Cinnamon Space: Hottest Game of 2026

Would you like to download the most exciting pastry-based Asteroids clone ever created? Well you've come to the right place!

Hazel has wanted to make a video game for a while, and this past week we finally sat down and did it!  I had heard about GameMaker from watching the Juniper Dev YouTube channel (check out this one on Silksong).  GameMaker helps you make 2D games, and has lots of tutorials available.

Hazel and I watched this tutorial about making an asteroids-style game.  Hazel followed along really well, and I stepped periodically to answer questions or help if she missed a detail.

What's in a Name?

When we started the tutorial, the first thing you do is create project, and to do that you have to give it a name, like "my first game" or "asteroid shooter" or whatever.  Hazel went the unconventional route of choosing Cinnamon Space.  Why? I have no idea.  But after we finished the tutorial, this choice of name would change the, if I may be so bold, art direction of her "my first game" game.

Since she'd named the game Cinnamon Space, I suggested making it dessert-themed, and we could create our own art using Procreate.  I did a rough outline of a blueberry pie-shaped space ship and Hazel finished it, then made the cinnamon bun/asteroid sprites on her own.

Picture of original pixel art sprites supplied by GameMaker, and the sprites Hazel and I drew.
Original art versus ours.

Polishing Up The Game

At the end of the tutorial you have a completely silent game that can show your score from the current run.  We decided it would be fun to record our own sound effects and figure out how to add them to the game.  We recorded some audio, including the fantastic "oh no I died" sound that plays when you hit a cinnamon bun.

Screenshot of Audacity Audio Editor
The tracks we recorded

I floated the idea of tracking the high score, because during our play testing it was hard to remember who had done better.  I mentioned that we could keep track of a separate "highscore" variable, but how would we know when to update it?  Hazel figured it out (if current_score > high_score, set the high_score to current_score).

We also added an additional challenge.  The tutorial caps the number of rocks (cinnamon buns in our case) to 12.  We decided that every so many points, there should be more buns.  So now every time you score an additional 1,500 points (destroy 30 buns) you have to contend with one more cinnamon bun.

Screenshot of GameMaker showing a conditional branch
The conditional branch that updates the high score and draws some stars

Final Touches & Download.

We added some text to explain the keys, and we put a little "By Hazel & Dad" in there too!  We had a lot of fun building Cinnamon Space, and if you'd like to play it, you can download the Windows version or the Linux version.  I tested the Linux version on my Arch (which is where we were running GameMaker) and it ran without issues.

 

This article was updated on June 28, 2026

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