Parallel Worlds - PBBG Game Jam 2025
The PBBG Game Jam 2025 is the currently active second installment of the game jam series primarily for the PBBG discord community; run by PBBG community member Sharqy in conjunction with the Couch Cat gaming team.
Registrations for the game jam opened on 13 October, 2025 and the participation period began on 20 October, 2025 and concluded 9 November, 2025.
16 teams registered to participate in the game jam and 7 entries were submitted by the final submission deadline.
The game jam concluded the voting phase where participants and community members were able to try the game entries out and then record their votes before the voting period ended on 16 November, 2025.
What was the theme?
The theme for the game jam was "Parallel Worlds" and, as usual, is intended to be broad enough to give participants a wide range of possibilities when coming up with an exact concept for their games.
Examples given to help participants with possibilities fitting within the theme were as follows:
- Alternate timelines: player choices branching in ever-diverging results across timelines
- Mirror realities: players manage two or more characters (or other entities) where actions in one reality have an effect in the others
- Layered systems: players operate in a world where there are potentially layers above or below that change how your current is formed
- Shared resources: players actions and resources can cause change in another player's own world without direct or knowing interaction
- and more!
What were the voting categories?
The 2025 game jam voting was vastly simplified so that submissions are to be playable games and game design documents are not part of it.
What were the winning entries?
All submissions are listed below in their ranked order based on the results of the voting period.
| Rank | Submission | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1st |  Multiversal Fishing Simulator |
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| 2nd |  Blood Moon: Of Angels and Demons |
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| 3rd |  Signal//Split//Sync |
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| 4th |  We Should Run |
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| 5th |  Parallel Hunts |
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| 6th |  Parallax |
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| 7th |  Stabilis |
A single winner (RocketCat in first place) received a "badge of honor" in the PBBG discord server; the 2025 Game Jam Winner role following the same format as the 2024 winner roles that were handed out.
What were the submissions?
The following games were submitted; fuller descriptions and screenshots available on their individual game pages.
The individual voting responses as well as a scoring breakdown were made available in the interest of transparency.
Multiversal Fishing Simulator
Multiversal Fishing Simulator by Team Rocket (consisting of only RocketCat) was submitted to the game jam.
It is centered around "fishing additional fish" and utilizes clicker and idle game mechanics.
The game secured first place with an overall score of .
Blood Moon: Of Angels and Demons
Blood Moon: Of Angels and Demons by Legacy System Soft was submitted to the game jam and is described as an "army auto-battler with roguelite elements."
It secured second place in the game jam with an overall score of .
Signal//Split//Sync
Signal//Split//Sync by Oh My Starlight! (consisting of only AirGuitarist) was submitted to the game jam and is a one-vs-one arena battle game.
The game secured third place with an overall score of .
We Should Run
We Should Run by swindle was submitted to the game jam and is a cooperative dungeon crawler.
The game secured forth place with an overall score of .
Parallel Hunts
Parallel Hunts by PbbgJammers (consisting of only Advocaite) was submitted to the game jam and is described as an "item finder" type game.
The game secured fifth place with an overall score of .
Parallax
Parallax by Snow Lynx Software (consisting only of snow) was submitted to the game jam and is a game where you send teams to parallel dimensions on dungeon crawls to loot on your behalf.
The game secured sixth place with an overall score of .
Stabilis
Stabilis by Crosdale.dev (aka Crosdale) was submitted to the game jam and is a "reality collecting" game where you collect realities like you might collect trading cards.
The game secured seventh (last) place with an overall score of .
Crosdale was also a partipicant in the 2024 PBBG game jam with their project "Revolve" that was ultimately never completed nor submitted to that game jam.
What games were worked on but not submitted?
Dungeon Dimension
Dungeon Dimension by Lake in the Sky (consisting of VanderLaken and skies) was a dungeon crawler project set across dimensions as part of a "reality TV show" like experience.
As the game was not in a playable state by the submission deadline, a description and short video were posted in lieue:
An alien corporation captures other worlds and puts its residents through a dungeon show. This time earth is seized. You play as as an alien spectator/sponsor of the show. Either helping or sabotaging crawlers. Dungeons exist of a set of rooms/cards. One of them is the exit room. Once that room is beaten crawlers advance tot the next level. If they die, they die. Based on traits (e.g. coward, completionist) crawlers will continue exploring even if the exit room is found to grind some more xp.
Team member VanderLaken also participated in the 2024 PBBG game jam and secured forth place with their game "Detective Case Maker."
Luminara
Luminara is a game by Slyboots (consisting of Tempest and rynzaii) for the game jam intending to be World of Warcraft Classic-esque in mechanics.
The theme was to be satisfied by multiple worlds sitting upon one another with the same geography but with different world history, contents, and lore.
Several updates were given throughout the development period with a couple of mockups for in-game content shown, but the primary work seemingly on auxiliary tooling to help build the game's content.
The game was not submitted prior to the deadline, however the tooling, LoreKit, was made available a few days into the development period.
Shattered Worlds
Shattered Worlds by woubuc was a game that was intended to be a 4X-lite deckbuilding MMO.
The theme was to be satisfied through use of multiverse mechanics and/or lore.
Prior to the conclusion of the development period, woubuc indicated that the following progress had been made:
- A complete game design
- Prototype game content (cards, decks, etc)
- A bespoke game server framework with websocket support
Also noting that a work deadline had appeared which eliminated their ability to complete the game prior to the deadline.
As expected after the update, the game was not completed nor submitted to the game jam.
Untitled Cardboard Machete Game
Cardboard Machete (aka Zaalah, Caleb) worked on a hex-based map game with map control as a primary mechanic.
At least two player types are known; "Prophet" players that could build "shrines" and "Warmonger" players that could build "armies."
Additionally, a "Historical Events" screen was shown which shows the fully history for any given hex tile.
The game was not completed and Zaalah had noted agreement with another game jam participant who had expressed some mild work-related burnout reducing the desire/ability to work on the game jam submission after their day job.
Untitled Cylentwolf's Team Game
Cylentwolf's Team (consisting of only cylentwolf) was working on a game where the described idea (from their posted brainstorming) was that players are sent to a remote planet after suffering from a catastrophic explosion.
The theme would have been satisfied by a "Phase Array" component which would have seen players automatically shifted to a parallel world after a period of time if they had not rebuilt their base and fixed the "Phase Array" before it could send them away.
Resources across worlds were intended to be fixed in quantity; if World A started with 10,000 "forest" resources available and the player harvested 1,000 of them, then World B would see a total of 9,000 starting resources of whatever type they may be, e.g. 9,000 "ore" on World B.
They appear to have spent much of their time on trying to setup their infrastructure and CI/CD pipeline and did not provide any further updates regarding the gameplay itself past the initial brainstorming and no submission was made by the deadline.
cylentwolf had also participated in the PBBG game jam the year prior and secured first place in the game design document category with their entry "Phoenix City."
Untitled Page_Pirates Game
Page_Pirates (aka Dr_Leadfoot) was working on a game where the gameplay was intended to be similar to the BBS game Legend of the Red Dragon (LotRD) but with the ability to traverse between worlds at the end of each adventure.
In terms of theme, the intent was for "storybook realms" stemming from some of the lore from Brothers Grimm with the ability to select your role from one of the archetypes found across many of their stories.
Screenshots shown by Dr_Leadfoot have role selection of "The Hunter," "The Traveler," "The Woodsman," and "The Survivor."
In-game locations visible were also "Tavern," "Blacksmith," "Herbalist's Hut," and "Hunter's Lodge" which all fit thematically within Brothers Grimm lore and within the LotRD style of gameplay.
No submission was made prior to the deadline. They they that they didn't have enough to make for a coherent game but that they were happy with their experience and learnings.
Untitled Pixel Caravan Game
Pixel Caravan (consisting of Lincord and ManekiNeko77) was a team that joined the game jam and posted an initial overview of their intent with no further follow ups prior to the submission deadline.
The game was intending to satisfy the theme by way of dark/evil forces that have breached the barrier between parallel universes and are regularly attacking an otherwise peaceful universe controlled by the player.
Team member Lincord had participated in the 2024 PBBG Game Jam and secured second place with their entry "The Mad Factory."
What teams signed up but didn't partipcate?
updog
updog (consisting of only andz) signed up to the game jam and noted that the theme was "kicking [their] ass" so that were "going with something super simple" and provided no updates past that nor a submission.
andz had participated in the 2024 game jam and secured first place with their entry "Cycles of Change."
SUPAAH
SUPAAH signed up to the game jam and noted that they likely wouldn't have time to participate, stating they they likely won't have time to write so much as a doctype.
True to their word, they did not provide any updates nor did they make a submission.
After the development period ended, they stated Oh - I forgot this thing was on.
Terrible Creations
Terrible Creations (consisting of pablodev, Dyddy, and dryp) signed up to the game jam and only provided a single update a few days prior to the submission deadline noting that they were extremely busy with life and would be unable to submit.