From horror to puzzles to strategy, this semester’s participants in the bi-annual GameJam all had a different take on the theme: “The world ends in two minutes.”
This weekend, 13 teams had 24 hours to design a game that fit within this theme. For one whole day, students sat in Euler Science Building classroom 217 and 218, working in pods throughout the classrooms.
Starting in the evening of Friday, Oct.18, each team began brainstorming and creating a game using coding, art and musical skills. The games concluded in presentations of each game by the developers.
Each team selected a volunteer to demonstrate the game for the audience. They explained the different aspects of their game while the audience watched and judged, based on a number of criteria: adherence to the theme, fun, completeness, visuals, audio and arcade-ability.
Throughout the presentations, the room filled with applause and encouragement as each team went to demonstrate their games. Even when games did not go as planned, participants uplifted one another.
The first place award went to Anthony Buyer and Kelden Wright, for their game. Second place went to “2 Minutes to Die.” “Critter Clamber” took third place, created by Sadie Miller and Riana Schultz.
The girls jumped up out of their seats as their place was announced.
“It’s our third [time] winning third place,” they said. “Next year our plan will be to aim higher than third place.”
Jon Denning, the department chair of computer science and engineering, congratulated each of the teams as they all filtered out of the room. He has organized and run GameJam since its first iteration in 2014. Since then, it has become an event held every semester.
“My vision for (GameJam) is that students will be able to take what they learn in the classroom and play it out in a fun environment but also end up with something that they can share with their friends and family,” he said.
He also expressed his appreciation for the commitment of each participant. He said he recognized the busyness of life at this time of the semester, and he knew each participant gave up a weekend in order to do GameJam.
Although the majority of the participants were Taylor students, there were also a few from the community who took part in the game. Linus Denning, the son of Jon Denning has been a faithful participant in the games for four years now.
His team took first place in the previous GameJam with their game Luminosity.
This year, his goals are slightly different.
“I'm making a complicated multiplayer game,” Linus said. “I'm on my own team trying to push myself really hard and make something interesting.”
This year he did not place, but he did create a successful multiplayer game that volunteers participated in during the demonstration.
While GameJam mostly applies to computer science and engineering majors, Jon Denning also hopes the game will help non-major students to see the multi-faceted nature of the major.
He wants to empower even non-computer science majors to design their own games and experiment with their own ideas and creativity using Scratch, he said.
Now, the winning games will be available for other students to play on the Taylor-cade. It will rotate through different locations on campus, and, for now, it is located on the second floor of Euler.
