Chillennium Is Coming

More than 200 students from 12 universities will create video games from scratch in just 48 hours at Chillennium 2016, a game-building competition, or “game jam,” Sept. 23-25, 2016 hosted by the Texas A&M Department of Visualization.

At the third-annual event, to take place at the Texas A&M Hildebrand Equine Complex, students majoring in visualization, computer science, engineering and a wide variety of additional disciplines will compete for prizes including highly sought after licenses for high-powered, professional-grade gaming software.

“This year’s event has attracted more competitors and sponsors than ever before,” said André Thomas, who teaches Texas A&M visualization classes in game development and founded the university’s Learning Interactive Visualizations Experience Lab, a game development hub at the university.

Thomas, the event’s faculty supervisor, heads a small group of students, some of them veterans of previous Texas A&M game jams, who are working with event caterers, university staff, sponsors and contestants to host the event, the largest student-run game jam in North America.

In addition to students from Texas A&M, registered contestants hail from far-flung locales including Ohio State, West Virginia University and several Texas schools, including the University of Texas at El Paso, Baylor and Texas State University.

After learning Chillennium’s theme, which is under wraps until organizers announce it at 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, students, fueled by contest-provided meals, snacks and an onsite, staffed sleeping area, will race to meet a 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25 deadline to develop desktop-based games.

Working alone or in teams of up to four participants, students develop games with hardware they bring to the contest and software or programming languages available online or already on their computers.

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