Ukie Students unveil their biggest nationwide Student Game Jam ever. Made up of over 250 students, from over 15 educational institutions, 55 teams competed to have their game crowned the cream of the crop and awarded with a plethora of prizes.
These prizes include:
- A tour of Meetspace VR's free-roam VR arena in Nottingham, with a free game of Zero Latency's Singularity
- Jagex swag bags with a variety of different prizes
- Milky Tea merch
- A free one-hour session in Game’s Belong Arenas, generously gifted to all students who took part in the Game Jam
Judges from King, Nextgen skills academy and representatives from the Global Game Jam, will be evaluating the games created on eight criteria, announcing the winning team on 2 November.
The games industry is often put under scrutiny for its stigma surrounding work hours, therefore Ukie students decided to do this Game Jam differently. They had the Game Jam span over two days to work in breaks and strongly encouraged them to do so, ordering pizza so they had to take a break which allowed time for rest periods and most importantly sleep, which they hope yielded better results for the students.
Alongside the running of the Game Jam, Ukie students caught up with one of the judges: Ishai Smadja, Project manager at King for some much-needed tips on how to cope and what they would’ve expected throughout the two days. He gave some advice which spurred on the students and expressed his anticipation for the creations “[I’m] Super excited to see what the students deliver”.
Through the two days, not only did Ukie students witness thousands of lines of code being written, but 316,400 calories being consumed in the form of one hundred and forty pizzas – courtesy of local takeaways across the country. The regular food breaks encouraged students to relax and recharge their minds and document their experience with hundreds of tweets thanking Ukie students for the doughy goodness provided.
We have already seen some of the games on our visits alongside Ukie students. We are truly overwhelmed with the talent and level of quality in these games made by the students. We can’t wait to see what the judges think, and thank the mentors, lecturers and sponsors who took part, for making this our biggest Game Jam yet.
Well done to everyone who competed and Good luck on your result.
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