Three Thing Game Summer 2014 Wrap Up

These are the hardy survivors. Well done folks.

We had had a great time yesterday writing our games. I left around 10:30 pm having made a good start on my game. Then I was back developing at 7:00, along with lots of the other teams who seemed to have stayed all night and loved it. I lost a few hours doing academic things around the department, but at the end I've got something that I'm kind of proud of (at least from the outside - the code is horrible) and I'm going to get it into a demonstrable form. 

I'm not sure what the market is like for "Old School" text based adventures, but I'm going to find out. By the end we had 7 teams who finished up with demonstrable games. And by that I mean proper games. With a beginning, middle and end. And artwork and sound effects. Amazing, and in just about a day. Simon and Kevin wandered around judging and I followed with a wobbly camera. You can see the results here:

Top down fighting action here, with a "Bitmap Brothers" feel to the graphics and the things "Butler", "Ninja" and "Attack" being put to good use. Different styles of ninja and a scrollable level system kept the action going, as the hapless butler fends off wave after wave of bad guys.

Highly commended by the judges, this neat space shooter was formed from the things Hand Grenade, Ring of Power and Spacecraft. With two distinct game modes and an awesome looking 3D cityscape this was as good to watch as it was to play.

Another entry that was highly commended by the judges. Start from "Mayhem", "Puzzler" and "Of Fun" they crafted a neat space flying game where the player has to find linked gems in a puzzle in order to keep flying through space. The mayhem mode effects looked a lot like the movie "Gravity", but with more moving bits and bobs.

24 hours to make an Occulus Rift game from scratch. Why not. Or y! Anyhoo, from "Gentleman Thief", "Screwdriver" and" Inventor" the team made an immersive exploration game where you go in search of a screwdriver within a 3d rendered environment. And it worked

With a team name that sounds like three things, but isn't, this bunch had a lot of fun with Anti-aircraft gun, Liner and Zeus. What we got was an action packed sideways scroller with myriads of weapon modes and boss levels. Great fun to play and some lovely graphical touches.

Maze based dungeon bashing with a twist form Floating Goats. From Apocalypse, Downstairs and Locked the team crafted a succession of fighting arenas where the key to moving on is killing everything else. With some neat graphical touches, a splendid piece of work. Oh, and the twist.

This gained first place in the competition, and rightly so. There are some lovely touches, like the way that the tower "dings" when it is hit. The three words that they had, by the way, were Eiffel Tower, Flying Fish and Undersea. And all in around 24 hours. Magic.

The standard was astonishing. The winners were 1.21 Gigabytes,

Great game, well worth worthy prizes. 

The judges also highly commended these two teams.

BetaJester made not one, but two different and attractive games, both of which stuck closely to their theme.

Rusty Spoons ended their TTG career with something rather special that I really hope makes it into the marketplace.

It really was a fantastic occasion. Thanks to Dave for letting us play with his lab, Simon and Kevin for Judging, David, Simon and Martin for running the night shift, John for dropping round from C4DI and kudos to all the folks that took part. And book now for Three Thing Game Autumn, running from 31st October to 1st November. 

There are more team and winner pictures here. 

Update: Forgot to mention. The voting for the People's Choice award is still open. You can vote until Tuesday morning next week (the 17th June). The survey is here.