The department of Game Design at Uppsala University, campus Gotland
This is the highly informal blog of the GAME-department. We use it mostly to document the things we do outside of running one of the worlds strongest game educations. For information about our education, programs and courses, check the official site at Uppsala University.
If the second years seemed a bit stressed of late, this is why. Their first characters ever – pretty awesome way to end their first 3D course. Well done, folks!!
– Nataska
As is our custom we sent a dozen of our students and their games to Gamex / ComicCon this year too. This year we showed off primarily 1st and 2nd year games and drew decent crowds with multiplayer games like Frog Climbers, the only true zombie-survival game Zombie Crawler, the relaxation and sleep helper Slumber and the unlikely party game Cryptogram; an escape the room horror game controlled entirely by a book shelf. 🙂
Gamex has changed a lot in the transition to ComicCon though. They still call it a show floor, but the only thing on show is merchandise. There are almost no game developers or publishers here anymore, so visitors pay good money for tickets only to get into a glorified market with hawkers pushing landfill-destined “collectible” plastics, plush toys, “loot crates” and other “nerd culture” ephemera. I’m not against commerce and people buying shit, but I am against charging people for the privilege. With the show floor at its current state, an entrance fee seems shameful.
What saved the weekend, I think, were the many ambitious cosplayers, the 2-3 companies that brought room-scale VR for people to try, our booth neighbors Little Nightmares and the many educations who, like us, were showing off experimental and exciting playable stuff.
A substantial part of the visitors seemed to be from small-child families, so the average age in these pictures trend towards the lower end. But it’s kind of cool to see how well received the games are by nearly anyone who tries them. To the extent that they often come back later with family or friends to show them the game too.
Our students did a great job, as always. They work their butts off during exhibitions like this. Long hours, lots of interactions, all while maintaining their constructions and keeping the games running under what can only be described as a three-day non-stop stress test. They worked hard, and they earned some very good publicity for their efforts! Listen to these interviews:
Susanne Möller, P3 Spel, played Zombie Crawler and Cryptogram at 1:32:45.
The Nördigt podcast talked Zombie Crawler (and Ballistic Balloon Battle) at 16:45
The semester (with all new pimple-face youths) just started, so it’s time for another edition of My First Jam! 8 hours from start to finish, in a game development race towards the coveted awards; Best Interpretation, Best Execution och Most Fun.
To welcome the new students we award bonus points to teams with mixed student cohorts (1st, 2nd and 3rd year students) and everyone must work with the same tech – this year we went with Game Maker – which is incredibly noob-friendly, just like we are. 🙂
Congratulations to the Cryptogram and Sam and Nicole teams on their success at the Swedish Game Awards! Way to go, folks!
Sam and Nicole was awarded Best Diversity Effort and given a cash prize of 7 000 SEK as well as two conference passes to Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Cryptogram was awarded Best Execution in Design, Best Technical Execution and Best Execution in Narrative and given a total cash prize of 21 000 SEK as well as a visit to Might and Delight.
Check the official SGA website for the rest of the winners!
Here are some photos from awards, courtesy of the event photographer Sebastian Bularca.
