Quackers about games

university-of-waikato

Mon Feb 02 2009 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

Quackers about games

Monday, 2 February 2009, 10:27 am
Press Release: University of Waikato

Spending an entire weekend in a computer lab might not sound like everyone’s idea of fun, but for 37 keen gamers participating in the first-ever Global GameJam at the University of Waikato it’s been a weekend of doing what they like best. Their challenge: to create an innovative five-minute computer game in just 48 hours.

Organised by the US-based Global Game Developers Organisation, the Waikato event was held at the University’s Computer Science Department, one of 53 locations in 23 countries. All participants began at 5pm Friday local time, starting with New Zealand and ending in Hawaii.

Local organiser and Waikato computer science lecturer Bill Rogers said the main idea behind the Global GameJam was to get together to share ideas and have fun – and perhaps along the way come up with some novel game ideas.

The Waikato event attracted game enthusiasts from high school students to computer programmers, and even an independent game developer all the way from Waiheke Island.

“The GameJam was a good chance to get off the island,” said Andy Wiltshire. “Plus it’s an opportunity to see what everyone else is doing.” He and his partners have several games at the prototype stage, and expect to release the first one later this year.

Working in teams, the Waikato GameJam participants had 48 hours to come up with an innovative game idea on the theme: “As long as we have each other we will never run out of problems.” They also had to incorporate one adjective ‘blank’, ‘cold’ or ‘modern’, and then create a five-minute demo game using all their programming and design skills.

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Hamilton Boys High School Year 13 student Shawn Reader said his team decided to create a game based on two players stalking each other in a constantly changing terrain. “We worked on the concept of a ‘blank slate’, and having the terrain randomly changing meant we didn’t have to have great graphics.”

The game makers were fuelled over the weekend by free drinks and pizza courtesy of local sponsor Lightwire, which provides broadband access in the University’s halls of residence, and plans this year to extend its coverage across campus and into the city centre.

At the close of the Waikato GameJam, teams voted on the best game. The winners were senior Waikato computer science students Daniel Tebbutt, Robert McKinnon and Karl Hendrikse with their ‘Poultry Temperature Manager’ game – about managing the temperatures of groups of ducks during a period of global cooling.

They were narrow victors over team Sabotage with their ‘Canyon’ game in which two climbers have to cooperate in climbing up a closing crevasse.

Bill Rogers said the GameJam was a great opportunity for would-be game developers to showcase their talent.

“The game industry is one where what you’ve done is more important than your qualifications,” he said. “Employers want evidence that people have done something, shown some energy and seen a project through. So if you do well at the GameJam you’ll end up with something on a global game developers’ site – and you’ll be noticed.”

It’s expected that about 1,000 new games will have been created at the Global GameJam over the weekend. The final results will be available to view at www.globalgamejam.org.

ENDS

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