The British panel show game of Countdown made as a video game in 4 days for the GMTK 2026 game jam!

Instructions:

Letters Round - Click on the tiles or press the corresponding keyboard keys to write your word. Backspace also works for removing tiles

Numbers Round - Click on the number tiles to add numbers to your equation, click on the sign buttons to add signs. Clicking on the little lines next to number tiles in your equation will add parentheses to it, so you can reorder the evaluation. Erase elements from your equation by clicking on number tiles inside it, clicking the erase button, or pressing Backspace.

The game automatically ends after 14 rounds (10x Letters, 4x Numbers). 

Please let me know your scores and criticisms/bugs you find in the comments!

Developer's thoughts:

For it being my first time actually completing a game for a game jam, I'm quite happy with it, as I was finally able to not dream too big and aim for something doable and accomplished it. I wanted to implement roguelike mechanics, but there was no time for that, I'll leave that to the post game jam update - I would love to push it further from a Countdown copycat and more into a game of its own, I have many ideas on how, it just didn't make it for the jam :€.

Credits:

Art - the wonderful @Dragoneezz

Dictionary - Size 35 US/GB from https://app.aspell.net/create

Sound FX

Ticking Clock by sokworks -- https://freesound.org/s/860358/ -- License: Creative Commons 0

Gong - percussion 02_03 by Jagadamba -- https://freesound.org/s/257200/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

Fonts

Porto Buena by Posto Carattere

Pixelzone by GGBotNet

All rights of the game Countdown belong to Channel 4 UK, this is a fangame made with no expectation of monetary gain.