Founder's Game Jam 2016
First of all – Happy 33rd birthday UAT! This past Friday, September 23rd marked the 33rd anniversary of the University of Advancing Technology, so it was only appropriate to host one of the best game jams yet! This past weekend the Founder's Game Jam brought in 12 teams (totaling 51 participants) from UAT, other schools, and even industry.
Ben Reichert of Game CoLab put on the event thanks to both sponsors UAT and Clique. The winners of the jam will get a free trip to Indiecade this October in Los Angeles, California. With such a grand prize for the winners, every team had to work hard for three days straight. Clique's sponsorship meant that students were heavily advised to use their product – voice recognition software. Referring to my last post, I was super excited to see the teams using this software with VR.
Adding on to the excitement of the jam was a documentary crew actually filming the students and their projects all weekend. Many students and guests were interviewed and had a spotlight to show off their work as well as themselves! (Once the documentary is produced I will write an update on that.)
I was happy to see a lot of new faces during the game jam. I've never seen so many first semester students participating in a jam as well as other students that have been at UAT for a while, but have never tried. I didn't personally participate in the jam, but you can bet I was there to talk to teams, try their VR, and learn about Clique's software.
The winner announcements:
3rd Place – Barred Quest
Awarded: T-Shirts, Theater movie passes
2nd Place – Busta Worm
Awarded: T-Shirts, $100 Best Buy Card (Each)
1st Place – Songbirds
Awarded: T-Shirts, All paid trip to Indiecade
Clique Tech Award – Loot and Scoot
Awarded: All paid trip to Indiecade
Special Guests:
Jason Pistillo, UAT – President
Tim Gentry, Clique – President
Christian Adame, Phoenix Art Museum
Jonathan Cottrell, Hopscratch - CEO
Tim Winsky, TwinSky Games
Jessica Conditt, Engadget – Senior Reporter
