Science & Tech

Registration Now Open For Chillennium 2017 Game Jam

June 28, 2017

By Richard Nira, Texas A&M University College of Architecture

Student video game designers vying for coveted prizes will design games from scratch in just 48 hours at Chillennium 2017, an Oct. 13-15, 2017 event hosted by the Texas A&M Department of Visualization.

The largest student-run event of its kind, Chillennium, the department’s fourth annual game jam, or electronic game design competition, will be held at the university’s Memorial Student Center.

The contest attracts students from across the nation looking to develop their software skills, meet fellow game developers, and network with industry professionals who roam the game jam floor advising participants.

Fueled by contest-provided meals and snacks, and with access to a staffed, onsite resting area, students will race to meet a 5 p.m. Sunday deadline to deliver fully developed desktop-based games that they started after learning the competition theme only two days earlier.

Working alone or in teams of up to four participants, the game developers employ their own hardware and software and use programming languages available online, loaded on their computers, or provided by contest organizers.

At the contest’s conclusion, industry professionals, event sponsors and game players age 10 and up will play and rank the games in a variety of categories, including innovation, quality, completeness, design and sound. Contest organizers will then award prizes that include highly-sought licenses for high-powered, professional-grade gaming software.

https://today.tamu.edu/2016/09/30/texas-am-hosts-biggest-chillennium-yet-12-universities-participating/

To register or download games developed in previous years, visit the Chillennium 2017 website.

The event is orchestrated by a small group of visualization students headed by André Thomas, who teaches Texas A&M visualization classes in game development and leads the department’s LIVE (Learning Interactive Visualizations Experience) Lab, a university game development hub.

Chillennium 2017 is sponsored by Electronic Arts, one of the world’s top video game development company. Additional sponsors will be announced on the Chillennium homepage.

Last year’s game jam drew more than 200 students from 12 universities, including participants from as far away as Ohio and West Virginia.

Chillennium’s success has enhanced the national prominence of the game design program at Texas A&M’s Department of Visualization. In 2017 rankings published by the Princeton Review, a leading test preparation and college admission services company, Texas A&M’s graduate game design program ranked 17th, 7th among public universities. Its undergraduate program ranked 35th, 11th among public institutions.

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This story by Richard Nira originally appeared in ArchOne.

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