designing and developing a video game<\/a> based on a theme that was announced at the beginning of the jam: sunshine.<\/p>\nEach team was comprised of up to four undergraduate students or graduate students from universities across Florida, alumni, or working professionals from several tech industries. While many UCF students and alumni participated, others from Full Sail University, Stetson University, University of Florida, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Florida Polytechnic University also participated. At the graduate\/professional level, many FIEA alumni and grad students formed teams, as well as grad students from Full Sail. Professionals working at Third Time Entertainment, Iron Galaxy, Electronic Arts (EA), Game Sim, Netflix, Ubisoft Red Storm and other tech companies brought their experience to compete as well.<\/p>\n
By 3 p.m. on Jan. 14, all teams concluded development and made their games ready for testing. Judges, participants, and supporters walked around and playtested a variety of games developed during the jam. While most games were developed for PC, a few virtual reality games made an appearance, and one-person team Day of the Dev \u2014 represented by Day Cho, a graduate student from UCF \u2014 created a game playable and loaded on a Gameboy.<\/p>\n
Judges for the undergraduate division consisted of Paul Weiler and Stephen Cano from Iron Galaxy, and Raghib Tyler from EA Orlando. At the graduate\/professional level, two judges from Florida Polytechnic, Christian Navarro and Brad Towle, and University of Florida\u2019s Nick Heitzman, stepped in to decide the winners.<\/p>\n
“Through all the grind and sleepless nights, we knew that we could trust and support one another, and that was absolutely my favorite part of the game jam.” \u2014 Jeffrey Zhang, CAT 4 Team Captain<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The first place prize for the graduate\/professional division team went to FIEA\u2019s own Cohort 20 team, CAT 4. Team captain Jeffrey Zhang described the object: \u201cIn CATastrophe: Sunshine Shenanigans, you play as a pair of greedy cats who are fighting the other cats for the perfect sunbathing spot. Your goal is to hog all the sunlight to yourself by creating a giant Rube Goldberg machine to lure, scare, or otherwise remove all the other cats from the center of the cafe.\u201d<\/p>\n
For CAT 4, developing a winning game under such a quick turnaround was no easy feat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had set a goal to include all of the cats of our fellow classmates in the game,\u201d Zhang says. \u201cThat sounds like a cute goal, but it\u2019s much less cute when you\u2019re up at two (o’clock) in the morning retopologizing four different 3D models of cats. Programming the game was filled with just as many challenges, like when I presented eight hours worth of work to the other programmer, and he responsed with a simple, \u2018Wait, none of that is going to work with what I have.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Playthrough From CAT 4’s Winning Video Game Submission<\/h2>\n