Overview
Tick-Tock Takeout is a five-person entry for GMTK Game Jam 2026, built in Unity within the jam's 96-hour limit. GMTK is the largest game jam on itch.io, and this year drew roughly 10,000 entries.
It is a top-down delivery strategy game: you plan routes through a timed rush, racing to deliver before both the food's freshness and the customer's patience run out. The design rests on light strategy, resource management, and upgrade feedback.
I was solely responsible for the expanding level map design, building and tuning all seven maps. I also contributed to the in-run economy and the meta progression system, handled sound design and integration, and built the itch.io release page.
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Problems Addressed
- A seven-day difficulty curve in 96 hours: tuning numbers repeatedly is both too slow for a jam and barely perceptible to players, so the curve needed a cheaper, more legible source.
- An empty map has no route planning: with nothing in the way, the shortest path is always a straight line and the strategy evaporates.
- A bigger map versus reading it at a glance: the point of a top-down view is seeing everything, but as the playable area expands players start getting lost.
- The expensive order has to cost something: otherwise players simply always take it, and the order list stops being a choice.
- Upgrades have to earn the next round: jam players give you a few minutes, and a round that ends with nothing gained doesn't get a second one.
Solution & Implementation
- Grow the map instead of tuning numbers: each day expands the playable area from a small block toward a wider district, taking pickup points from two shop types to six and destinations from one to five districts, with delivery distances stretching to match. Players experience "the world got bigger" rather than "the numbers got harder," and it reuses art the team already had — the best value per hour available in a jam.
- Expand cumulatively rather than swapping maps: each day layers onto the last, so routes learned earlier still hold. The knowledge players invest is never invalidated, and progression feels like a larger world instead of relearning one.
- Place obstacles so route planning becomes a real variable: every map carries traffic lights, construction zones, and barriers. With them, detouring versus barrelling through becomes a trade-off and the shortest path stops being automatically the best one.
- Tie each of the six foods' freshness inversely to its price: the more perishable, the more it pays. Every look at the order list becomes a risk call rather than a reflex to grab the most valuable one.
- Four tiers each for the ride and the delivery box: tiered costs guarantee an upgrade every round, so even a botched shift ends in progress — which is what buys the next round.
- Rounds capped at 60 seconds: a short round makes failure cheap enough that "one more" happens, and it let me playtest constantly while tuning each map's playable area and route difficulty.
- Layer the audio by state: a top-down view carries little visual detail, so the fastest way to know whether you delivered or got fined is your ears. Music, settlement, and interaction feedback each got their own layer, assembled in C# alongside the team.
Tech Stack
- Engine: Unity (3D, top-down)
- Language: C#
- Platforms: HTML5 (browser) and Windows
- Duration: 96 hours (GMTK Game Jam 2026)
Key Features
- Seven level maps that expand day by day
- Pickup points growing from two shop types to six, destinations from one to five districts
- A route-interference system of traffic lights, construction zones, and barriers
- A 60-second timed delivery rush per round
- Six foods with freshness tied inversely to value
- Four upgrade tiers each for the ride and the delivery box
- Layered audio across music, settlement, and interaction feedback
Challenges & Tradeoffs
- Throughput across seven maps: producing all of them solo in 96 hours meant spending the time on playable-area bounds and route difficulty, with decorative detail giving way to legibility and pacing.
- Expansion versus readability: a bigger map is easier to get lost in. Layering rather than replacing preserved the routes players had already learned, at the cost of later maps being less visually dense than purpose-built standalone levels.
- Obstacle density: too few traffic lights and construction zones and there is no strategy; too many and it reads as punishment. The density had to come from playtesting each map rather than from one shared parameter.
Results
Among roughly 10,000 entries worldwide, the game placed in the top 5% for Creativity, the top 5% for Artwork, and the top 10% for Enjoyment. It shipped a playable demo within the jam deadline, released publicly on itch.io in both HTML5 and Windows builds.