Play here: Cosmic Dash by Insality
Hello! This jam was tough but fun. Half of my time was eaten up by my workshop for the Jam (worth checking out — it’s knowledge-packed! https://youtu.be/qF19qpjZe9c) and, of course, the long-awaited Silksong. The other “half” went to regular work, and the third “half” I tried to save for the Jam itself.
The theme was Twist on Classic. I usually don’t follow themes too strictly and instead build something from old ideas. But this time I decided to revive an old memory: a game where you glide a square across a level filled with other squares to reach the finish. I liked that memory so much that I wanted to recreate it — but with lots of juice and see what happens.
My first commit was on September 6th, after some initial design work. I use Figma for mockups — here’s how they looked at current moment:
Figma Design
I follow a kind of ECS-style approach: entities for content (pure data), systems for the game’s main logic. I haven’t prototyped many games recently, but for this jam it worked really well. Features could be added in isolation without breaking other systems, which felt awesome.
For levels, I mostly used Tiled. I began with a simple test level and built the game around that. One cool discovery: in the newest Tiled, I can work directly with JSON files, no need to export (even auto-export, but one file is better than two) from TMX — awesome!
Tiled Screenshot
I switched to an isometric style, trying to make the visuals richer than just rounded squares. It looked rough at first, but over time it grew on me.
Isometric Visuals
The hardest part was making mechanics fun. I’m not passionate about level design (sadly the most important part of puzzle games). I added some basic mechanics like pushable boxes and teleports, then played around to see if they worked. The level design isn’t my favorite, but the game still feels enjoyable in a “flowy” way rather than a strict “puzzle” way — and that’s good enough for me.
I was surprised when I tested a two-player per level: it worked without any changes to the code! I just added a second player entity and it played perfectly. Loved that moment.
Control two players!
Game polishing was my favorite part. I spent a lot of time on sounds (all made by me). Music is from the amazing soundimage.org — highly recommend checking it out. I tried to make sure everything fit together to support the “flowy” and “juicy” feel. Pretty happy with the results.
All animations were created with Panthera 2.0 of course 
! As I showed in the workshop, it’s really fast to add small tweens and multiple animations to the game. For example, here’s what my player animations look like:
Panthera 2.0 Editor
In the last two days, I got serious: “okay, I need to actually finish this”. I added menus, settings, progress, and other essentials. Each little addition made a huge impact on the overall feel. Even the floating stars in the background (just default Defold particles btw) added so much.
Final visual
Play & comment here: Cosmic Dash by Insality
I’m really glad to release something and finally post some juicy GIFs for the community!
Happy Defolding!