PHOENIXVILLE, PA … A team containing three alumni of The College of New Jersey and one current student was awarded one of two major awards and a prize package valued at about $9,000 during the Philly Game Jam, a forty-eight hour game development contest.
Three teams from TCNJ competed at the event, which hosted ten teams including professional, student, and amateur entrants competing for the same awards. The three teams, TCNJ Red, TCNJ Blue, and TCNJ Yellow, were comprised of twenty-four members including four TCNJ alumni and eighteen current TCNJ students.
The Philly Game Jam began at noon on Oct. 23 amidst the GameX Industry Summit in Phoenixville, just an hour away from the college. Ten teams were each challenged with designing and developing an original computer game in only forty-eight hours. Prizes were awarded for “Most Innovative Game” and “Best Adherence to Contest Theme,” the latter of which was awarded to TCNJ Yellow’s game.
The game, simply titled “Yellow,” was developed by Mike Testen (TCNJ ’09), Jeff Rupert (TCNJ ’09), Samantha McLaughlin (TCNJ ’09), Akash Barot (UPenn ’09), Steve Testen (Drexel ’10), and Brian Bagdzinski (TCNJ ’10). All development, including design, programming, art, and sound, was done on-site at the competition during the two-day time period.
The inspiration for the trip came in the summer when several students who shared a class in the Spring 2009 semester heard about the contest and started e-mailing one another. By contacting classmates, friends, and various members of the campus community with an interest in game development, the group planned the trip completely independently and continued to gain members. The twenty-four students who attended the Game Jam represent a wide variety of majors, and include freshmen all the way through recent alumni.
The 2009 Philly Game Jam was just one part of the GameX Industry Summit, which was organized by International Game Developers Association chapters located in New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Boston, and supported by NBC Local Media in Philadelphia. The summit brought professionals from the industry at both ends of the East Coast to Philadelphia for two days of lectures, round-tables, and keynotes. Attendees also had the chance to play the games developed during the Game Jam, and TCNJ’s students had the opportunity to develop connections with local potential employers and increase the college’s profile in the game development community.