Xbox 360
As we entered the final stages everyone was shown a video covering the last 48 hours. These were excerpts, day by day, from the Scottish Game Jam and had quotes from not only the organisers but from judges as well.
For all those involved this video represented an opportunity to look back at their own work and those of the others and it's also available for you to look at on the Scottish Game Jam website.
After this we entered the final throes as, with games now uploaded to the game jam site, the teams got to talk about their games to the judges.
After seeing the video look back across the whole event we got an idea of the fun and energy involved as bright eyed, passionate individuals, all pooled their ideas for the days to come and slowly but surely succumbed to sleep deprivation; with the allure of power drinks and, impressively few, frayed tempers along the way.
Some imaginative, innovative games emerged out the other side ready to be judged. All of these games had two aspects in common: the theme of deception, as Romana Khan had explained, and that very shortly they were about to be picked apart by industry representatives. On the panel we had four representatives from APB developer Realtime Worlds: Kestutis Tauckela, Anders Elfgren, James Strain and Muir McDonald as well as David Thompson from Denki. The judges were more than qualified to cast a critical eye or two over the 48 hour creations. One by one the teams made their way up to the podium and presented their pitches to the audience, as well as bringing a prototype to the judges for inspection.
More details of the teams can be found in the Scottish Game Jam Archives where they're covered in a lot more detail and their games can be found on the Global Game Jam site.
The first to team step up had developed the game Ghostlight based upon a haunted house where objects in the world may appear real but are far from it. Using a 360 controller each coloured face button initiated the relevant coloured light in game. All the assets were custom made and as the ghosts approached they gave a cheeky little wink. Nice.
The next group to face a savaging from our panel proudly displayed the fantastically named Panda Dragoon: Bees on Ice which unsurprisingly has a Panda sliding along on an ice rink. By varying the shifts between black and white backdrops, similarly coloured enemies could suddenly turn invisible creating mayhem on screen. With a unique art style and locked down game design, this one proved to be a firm favourite from the start by eliciting wide grins all round.
Our next competitors showcased Sewer Love, which once again had an interesting art style and tasked the player with making your playable bacteria as ugly as possible in order to fend off the unwanted advances of smitten white blood cells.
Moving on we had Hardcore Sinkopation whose team were huge fans of what Scottish and Global Game Jam are trying to achieve. "I've been wanting to make a game for ages and this was the perfect opportunity for it" they also felt that the sense of community and team working at the event was invaluable "It's the first time I've actually ever worked in this sort of a team and it's been really, really rewarding." Hardcore Sinkopation was described by the team as a game whose sole mechanics are based around deception. This one was a genuine mind destroyer with established mechanics being thrown out of the window at every chance possible. The innovation and enthusiasm really shone through, with future iterations of the game even hoping to feature flashing images which induce alpha waves in the brain. Pioneering stuff, although epileptics beware.
The Lord of The Rink: Return of Rampuck team presented next but unfortunately were unable to show a working prototype, however the proposed gameplay crux was pretty interesting, the control scheme is set to change at certain checkpoints in an obstacle course, in effect making the controller your enemy.
The next team with the longest game title ever: Oh No! A Black Hole! Thank FUCK for the Intergalactic Moving Agency! presented a concept based upon card game deception tactics, for example each player is assigned a faction to work for and they need to bluff their way through moves in order to gain the most amount of intergalactic loot.
Moving on, the Command and Deceive team showcased an ambitious take on Command and Conquer but the main deception being where half of your army is composed of ghost units and the aim is to draw your opponents out and stage ambushes. Out of all the team, this one really nailed the theme this year so props to them.
The penultimate team, Bacterial Warfare showed off a cracking little game which whilst simplistic had an interesting art direction and gameplay mechanics with merit. Completable in less than five minutes and using camouflage as deception it truly was an interesting prototype. As a piece of good bacteria (Yakult if you like) you were tasked with keeping all of the bad bacteria out of the plug hole. As a simple score attack game, it had you switching your colour in order to remain hidden amongst bad bacteria and dropping down food in order to lure them away from the plug hole, the goal being to stay alive as long as possible.
The final team to step up to the panel presented How Do I Shoot Web? Which whilst having some quite serious technical problems had an interesting premise of four spiders laying down solid and fake bridges in the form of webs in order to escape the sink. Of course the fake webs drop your opponents down to the bottom so it's a frantic scramble to the top.
And suddenly it was all done; the prototype's were showcased and after some deliberation all that was left to do was for the judges to cast their votes, Eurovision style. But would there be any nil points?
Games rose and fell in the ratings until a clear top three emerged. Panda Dragoon: Bees on Ice took the coveted top spot as number one team of 2010 winning a £200 prize award. The second spot went to Oh No! A Black Hole! Thank FUCK for the Intergalactic Moving Agency! securing a £100 prize award and finally but not least Hardcore Sinkopation took third place and a £50 prize award. All of the teams also received limited APB t-shirts from Realtime Worlds too.
Whilst the judges were fairly critical overall, their advice and comments were indispensable. James from Realtime Worlds was "very impressed" with the standard this year and that "All of the games had promise", most shortcomings were simply down to eagerness and that everyone should follow the "Quality not quantity" mantra.
So that was that. Congratulations to all those who took part, organisers, competitors and judges. From what we saw you worked your hardest and even if things didn't quite work you achieved a lot.
We'll be back next year for further coverage of what we hope will be a bigger, better Scottish Game Jam. We'll certainly be lending our support, will be there for the full event and we may also be judging.