Game Off 2022: The Winners of GitHub's Tenth Annual Jam

GitHub's Game Off 2022 has concluded, and this year's numbers were impressive: 562 games were submitted in under a month, and participants logged more than 7,284 ratings. The theme for the tenth annual jam was "cliché," and the submissions spanned everything from reworked classics to fast-paced shooters, puzzle games, and precision platformers. Entries were built with C, C#, C++, Go, Java(Script), Kotlin, Lua, and more, with source code available to fork and play either in-browser or on your OS of choice. Here are the winners, along with the other top-rated games as determined by player feedback.

Category Winners

1st Place Overall: Neon Square Resurgence

Created with Unity and C# by pixel-brain and ShootDawn, Neon Square Resurgence gives you control—though not always complete control—of a neon square through exceptionally challenging levels. Fair warning: it is even more difficult than the notoriously hard Mario Maker level that Polygon covered.

Play · Source

1st Place Gameplay: A Taste Of Their Own Medicine

Play · Source · @LOKO606 (Unity, C#)

A super hot first-person shooter where you're unarmed. Kind of.

1st Place Graphics: Glutton for Punishment

Play · Source · @LeHaine (LittleKt, Kotlin)

Take control of a grim reaper, destroying bats and other beasties in a beautiful pixel-art world.

1st Place Audio: Shot In The Dark

Play · Source · @cavetower (Unity, C#)

Alone in a dark, mysterious mansion with a very limited light source. Give it a shot.

1st Place Innovation: Knight In Shining Armour

Play · Source · @marc-jones (Godot, GDScript)

This one takes some time to reflect on after playing. Mirroring the reviewers, Knight in Shining Armour fits the theme incredibly well and delivers a polished puzzle game.

1st Place Theme Interpretation: Everything! (but the kitchen sink)

Play · Source · @chroute, @agropolitics, @chuyachia (Unity, C#)

Who doesn't love mini-games? This entry offers a smorgasbord of them, all inspired by popular idioms.

Honorable Mentions

Screenshot of Elephant in the Room. Play · Source · @ekaktusz (PICO-8, Lua)

Screenshot of Fair Squares. Play · Source · @kinda-nice (Godot, GDScript)

Play · Source · @acornellier (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Super Monkey Paw. Play · Source · @spaghettioh (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Decipherism. Play · Source · @quasilyte (Ebitengine, Go)

Screenshot of Golden Warden. Play · Source · @xpii (Game Maker, Game Maker Language)

Screenshot of In the Cards. Play · Source · @anttihaavikko (Unity, C#)

Play · Source · @LenatDeririnc, @Owa-owa, @3DI70R, @Skrals (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Silver Bullet. Play · Source · @Null-Bot9875, @H4M-44, @berall0 (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Moving the Golf Post. Play · Source · @Nitero (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Graveyard Shift. Play · Source · @cgsdev0, @cassidygroenendaal (Godot, GDScript)

Screenshot of Agent No. 6 Play · Source (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Stomper. Play · Source · @diego-escalante (Godot, GDScript)

Screenshot of Uphill Battle Play · Source · @Jnolen15 (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of the Adventure of the Heroic Fox Play · Source · @krasi070 (Godot, GDScript)

Screenshot of bet the farm. Play · Source · @GingaaBread, @ballardi, @rohaid-bakh, @Crostz, @inezwandita, @StefanoPizzolato (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Roses are red. Play · Source · @tijmenmatthys (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Cat Got Your Tongue. Play · Source · @octobass-games (Unity, C#)

Screenshot of Blasteroids Play · Source · @joecamp (Unity, C#)

Fantastic fling-em-up game! Nice twist on the original. Very professional.

All submissions can be viewed on the Game Off 2022 itch.io results page, where you can filter by operating system. Thanks to everyone who took part, played, rated, and reviewed—this was the biggest and best Game Off yet. The next one begins in November.