Game Jam!

On the Labor Day weekend, Centennial College’s Game Art and Design program hosted the first ever Full Circle CS Game Jam.  It was a three day meeting of graduating and incoming Centennial students as well as professionals from the game and animation industry and game enthusiasts.  The purpose of the weekend was to collaborate to brainstorm, conceptualize, design and ultimately produce a game within the time allotted.  The energy was great and every night was a late night.  We gave ourselves a time limit to finish brainstorming and conceptualization on the first night, the second day we spent creating all our game assets.  Which was a very ambitious 20 something characters (not including props and effects) spanning 3 levels.  Many of the characters required animation, fortunately we had a few experienced animators involved.  So once all that was done, the final day was spent tying up loose ends and putting the elements into the engine.  The game didn’t quite get completely finished, but we did get to see it in action at the end.

Overall the experience was a great one.  The best thing was seeing how much can get done when you give yourself time limits and act decisively.  The energy was great throughout and it was great making new friends and working on something we all love.  It was a huge pay off to see all our hard work come to fruition in a game.

Overall the experience was a great one.  The best thing was seeing how much can get done when you give yourself time limits and act decisively.  The energy was great throughout and it was great making new friends and working on something we all love.  It was a huge pay off to see all our hard work come to fruition in a game.

Going forward, the game will be tweaked some more and eventually released as a free app on the iPhone/iPad marketplace.

The main question we got from everyone involved was…When is the next one!?  Hopefully soon!

Thanks to everyone involved and thanks to Mike, the creator of Engine001, for allowing us to use his engine and lending his expertise throughout the process, Gavin and Tony for organizing the event and Centennial for allowing us to use the space and equipment.

By Gavin Ball

Game Art & Design: 3D Modeling & Texturing 1

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