Over 42 thousand jammers in 804 jam sites located in 109 countries participated in Global Game Jam 2018. Hong Kong was 6th biggest among these locations with 339 jammers, both students and professional game designers, creating 59 games at Cyberport over the past weekend. During the 48-hour jam, a global theme was announced, teams formed and full game development cycle completed from ideation to testing including art design, programming, game design, sound design, user interface design and testing. This year's theme was the word “Transmission”.  

The event led to a two-hour award ceremony where the best teams in nine different categories were awarded. The award for Best Theme Integration went to the team behind the game “Postrans”. In the game players connect cities with roads to deliver mail. The award for Future Game Developer was “Love in the Game Jam” a VR game where players matched couples with cupid’s arrows. The Audience Choice Award went to the team behind the game “Worder” a game where players solve puzzles by changing their character’s shape into different letters of the alphabet. The Innovation Award also went to “Worder” for this new gameplay mechanic. “Hello, Operator?” a game about using a switchboard to connect telephone calls won the award for Comic Relief. The game “You Shall Not Pass” won the award for Best Board Game. In the game the players attempt to cheat during an exam without being caught. The Old School Cool Award went to “Urgent Transmission” a factory management game. “Wild Sound” won the Most Potential for 2018 Award, a game about connecting telephone calls between animals. Finally, a there was a second Audience Choice Award that went to “Edward Has a Butterfly” about chaos theory.   

Globally, the jam has a reputation as a creative platform for professional and beginner game developers to create innovative games in a limited period. Many such games are further developed into commercial products or successfully inspire new ideas in the industry. We expect to see some of this year’s games in the app stores later this year. Hong Kong’s 2018 game jam event was a good example of how entirely unique ideas, interfaces, technical implementations and gameplay can be created in a fun event and working with new people. 

The event in Hong Kong was organized by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design together with Cyberport. Seven other institutions of higher education supported the event. Hong Kong Game Development Association, Chinese DIGRA, Game Dev Happy Hour Hong Kong, Hong Kong Digital Game-based Learning Association, Press Start Hong Kong, Dimsum Labs and Hong Kong Maker Club were Supporting Organisations of the event. Unity, Outblaze, LKF Labs, Capstone, Visionaries 777, Shadow Factory, TFI and RETRO.HK sponsored the event. GoAnimate was the Official Animation Partner. HK01, GEME was the Official Digital Partner.

 All games created during the GGJHK, together with videos, are available at http://globalgamejam.org/2018/jam-sites/hong-kong/games. Jammers please make sure you uploaded your YouTube link and game file to your game page so everyone can see. Photos from the event will be located on our Facebook page.

For more photos or any other inquiries, please contact hanna.wirman@polyu.edu.hk. For details, please visit the event’s official website. 

Hope to see you all again next year!

 

Hanna Wirman and Rhys Jones, 
On behalf of the GGJHK Organising Team,