Due At 3 AM
DUE AT 3 AM
Your paper is due at 12 AM technically, but you have a 3 hour grace period.
Also, it's currently 9 PM.
Stay up late to try and complete your essay before you fall asleep!
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Controls:
Press space to jolt yourself awake! This will refill some of your awake-ness, shown on the rightmost bar, and keep your eyes from closing. Jolt charges up over time, so waiting a bit between uses is best!
Click on the computer to write your essay! This will pop up a series of keys to press; press them in order to write your essay, and repeat until the essay is done!
Click on your coffee to drink! This will refill your caffeine to full; the less caffeine you have, the faster your awake-ness drains!
Click on the left side of your screen to view the window and coffee
If your coffee is empty, you need to refill it. Click on the left side of the screen to view the coffee maker, and click on the machine to begin refilling your coffee. Click it again when done to get your coffee back. (You can leave it running if you look back at your computer, then return later!)
If you can't go back to looking at your computer, something is watching you. Tell it to buzz off by clicking on it.
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Made for the Winter 2026 Zotjam over 2 days (technically about 1 and a half, since I didn't start until the second day). I had to rush to get this done, but decided against pulling an allnighter at the last minute. While this definitely resulted in less stuff getting added, I'm still happy with it. I added all the core mechanics I wanted to, plus some juice. I didn't get to adding sound before the deadline, but outside of that, I'm happy with the final product.
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Game made by Ashton Gallistel
All art and programming (except for the 2 things below) done by Ashton Gallistel
Code for blur effect taken from this video.
Code for screen shake taken from this video.
Comments
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how to win fast
Sadly it takes a bit of time to complete the game, but if you want to make things easier here's some tips!
-Stagger your jolts a bit. You get the same amount of 'energy' regardless of if you spam it or if you wait a bit. Don't wait too long as there is a cap, but about 10ish seconds between each press should be good.
-Try to drink coffee whenever your caffeine drops to about 50%. I've found that's a good point where you can have coffee available as often as possible, without losing too much energy due to low caffeine.
-Your coffee cup has 3 uses before you need to refill. Additionally, once you have your third drink, instantly go to the coffee machine refill the cup. This will minimize the amount of time you can't refill your caffeine.
-While your coffee cup is refilling, you can go back to your computer and keep writing. I've found it's possible to do 1-2 additional minigames before your coffee is ready, which optimizes your time as much as possible.
Best of luck! (And all good if you can't complete it, thanks for trying anyway! I didn't have enough time to fully playtest and balance everything before the deadline lol)