Registration open!

Registration is now open!

I have made an all new video to entice you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2pbb_Rbhrk and to announce that registration for the event is now open!

It is my pleasure to announce that the magnificent, marvellous, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, Three Thing Game is a go! For those not in the know, Three Thing Game is a Game Jam run over a weekend. Teams of enthusiasts (that’s you people, as well as me and my ‘kind’) gather to challenge themselves to create a game based on 3 random words that they will be given. At the end of the weekend you get to subject your game to a thorough Judging against various criteria like: adherence to the Things, how complete is your game, and how much money you slip the judge discreetly. Over the years teams from all years of study have made some great stuff, some of which has even been published in various app stores. So you should definitely not be discouraged from taking part in your first year. This is an excellent opportunity to put your skills in to practice, to hone your craft. This is also one of those ‘extra-curricular’ activities that help to distinguish you in the eyes of potential employers from the 300 other people that will be graduating from here at the same time.

Industry Guests

Exciting news! Studio Gobo and Electric Square employees will be coming to Three Thing Game this November. They will be arriving on Saturday and staying to take part in the Judging on Sunday. In between they will be having a look at your games and chatting about what it is like to work in the industry and at their studio in particular.

They are also very kindly buying us pizza.

Hullumni

I am very pleased to invite our alumni to come play with us. Many of our former students are Three Thing Game veterans and it would be great to see them again. You are very welcome to come with preformed teams (getting the band back together perhaps) or go stag and see who else comes. Also if you want to have some time to talk to the students in your professional capacity (maybe you want to entice them to your company) then you are welcome to do that also. You won’t have access to the canvas files below, but if you are interesting to taking part in any capacity, then please get in touch.

Change of Pace

Starting in November (and likely to be carried forward to future Three Thing Games) we will be time shifting the event to run Saturday morning to Sunday evening (instead of Friday night to Saturday evening) and having a deliberately scheduled break in the middle for sleeping and showering etc. The games industry has made progress since its infancy with regards to work/life balance and healthy working practices and we are changing too.

So at 1800 on Saturday evening we will be hitting the pause button, listening to our industry guests give a talk, having some pizza together, and looking at each other’s progress and ideas. At 2100 we will close the lab, get some sleep, freshening up, ready to return at 1000 on Sunday morning to sprint to the finish.

So what do I need to do?

I am glad you asked. First thing is to put the date in your diary.

Remember, remember the (weekend of the 3rd and 4th) of November game making, three things, the lot. I see no reason why Game Jam season should ever be forgot.

Form teams! Generally speaking, you want to have a maximum of 5 people in your team. Under the pressure of 24 hours it can be very difficult to integrate the efforts of large numbers of people. Even 5 is pushing it a little. You can register online here: https://www.menti.com using the code 83 03 49. It costs £2 per person in your team to take part, which helps to cover the cost of all the food and snacks that will be supplied. Your registration is preliminary when you submit your completed form and completed once I have the right total amount of money for your team. You can give me the money in my office RBB-311D, you may want to email me to confirm that I am there in case of lectures and meetings and bears (oh my).

Registration will close on Wednesday 31st October so please get your registration forms and money to me before then so that we can organise the right quantities of food and refreshments. The last opportunity to give me money will be during the Thing Distribution Event.

There are a limited number of places as everyone needs to be able to fit in the big lab and these are on a first come first served basis.

If you would like to take part but can’t form a team then you can go stag and be a team of one (some people have made this work very well before) or you could identify on your form that you would like to be in a team by using “need a team” as the team name on the form. We can then pool you together into teams. Where there is a will there is a way.

Finding teams

You may already have a team in mind which is fine, but making its debut this year is the new Hull Games: Bonus Level Discord site. More news about this in the future but in short it is a place for us to communicate amongst each other about making games, whether you are an artist, programmer, or musician, or anything else really. It is here:

https://discord.gg/QM4turg

There is a room in there called ‘#looking for help’ where you may consider putting things like ‘looking for a digital artist/musician/programmer to join our team’ so we can properly integrate some amazing diverse skillset teams.

When do I get my words?

Excellent question. On Wednesday 31st October at 1300 in LTA in the Robert Blackburn building. So I guess that you probably want to remember that as well.

What about on the day?

At 1000 Saturday 3rd November we will kick off in the Fenner 052/65 Computer Lab. You may have allocated places depending on your team size.

My computer is amazing, can I bring it?

Yes you can, but it is wholly your responsibility. It is worth noting that there is a break on Saturday night until Sunday morning so the lab will not be occupied during this time. Everyone is also responsible for ensuring that the lab is left in the manner that it was found (or better). If it isn’t then it is likely that we won’t be allowed to do it again.

When can I go home?

The judging will take place at 1500 on Sunday 4th November. The judges will make their way around the teams and you will have 3 minutes to pitch your game. You will also have to create a 3 minute video of your game. The judges will shortlist games for the final judging that will take place in Robert Blackburn Lecture Theatre A at 1600. The videos of the shortlisted games will be shown to everyone and the teams will be prepared to answer questions about their game. And, to answer the actual question, it should all be done and dusted by 1700.