The UK’s biggest game jam for professionals was held for its second year in Manchester this weekend, bringing together more than 200 people across three days to create brand new games from the ground up.
Judges from Sony, Unity, Supermassive, and more chose “Shape The Future” as this year’s theme, which gave birth to such ideas as an infinitely replayable “Terminator”-inspired shooter from Clever Beans (developers of “Wipeout: Omega Collection”), and “Congruence” from Next_Level where the players could send real-world text messages into the game.
Both the Best Game award and the Design & Gameplay award were won by Codemasters Evo with their game “Plan Of Attack” – a four-player simultaneous turn-based shooter where you must plan your moves in advance.
All the games are available to play at https://jamchester-2017.devpost.com/submissions
Luke Thompson of Best Company Game winner Sigtrap Games (who also won the “Best VR Game” Award at Jamchester 2016) said: “We’ve focused heavily on VR recently, but Jamchester was a great opportunity to do something completely different and we’re honoured to win an award for Synchrocide, our mind-bending isometric multiplayer arena game.”
Now in it’s second year, ‘Jamchester’ is the brainchild of local games industry network Gameopolis and HAC100, which has successfully hosted scores of 24 hour coding competitions over the last five years. Jamchester was also supported by headline sponsors Google Cloud Platform, Unity, Amiqus, and Studio Venues.
Jamchester co-organiser Simon Smith said: “Our team is proud to host Jamchester for a second year with an amazing 44 games being submitted. Its great to see game devs from major companies like Codemasters, Clever Beans, and Dubit compete with successful indies on a level playing field and have a lot of fun.”
Jamchester has also teamed up with SpecialEffect, with all ticket proceeds going to the charity to help gamers with disabilities. Promoting the work of the charity and September’s “One Special Day” event, SpecialEffect Ambassador Stephen Hey said: “We’re extremely grateful to events like Jamchester that bring the video game development community together and to give us the opportunity to promote the work of the team at SpecialEffect. Jamchester is a fantastic outpouring of talent and creativity that we are excited to be part of.”
ENDS
You can find more information at www.Jamchester.org.uk .
Our website for the event with playable submissions is at https://jamchester-2017.devpost.com/submissions
LIST OF WINNERS
Best Game
“Plan Of Attack” by Codemasters Evo.
Best Company Team
“Synchrocide” by Sigtrap Games.
Best Student Team
“Colonies” by Transcendent Door (Abertay University).
Art & Visual Presentation
“Worlds Apart” by Ghost Void.
Design & Gameplay
“Plan Of Attack” by Codemasters Evo.
Audio Design
“Filian Dei” by Team Deus.
Technical Achievement
“The Butterfly Effect” by Force Of Habit.
Innovation & Creativity
“Congruence” from Next_Level.
SPONSORS
Sponsors – Google Cloud Platform, Unity, Amiqus, Studio Venues.
Supporters – All 4 Games, Ukie, TIGA, Tech North.
Charity Partner – SpecialEffect!
JUDGING TEAM
Our Judging Team were:
- Gary Napper – Chief Judge ().
- Claire Bromley (Associate Producer, Sony XDev Studio).
- Des Gayle (Founder of Altered Gene & Freelance Producer for Square Enix Collective).
- Jon McKellan (Creative Director & Founder at No Code).
- Jordan Webber (Freelance Journalist at The Guardian and The Gadget Show).
- Liz Mercuri (Educational Evangelist at Unity Technologies).
- Sam Hughes (Lead Editor at The Sound Architect).
- Si Lumb (Senior Product Manager (AR/VR/Interactive) at BBC R&D).