Wotcha folks,

Well, some interesting things have been happening to us of late - we’re in the middle of working on a longform 3 month project for ‘We’re-probably-not-allowed-to-say-but-it’s-exciting-yeah’.  Hopefully more (well, anything) on that soon.

However, we took a break from the 13th-17th of June to do the 2011 Portsmouth University Game Jam - 35 and a 1/2 hours spread over 5 days to make a fully playable game. Three random Wikipedia articles were sourced on the day, and your game had to based on one or more of those. Headed up by lecturer Andy Bain, it might’ve featured awards to win, but it was mainly a chance to challenge yourself. Step outside of the normal routine, sharpen your skills, refine your sense of focus as a group. Drink a lot of beer.

The articles ended up being variously about the Swedish legal system, actress Miriam Hopkins, and a bunch of films from the year 1964. What did we make out of that? ‘Miriam Hopkins - Mummified Werewolf’, of course! A top-down, randomly-generated bloody rampage, where you change between Miriam and her vicious Werewolf form, taking revenge on the Hollywood studio system that sidelined you.

(click for larger image)

Admittedly, we didn’t go out on a limb to nearly the same extent as some teams, but for us, simply getting something playable together that was more or less complete as a game was challenging enough. Plus, we spent too much time chatting with other people. Duh. In any case, we had an absolute blast, met and got to know some hugely talented, ambitious and enthusiastic people, and ate far too many chicken burgers. No more chicken burgers. Ever.

Same time next year? We’ll see you there.

Cheers!

The Megadev team