GMTK Game Jam 2026 · 2026
The Last Sip
A top-down office shooter made with three others for the GMTK Game Jam 2026. Just one more sip and you'll finish the report — that's what you said hours ago. The coffee's running low, the computers are moving on their own, and now the CEO wants to see you. Stay awake. Stay employed. Stay alive.
#267 of ~10,500 — top 2.5%GMTK Game Jam 2026
Design pillars
Coffee is the whole economy
One meter is your health, your ammo and your clock at once. Every shot spends it, enemies drop it, and when the mug runs dry the run is over — so the tension is never about hunting for a health pack, it's about whether you can afford the fight you are already in.
A draft between every wave
Waves are separated by an upgrade choice, and the upgrades cut both ways — Bigger Mug raises capacity but reduces the coffee enemies drop. Each pick reshapes the run rather than simply making you stronger.
Office horror, played straight
The setting does the comedy so the mechanics don't have to: fluorescent grey tiles, printers and server racks closing in, and a boss fight against a CEO in a swivel chair. The art keeps the joke deadpan, which is what makes it land.
Process
How it actually went
Joining a team of four
I worked with Imaginary Grass, Popseratzy and UNLite for the jam. Coming in as one of four meant the job was to make my part fit what everyone else was building, rather than to design the whole thing — a different skill from making a game alone, and the first time I'd had to practise it.
Art
I worked on the game's art: the pixel-art look of the office, its enemies and its interface, kept deliberately washed-out so the red targeting reticles and the coffee meter stay the two things your eye goes to.
Marketing
I also handled how the game was presented. In a jam with roughly ten thousand entries, almost nobody reaches your page by accident — the cover image, the screenshots and the pitch decide whether anyone plays it at all, and a game nobody opens cannot be rated well no matter how good it is.
Gallery
Click any image to see it full size.
Outcome
- Ranked #267 of roughly 10,500 entries — top 2.5%
- Released and playable in the browser on itch.io
- Built with a team of four; no generative AI used