cooking simulation, I'd love to watch it myself. 

Thank you for playing!

And, what makes me happiest this time is that I received this report. Right up until I submitted the game to Jam, I had been displaying which parameters changed for each ingredient on the screen. However, I thought, "Players will surely figure this out even without it," so at the very last minute, I removed all those displays. 

After this jam, I plan to further refine this game, so I wanted to confirm whether my approach was correct. Thank you! 🙂

Does reaching the level select screen mean I've completed the game? That was fun. 🙂

This is so much fun. The only bummer is that I thought I could just hop on top of the car and zip around really fast, but it didn't work. 🙂

It's fun. I really like how, when I rapidly tap the “Sell” button, it seems like I'm selling to one person over and over again. I got rich quick. 🙂

I wasn't sure if this game had any concept of completion or scoring, but I still had fun. You can just keep shooting the boxes mindlessly, one after another. 🙂

This was really interesting. Actually, I liked how hard it was to tell the difference. I got really into this for a while. 🙂

Thank you for playing!

You're right - that part of the explanation was a bit unclear. I'm sorry.

The premise here is that this is a shop that originally dealt in contraband, so customers who aren't satisfied with what they're served would likely report it without hesitation...

Once you’ve played a few times and figured out what each customer wants from their dialogue, you’ll be able to satisfy all 15 of them. 🙂

Thank you for playing!

I intentionally only included the key bindings. The puzzle element of this game lies in figuring out the correct solution through trial and error. 🙂

I figured that's how it would be based on the description, but even though I already knew what to expect, it was still fun to play. It's a pretty cool game. I really enjoyed it. 🙂

I really like the atmosphere of this world. The only thing was that moving speed through that narrow space felt just a little too slow. But overall, I liked it. I had a good time. 🙂

Thank you for playing!

When I tested this game during development, I panicked myself and really struggled with whether I should stick with this level of difficulty.
... But in the end, I went ahead with it anyway (lol). I still don't know if it was the right choice, but at least I don't regret it. 🙂

I really enjoyed it. What surprised me the most was when, after agonizing for a while—thinking, "What am I supposed to do now? I can't do anything" — I realized that it was actually the title screen.

"Journey%20to%20end.png" ... I might be wrong, but seeing the black screen and the error message made me a little curious, so I thought I'd jot this down. Could the reason that the image filenames contain spaces be the reason the web version isn't working?

[Update] Added a WebGL/WASM version for easy play!
(The game content/source code is exactly the same as the Windows launch build.)

Thank you for playing!

This's quite challenging for me, too.

I have a personal rule that I won't release a game until I've confirmed that players can reach every ending, but this is one of the few games I almost lost heart myself during playtesting. 😅

I worked so hard to create a game for this game jam, only to find out I was the only one who actually submitted a project...
Is this really how it's going to end? Has there ever been a game jam this lonely? What happened to all the other joined participants?

Anyway, if anyone is still reading this, I'd love for you to play my game — I poured my heart and soul into it for this jam.

TERMINAL_00
https://michyox.itch.io/terminal-00

Since it wasn't clear, I tried it again. I think it happened right when the message was about to appear. Last time, the message wasn't displayed on the screen, but this time it froze after the message appeared and closed.

I like the vibe of this.

I had to dim the lights to play, but I actually like games with screens this dark. 🙂

I never expected that to happen.

It's a fun game. 🙂

I laughed. I really enjoyed it. 🙂

I find that approach interesting. But, at one point, it completely froze and stopped responding to the mouse, keyboard, or menu commands.

It was a fun game. The uninstaller didn't work properly, so I couldn't delete it using the usual method after playing, which was a hassle.

I started playing without reading the instructions or understanding how to shoot. Maybe I saw a message right at the beginning that I should have read later on.

This game offered a truly unique experience. It was fun! 🙂

That's wonderful. I really love the screens made with ASCII art, too. 🙂

I reached a score of 6,253,886, but I couldn't figure out when the portal would appear.
It was sad that the wonderful music stopped playing so soon after the game started.

It's beautiful. I really love the backgrounds in this game. 🙂

This is really interesting. Even though I should know this logically, it still throws me for a loop. It's wonderful. 🙂

Really fun game. I had planned to keep playing until AZERTY appeared, but I ended up quitting before that happened...

It was a heart-wrenching story...

I liked the scene after it got dark. 🙂

Beautiful. It didn't work with the arrow keys. 🙂

There are plenty of games where gravity is turned upside down, but this one was a little different. It was fun. 🙂

I like the background music in this game. 🙂

The difficulty level is just right for a laid-back playthrough—I enjoyed it. 🙂