X48- Game Camp

In the first of a few highlight posts about my first year I am going to tell you the wonderful story about my experience at the X48 Game Camp.

X48 was a new event started this year hosted by the University of Derby and Microsoft, it entailed teams from universities across the UK spending 48 hours making a game on a theme to be set on the day. I was entered in as a wild card, being one of only a few first year programmers to attend the event, which meant that I would have to find a team on the day.

I ended up in a team with two other students from Derby who were also first years so it was reassuring that I would not be completely outmatched in regards to programming skill. The unveiling of the theme, "evolution", eventually led to us deciding to make a game where fish.. eat fish... ! It sounded pretty good at the time. We had definite delusions as to what could be achieved in 36 hours of actual work time, no matter how many cans of red bull and dominos pizzas you can consume. Which was a lot, if guided daily amounts meant much then I should definitely not have made it past the 24 hour mark.

After a long period of ripping our hair out and being dazzled by the event mentors, including Marcus Lynn from Lionhead and Dean Calver from Splash Damage, we finally came up with a game that was pretty fun to play. We didn't win any prizes, but we were in the top 8 out of (i think) 30 teams, which I am very proud of! Other than ending up face first in curry the next night, it was definitely a great experience and I suggest it to anyone who gets the opportunity.

If you want to check out the game (you will need an xbox 360 controller) or anything else about the event then follow this link! http://www.x48gamecamp.com/fish-eat-fish/

Stephen