EGX 2019 Student Jam
Shortly after finding out that our yearly university trip to EGX was cancelled, due to it being relocated to London, a tutor approached to inform me that the student jam was happening and they were still looking for teams to apply.
I immediately contacted the event organiser, Jo Summers, to enquire about entering a team from the North West. The only other university teams that had entered were from in and around London. Jo was very accommodating and after a short negotiation she agreed to pay for me and my team to travel down.
In total we had VIP tickets, food venue vouchers, return train tickets and accommodation all paid for in advance. We were also provided laptops to use at the event with the software we required pre-installed. I am still incredibly thankful to Jo (and my team!) for this opportunity.
The first day of the expo was for VIP ticket holders only and the game jam only began on the second day, so we were free to roam the show floor and interact with game developers before the venue got too busy. Some of the developers were enthusiastic about the game jam too and ended up coming to chat with us whilst we were working.
After a couple guest speakers had spoken, the theme “Sports That Couldn’t Exist” was revealed and we got to work brainstorming. In the end we settled on the idea of Robot Wars meeting nans on mobility scooters, thus Nan Turismo was born.
I found it interesting, when we got to working, that out of the 8 teams in attendance, only our team wasn’t using Unity. I don’t know much about Unity but it seems like Unreal Engine 4 gave us an advantage by being able to prototype the game and include our assets super fast.
The entire event was a great social experience. We developed a great rapport and friendly rivalries with all of the other teams, with one of our members spending a couple hours on the final day helping another team fix the AI for their game. We also had the opportunity to meet some of the developers for both Unreal Engine and Unity, both of which were impressed with our progress on the first day!
When it came to presenting our game, I sat down with Jacob (the other speaker from our team) to go over what we should each talk about, so as to not step on each other’s toes. I find that discussing what went wrong with the project is just as important as discussing the successes, it lets us take away some constructive lessons that we can utilise in future projects.
Unfortunately we didn’t leave ourselves with enough time to make sure we recorded good footage for the presentation so it looked choppy and the video was too long so the best part of the level got cut too! People were able to play our game on the show floor afterwards though and I later uploaded better footage for those who were watching on Twitch.
The Great Northern Creative Expo Award
Initially the team and I were completely unaware that this expo existed, however UCLan was hosting the event and our tutors had nominated us for the ‘Award For Creative Excellence’. The event itself was rather strange, none of the nominees’ work was displayed for the award so attendees didn’t really know what they were applauding when we won the category.
During this period some of us were taking part in the 2019 Epic Megajam (Life As We Know It), so the event was, all in all, a welcome break from the chaotic schedule we’d committed to.
Beating the masses to the show floor
Listening to guest speakers before the theme reveal
Group picture in the thick of things
Working late at the hotel on the first night
Wild eyed Adam
Found time to walk around the show floor early on the second day
Still having fun
Proud of my team mate, helping another group in the final hours
Presenting on stage to a live crowd, also live on Twitch