Skyjackers (KO Game Jam 2026 Entry)

Near the end of the Jam I tried to hotfix a pause menu button indicator in the tutorial and messed the builds up. Both Itch.io builds are the Linux version. You can play the real windows version through this link: https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZIinGZXWPuyf5uLByzjY9eop3qzf1hrfVX Sorry for the trouble, but I hope you still have fun!

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Hello! This is my submission for the Knockout Game Jam of 2026.

Gameplay:

You and three bots fly around a large level trying to stop the others from scoring points. You score points by shooting Treasure Chests with a balloon tagging weapon that carries it into the sky. Everyone will be dragging and shooting and tagging, because for someone to get a point, their tag must be the first to reach the scoring altitude. After someone gets a point, another Treasure Chest is shot into the arena. The game ends when the timer runs out and the person with the most points win.

The world's primary denizens are solar powered humanoid robots, who pull out ancient electronics from the old world and reprogram them to be alive. They are very curious and infatuated with their human creators, and find incredible joy in roleplaying their species in every aspect of their lives. No one knows what happened to them all, but from what they can gather it was pretty bad. The ultimate envy of any immortal robot is to eventually build a fully organic body to live and die in one day.

There are many robot centric roles that must still be filled. This is where the Skyjackers come in. Skyjackers train to pirate from an entirely automated  space mining and shipping network, which still runs long after the humans were gone. This is where the majority of still functioning technology comes from.  The gamemode in this game is a form of early training for this role, where new Skyjackers play together and learn from each other. In the future, I plan to have a campaign that fleshes out the story I have in mind.

Known Issues:

* I made a system that lets you get a boost if you're facing away from your moving direction when returning to thrust mode, but I REALLY should have had a separate button to hold for it, because making small adjustments to your position quickly is super duper hard.

* The bots you battle in game have had a bumpy development, mainly because I realized they're more competitive with less items to collect each round. So the AI is in a really weird place design wise and have a tendency to behave erratically.

* The tutorial is missing a LOT and I was falling asleep in my chair while trying to make it, as it was the very last thing I was working on near the end of the Jam. It's hard to make a tutorial unless you know how your game is going to be though lol

* The Scissor Bomb isn't as effective as I wanted it to be. Mainly I wanted it as an offensive option, but it's not aggressive enough to be useful. You can use it on yourself though while holding a treasure item to fling it away from the score altitude.

Final Thoughts:

I primarily made this game as a foundation to build on, and in that sense I have succeeded. I have a lot of ideas and I'm excited to develop them! I hope you enjoy my game. Best of luck to everyone else in the Jam! I'm excited to play all your games :)