UTS Tech Festival 2023 - Game Jam sponsored by Dolby

UTS Tech Festival is back in 2023, bigger and better!

Hosted by the Faculty of Engineering and IT, Tech Festival brings current and prospective UTS students, academics and industry together to foster learning, inspiration, share ideas and promote innovation!​ You won't want to miss this two-week festival of events, showcases, hackathons, workshops and seminars!

UTS Tech Festival Game Jam, sponsored by Dolby

Come celebrate the new year with us and let loose with those game design and development skills!

In June 2023, the UTS Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology will be hosting the Dolby Student Game Jam.

This two day event is chance for students to let their creativity run wild and create a game from scratch. No grades, no job expectations – just a chance to have fun, meet new people, learn new skills!

Register your attendance by Friday 23 June 2023. 

When: Monday 26 June 2023 and Tuesday 27 June 2023 

Where: UTS Building 7, Level 3, Room 10B/ 10G (CB07.03.10B / G)

This is the primary meeting point for the Game Jam but participants are free to work from any location on- or off-campus that suits them.

Time: The above location will be open from 9am-6pm both days and organizing staff will be present during these times

Organisers: Dolby Australia, The Playmakers Student Society, The UTS Games Studio Research Lab, The Faculty of Engineering and IT

Who is Invited: This event is for students of UTS only. While we expect most students will be from FEIT, students from other faculties are welcome too! There are only 80 spots though so make sure you register quick! (and please only register if you are certain you will come on the day)


PROGRAM: 

Monday, June 26th (Day 1)
9am - 10am: Registration signup, group forming.

10am - 12pm: Workshop: Getting Started with Dolby.io and the Dolby.io Spatial Chat Plugin for Unity (by Dolby Australia)
In this workshop, we'll present a crash course in understanding the Dolby.io platform for gaming as well as how to get started building multiplayer applications with player-to-player voice chat and spatial chat. Since the Dolby.io Spatial Chat plugin is required for submission this workshop is a great place to get started on your game.

Speaker: Braden Riggs - Build fast and build awesome. Braden is an Australian Python, Javascript, Flutter, and Unreal developer adept at tackling big problems quickly with a variety of stacks, tools, and ideas. Whether he is lecturing about social gaming experiences or running an app-building workshop, Braden loves to interact, learn from, and build with the community. Connect with Braden on LinkedIn at "bradenriggs" or on Twitter at "Bradenriggs1."

Speaker: Claire Bradford - Claire has a background in Music Production and Sound Engineering, previously spending a few years of her career running a record label and releasing her own music. She joined Dolby in 2013 initially as a Senior Quality Engineer, bringing in her ‘golden ear’ to critically analyse Dolby Audio processing magic on mobile phone integrations. In more recent years she’s worked with Dolby’s line of communications products including spatial audio on Dolby’s Voice Conferencing phone hardware and Dolby’s voice conferencing media server. Today she’s a Senior Manager, leading a large team of engineers looking at component and platform level quality of the Dolby.io communications cloud product.

12pm - 1pm: Lunch

1pm - 5pm: Work on your game

5pm - 6pm: Day 1 Wrap Session with dinner

Wokshop details: 

Tuesday, June 27th (Day 2)
9am - 12pm: Work on your game

12pm - 1pm: Lunch

1pm - 4pm: Work on your game

4pm - 6pm: Final submission of entries, judging, Day 2 Wrap Session with dinner, and prizes

Prizes: Prizes will be given in a variety of audio-related categories, recognising great games and other quirky achievements (sponsored by Dolby Australia). Please note, prizes will be awarded to to UTS Students only.

Team Sizes: There is no minimum or maximum team size, however we recommend teams of 2-5 people. You can come with a pre-made team but there will also be time to form new teams and recruit new team members on the first day. This is a chance to work with people you usually wouldn’t get the chance to, so make the most of it and get to know others at the event.

Theme: Core topics will be provided on the day of the Game Jam for teams to design and build their game around. This ensures that all teams come to event with a blank canvas, ready to collaborate on any creative design ideas that are inspired by the themes of the day.

Food: Light lunch (midday) and dinner (5pm) snacks will be provided on both days but participants are also encouraged to bring their own food and plenty of water.

What to bring: whatever you want! Some recommended resources are:

• A laptop to work on
• Appropriate software installed that you think you may need (Unity, Unreal, Photoshop, Blender, etc.)
• Audio related hardware (launch pads, headphones, musical intruments, microphones, etc, etc)
• Some favourite assets from past projects or asset stores (3D models, 2D textures / sprites, scripts, particle effects, audio, etc.)
• The Game Jam will use Discord and Itch.io for communication and submissions. Get ready by setting up an account with these two systems

What skills do I need:

In order to facilitate team formations on the day, we will ask participants to think about the skills they have or that they want to work on during the Game Jam. This may include programming, game design, 2D art, 3D art, narrative writing, audio design, project management, or others. Our team doesn’t have enough skills to create a game! Are you sure? Games take many different forms and require a wide variety of skills.

All programmers and no artists? No problem, a game can still be extremely fun without looking polished. 

All artists and no programmers? Create a highly detailed board game or card game that will grab everyone’s attention. 

More of a physically active or social group? Get outside and design a new word game, outdoor activity, or sport.

What if our team fails?

That’s what a Game Jam is for! Get creative and ambitious, and if you don’t reach your goals then at least you learnt new skills, have something to show and work on in future, and had fun trying!

Are there any examples of what a Game Jam game looks like?
Game Jams are happening all over the world all the time. Take a look at itch.io ( https://itch.io/jams ) to see some that are currently occurring online.
Finally, here is some footage from our past Student Game Jams (https://www.gamesstudio.org/ar...) (https://www.gamesstudio.org/ar...).

Please contact Jaime.Garcia@uts.edu.au if you have any questions about this event.

UTS Tech Festival