The 2025 Ukie Student Game Jam is well underway with 203 students competing in 56 teams! All of the participants are members of Ukie Students, our year-round programme for students on video games courses at colleges and universities across the UK. Each team, which can be up to six students, has been paired with their very own industry mentor to guide them through the Game Jam.
As the Ukie Student Game Jam is fully remote, our jammers are working in computer labs far and wide. They’re staying connected in our dedicated Discord server, which fast became a supportive, feel-good community of over 270 students, faculty and industry professionals. Teams and mentors have been learning from each other, getting to know each other and, most importantly, sharing photos of their pets (vital for mid-Jam morale).
We are delighted to welcome some brilliant mentors from studios including Rare, Playground Games, Jagex, Lucid Games, Sports Interactive, Frontier Developments, Dlala Studios and more. The mentors have supported brainstorming and provided a calm, experienced eye on progress. Our mentors have given advice on everything related to game making, whether that be scope and project management, different approaches to programming and sound production, notes on concept art or, of course, pouring over screenshots of code for last-minute troubleshooting.
It’s been brilliant to have the industry mentors on board, and they've also been passing advice and tips on to each other, with a third of the 60 mentors returning from last year’s Jam. The Discord has become a great repository of advice, for example: “For every feature, ask "can we not?". If you can get away with not making it or not creating it, then do so. When something is working, ask "do I hate it?". If you don't hate it and it works, move on and polish it later.” These insights and pointers give our students a great window into how professionals deal with the issues they face, and how the best game makers in the world approach the core elements of their craft.
Students have begun branding their teams, and some charming and unique names have popped up, such as blobby bobby, Loot Goblins, Oddly Shaped, Ghosts on Toast, Cowboy Supermarket and the subtly self-effacing SUPER MEGA AWESOME TEAM.
In partnership with Playground Games, we’ve set our students the theme of contrast, and we're seeing some different interpretations of this. Teams playing with light/dark, colour contrast, mixing chemicals, sheep and wolves, and tonal contrast. You can already preview a teaser trailer for a cute/horror mashup from team I’m Hungry.
We’re delighted to have many students return to compete from last year’s Jam, with the first completed submission coming from returning jammer Yuvraj with this ‘goofy time manipulation puzzle platformer’ Rewind Time!!. Also returning is last year’s champion Charlie from Norwich University of the Arts, who won Best Moment-to-Moment Gameplay last year for his retro roguelike shooter error404. Charlie is back and collaborating with teammate Andy, hoping for a second trophy in 2025.
The Ukie Student Game Jam represents a fantastic opportunity for students to hone their skills, produce work to deadline and gain informative insights from industry figures. All of this would not be possible without the generous support of our partners Playground Games, Scan Computers, Barclays, Discord and Epic Games. From all of the jammers and ourselves at Ukie, thank you!