The SA Game Jam for 2018, hosted by local developers Free Lives, has wrapped up for another year.
The theme for 2018 was “escalating possibilities” that was explained in a video for the contest. After the announcement of the theme on 21st September contestants had between 48 and 72 hours to complete their game with a prize pool of R30 000 up for grabs.
This case was distributed between eight different categories with three contestants also getting an invite to exhibit at Africa Games Week in November. An additional trip to the event was also to be awarded at the judges’ discretion.
Yesterday the winners were announced and can be found below. Just a note here: those usernames aren’t for Twitter but are instead for the Make Games SA forums. To view the profiles of the winners you will need an account there.
- Overall: Cubic Rhythm by Kelly McCarter @Kelm , Ross Borcherds @Ross and Ridhô Jeftha
- Hobbyist: Derelict by Sam Alfred @vfqd and Nic Cheng
- Student: Distance by Kisten-Lee @kirsty_lee0, Rohun @riders_of_rohun and Amith @amith_ranjith
- Diversity: Sole Food by @PartyPanda, @BenCrooks and @LauraSeal
- Art: Distance by Kisten-Lee @kirsty_lee0, Rohun @riders_of_rohun and Amith @amith_ranjith
- Narrative: Sole Food by @PartyPanda, @BenCrooks and @LauraSeal
- Technical excellence: A Pirate’s Fill by @Pomb
- Audio: Negative Space by Henrike Lode, Tim Harbour and your boy, @SUGBOERIE
- Audio: Cyber Works by @jwho303, @artofmailowness, Palm Drive and Yan Sanchez
- Special award: Mars Deck by @Tuism
- Special award: DefEAT by @TerryPogger and Martin
As you may have noticed, that’s more than the eight categories we mentioned. That’s because the audio category didn’t have a winner in 2017, so two winners were chosen this year to make up for that. Also: the judges decided to give up two special awards to games that didn’t quite fit into the theme, but still deserved recognition.
Tuism is the username of Steven Tu, a local developer who we featured back in 2015 for his Arduino controller that was used ta the Home Coded stand at rAge of that year. We’re glad to see his name pop up here.
If you’re itching to see these games in action, Free Lives has prepared something of a sizzle real of the winners, which you can watch below.
If you’d like to learn more about these games and the honorable mentions in each category, check out the official announcement forum post.