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This year we ran another GBA Jam, which had an incredible turnout! There were so many high quality entries (56 in total), with several ties among them. It was real tough to pick out the winners.
A huge thank you and congratulations to everyone who took part, as well as everyone who donated to the prize pool, our fellow organisers and judges. Finally, thanks to our generous sponsors, whose support made this event possible:
incube8 Games, insideGadgets, Epilogue, Bitmap Bureau and Game Bub.
If you've played and enjoyed the entries so far, then a special thanks to you too. If you haven't then... you know what to do. :)
Results
Prize winners are marked in bold, open-source bonus is denoted by ﹢.
A four-way tie break was required for 6th place due to the physical prize, other ties have been left as-is.
Full detailed results for all 56 entries can be found on the itch.io results page.
Overall (Top 20)
- Damage Report by Tapir Labs
- It Matters by gordonshamway23, WTBasil
- Dungeon Tactics by Tapir Labs
- The Artifact by Reggie and Qwertyman ﹢
- Dare To Doku by Homebrew Twins
- Pinball Galaxy Demo Ver by Sarai Takemoto
- Starfall Advance by Dreamnoid
- Witch×Bullet by CoffeePasta
- Mordoboy GBA by lipucka ﹢
- Knock Time by Stuck Pixel Studio
- Forever Witch Fighter GBA by origamiscienceguy ﹢
- Breakoid by CeL, JPtom, Cyberdeous
xo89 by Nostabyte Interactive
Ounfò Tan Sispann by Fralacticus - A Betty and Claude Cartoon by OutOfSync
Paladado Demo by ChristopherThompsonUT - Tiny Relic Quest - GBA Edition by Soin GameDev
Auguries from the Mist: Ambushed by Glitch Cauldron
Noonlight Paradox by zegalur - Antibody by Pyro_Pyro, exelotl, ReyOruga, Pixel _Jamp
Technical
- Ounfò Tan Sispann by Fralacticus
- GBA GB Maps by codename_B
- WFX by Factor
- A Betty and Claude Cartoon by OutOfSync
GBA MINESWEEPER 6D by codename_B
Originality
- A Betty and Claude Cartoon by OutOfSync
It Matters by gordonshamway23, WTBasil
Auguries from the Mist: Ambushed by Glitch Cauldron - The Artifact by Reggie and Qwertyman
- mimiclime by copyrat90
Graphics
- Knock Time by Stuck Pixel Studio
- Noonlight Paradox by zegalur
Dungeon Tactics by Tapir Labs - It Matters by gordonshamway23, WTBasil
Breakoid by CeL, JPtom, Cyberdeous
Audio
- Dungeon Tactics by Tapir Labs
- Damage Report by Tapir Labs
- Antibody by Pyro_Pyro, exelotl, ReyOruga, Pixel _Jamp
- Sleepyheads by VHaugan
Knock Time by Stuck Pixel Studio
Dare To Doku by Homebrew Twins
Polish
- Dare To Doku by Homebrew Twins
- Damage Report by Tapir Labs
- It Matters by gordonshamway23, WTBasil
- Dungeon Tactics by Tapir Labs
- Pinball Galaxy Demo Ver by Sarai Takemoto
Judging and Prizes
The GBA Jam 2026 submissions were judged by: PyroPyro, GValiente, kva64, exelotl, colonelsalt, lifning, evanbowman, skylyrac, Afska.
If you won a prize, we'll be in touch via email over the next few days! More details on how the prizes were calculated can be found here.
As per our policy on multiple entries from a single team, Damage Report and Dungeon Tactics (both made by Tapir Labs) claimed both 1st and 3rd place, they will keep their score placement but will only be eligible to claim prizes for their highest ranking game, Damage Report. The prize structure for 3rd place and below will shift down 1 level.
Physical Prizes
The top 9 participants can choose from the following pool. We'll contact winners in descending order; the first 3 prizewinners may pick 2 items each, and everyone else may pick one.
- 2 × Discrete Orange for Game Boy Advance, courtesy of Incube8 Games
- 2 × Kien for Game Boy Advance, courtesy of Incube8 Games
- 3 × GBxCart RW cartridge flasher/dumper, courtesy of insideGadgets
- 1 × GB Operator cartridge flasher/dumper, courtesy of Epilogue
- 3 × Xeno Crisis for Game Boy Advance, courtesy of Bitmap Bureau
- 1 × Game Bub FPGA retro-emulation handheld, courtesy of Eli Lipsitz
Money Prizes
- 1st place - $653
- 2nd place - $261
- 3rd place - $163
- 4th place - $131
- 5th place - $98
Open source bonus
Additional prize money is given to the top 3 entries whose source code was released under a free-software license.
- 1st - $163
- 2nd - $98
- 3rd - $65
Tie-breaks
Tie-breaks have been applied only where necessary for physical prizes to be assigned. Consequently we had to resolve a 2-way tie for 1st place between Damage Report and It matters, a 2-way tie for 3rd place between Dungeon Tactics and The Artifact, and 4-way tie for 6th place between MORDOBOY GBA, Starfall Advance, Witch×Bullet, and Pinball Galaxy Demo Ver.
To break the ties, we ran 8 polls in parallel, asking judges to vote on which of each pair of games they liked the most. This gave the following results:
1st Place
| Tiebreak poll outcomes: | Total | |
| Damage Report | 5 | 5 |
| It Matters | 4 | 4 |
3rd Place
| Tiebreak poll outcomes: | Total | |
| Dungeon Tactics | 6 | 6 |
| The Artifact | 3 | 3 |
6th Place
| Tiebreak poll outcomes: | Total | ||||||
| Pinball Galaxy Demo Ver | 4 | 6 | 6 | 16 | |||
| Starfall Advance | 6 | 3 | 5 | 14 | |||
| Witch×Bullet | 5 | 4 | 4 | 13 | |||
| MORDOBOY GBA | 3 | 5 | 3 | 11 | |||
Using a round robin tournament structure for these polls, Pinball Galaxy Demo Ver and Starfall Advance drew with 2 wins each. We used the total votes to resolve the final order.
