#raisethegamejam Winners Revealed!
This year we had students from over 25 educational institutions from Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland take part. Despite the issues surrounding Covid-19, year on year there is an increasing level of competition as students continue to improve and impress with their submissions. To help students work safely during the lockdown period, Ukie created and share a remote working guide to participating students.
With 300 students participating in the #raisethegamejam, across 70 Teams, this was always going to be a difficult choice. The jam – which took place on the 18-19 November across the length and breadth of the country - tasked Ukie’s student game jammers with creating compelling games to raise awareness of diversity and inclusivity, in line with the industry diversity pledge, #raisethegame.
Before the winner is revealed, Ukie would like to take a moment to thank Epic Games, Hi-Rez Studios, YRS Truly, DELL, Milky Tea Studios, Codemasters, Coatsink, BGI, Aardvark Swift, Netspeak Games, Dead Good PR, and of course the wonderful #raisethegame pledge partners for supporting this years game jam. Ukie would also like to say thank you to the mentors who took time out of their busy lives and schedules to guide student teams through this process. Ukie students are extremely grateful for your support.
So, who won?
Winners!
We can't stress how difficult it was to come to a decision this year. Every team took a completely unique approach to the theme and there were some incredible final submissions. Everyone who took part should be very proud of what they have achieved over such a short period of time. So, without further ado, this year's #raisethegamejam winners are..
Team Name: Mischievous
Game Title: Each Our Own
Educational Institute: Norwich University of the Arts
#raisethegamejam runners-up!
It really was a difficult decision for the judges this year. However, thanks to Ukie member Dell we were able to extend the prizes to 2nd and 3rd place this year. When we say close it was, we mean it - there was very little between 1st, 2nd & 3rd this year. The judges weren't just extremely impressed with the concepts, playability, but with how well they linked to the theme. Check out the runners-up below.
2nd Place
Team Name: Free Ranged Humans
Game Title: Scrambled
Educational Institute: National Film & Television School (NFTS)
3rd Place
Team Name: No Breakfast Club
Game Title: The Kind-ers
Educational Institute: Abertay University
If you would like to download and play any of this year's submissions then please do so here.
Social Champion Award
For a third year running Ukie included the Social Champion Award in order to make this national event feel more inclusive. This year we were blown away by the truly astonishing levels of engagement the #raisethegamejam received. The use of #raisethegamejam drove over a quarter of a million impressions, thousands of engagements, and over 1,000 tweets directed at the event. This year's Social Champion Award winners are The Jamalambs from Southampton University, delivering some truly entertaining content whilst also looking to engage with other teams through likes, comments, and retweets. The sole purpose of this award is to make this feel like a collective event, which they truly encompassed.
Mentor of the Planet Award
Throughout the game jam, teams are paired with an industry mentor to help guide them and give advice. This is also an exciting opportunity for students to meet with and ask questions of someone who works in the industry. Post-event we ask students to complete a questionnaire and provide a statement about their mentor, with the highest scoring mentor receiving the Mentor of the Planet Award. We are delighted to reveal that this year's Mentor of the Planet Award goes to Christopher Knowles, Founder at Sidequest Ninja!
Here is what Team Error 30 had to say:
"He guided us through almost the entire implementation of our code, which took several hours to try to accomplish. As many in our team were entirely new to coding and had minimal experience - that was our biggest struggle for the game jam and Chris could not have been more helpful.
He devoted a lot of time to us and was very willing to work through problems with us, he was always there when we needed him and his availability was above and beyond what we ever expected. The team could not have asked for a more supportive mentor, especially since we were so helpless in coding.
It is important to say that not only did Chris help us technically, but he was a massive morale boost for us and gave us confidence in our work - and overall made the GameJam such an incredible experience seeing what he was working on as well.
It would not be the same without him and we hope this reflects that!"
A Final Word
The judges had their work cut out for them this year and managed to handle the process with professionalism and integrity, spending a whole week reviewing all of the games. A big thanks to the judges Alexandre Grimonpont, Emma Hall, James Crowther, MJ Widomska, Dominic Shaw, Liam Price, and James Dodd!
With the end of an immensely successful year nigh, we’d like to thank everyone who was involved in the running of the #raisethegamejam and congratulate everyone who participated in the making of the games, every-single game we saw was at a professional standard and we now look forward to 2021 pushing the initiative for an even bigger jam.
Follow Ukie Students for updates or get in contact with Leon to find out how your business can get involved.