USask computer science students share their experience with game development opportunities offered on campus. 

Do you like playing video games like Minecraft and Pac-Man? Are you interested in creating your own video game? If so, the Saskatoon Game Jam is happening from January 24 to 26! 

Game Jam is an opportunity to test your coding skills and passion for gaming, and combine them to create your very own video game. Over the course of 48 hours, you can create a video or a board game based on the specific theme announced at the event. You can work individually or in a team of any size. If you are an avid gamer but not a coder, you are also encouraged to come out and join a team as an artist or sound person for the game development. 

The jamming starts at 7 p.m. on January 24 and ends at 8 p.m. on January 26, and takes place on the 3rd floor of the Spinks addition in the Thorvaldson Building. Pizza lunches will be provided on Saturday and Sunday. Follow this link to register: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/saskatoon-global-game-jam-2025-by-saskinteractive-tickets-1106516313079 

USask students and community are invited to test and play the games developed at the Game Jam at 5 p.m. on Sunday!

The event is organized by Micheal Long, who develops games as the director and lead programmer at Foolish Mortal Games and also taught a game development class, CMPT 306: Game Mechanics at USask this past Fall 2024 term. Dawson Epp, Kate Wright and Mariana Hans shared their insights from taking the course and their experiences with game development. 

Epp, Wright and Hans are third-year computer science students at USask who developed Gimme Another Round! in their Game Mechanics class with classmate Elaine Nguyen. Epp mentions that he grew up playing games and that CMPT 306 was the “perfect chance to try [out game development].” Meanwhile, Wright explains her interest in taking the class is because it “is a blend of my complementary passions for technology and creativity – which meant I got to advance both my coding and art skills while taking the class!”

While all of them had two years of coding experience under their belt and are avid coders, Hans and Wright say they didn’t go into the class with a lot of prior experience developing games and game development-specific knowledge. Hans said that her prior experience included coding small games inspired by online tutorials and that her personal favourite was a cookie clicker dupe, a game where the player repeatedly clicks on a moving cookie to collect points. Epp noted that his experience included coding games during SCI-FI Science Camps in elementary school and in the game engine Unity during high school through the Game On program, offered by the Saskatoon Industry Education Council. This eight-week boot camp explores the logic and mechanics of game development and gets students to create a customized game project. This boot camp was taught to Epp and Wright by USask professor Jason Bowey.

Hans says that she learned a lot about developing software in project settings and game development concepts that are also applicable to other computer science areas through the class. Wright agrees, complimenting the instructors of the course, Jordan Schidlowsky and Michael Long, for giving the students “lots of opportunity to learn industry-relevant tips and tricks to apply to game development and a future career in game design.” Hans adds, “Shout out to Tristen our TA for being awesome and helpful!”

Gimme Another Round! is a single-player, 2-D shooter game with the aim being to have the highest score. Set in a western saloon, to complete a round, the player must shoot all the bottles in increasing numerical order before the timer runs out. While the ammunition is unlimited, every missed shot takes seconds off the clock. Epp encourages readers to try out the game asking, “Will you be fast enough to order another round?” Follow this link to play Gimme Another Round!: https://kate-wright.itch.io/gimme-another-round

The group had an initial brainstorming session to gather ideas and outline the project. Hans says “We didn’t want to deal with the physics engine, so that limited our game mechanics options, and Kate had this cool idea of a shooting game where you have to press random keys that pop up on the screen and it just kept going from there. We got the saloon idea from Elaine and then we started our prototype right away.” Epp mentions that from that first meeting “only half of those original thoughts ended up actually making the cut.” Hans talks about prioritizing getting a simple, unique game to work, after which they then “kept adding features like the leaderboard, special bottles, and different game modes.”

The team used Godot, a game engine which they hadn’t used before, for this project and their assignments in the class. Wright says that “in the beginning, there was a lot to learn, but after doing an entire game prototype in Godot, it no longer seems so daunting.” She adds, “It just goes to show that great things can happen when placed in a challenging environment with the proper resources and people to help you succeed.”

In relation to the group work, Epp says that “almost naturally we all gave ourselves unofficial roles, with Kate handling the majority of user interface, Mariana doing anything lower level, Elaine handling all the art, and myself doing most of the game design and mechanics.” The team used Google Docs, Git, and a time tracking sheet to organize, share their progress, and ensure a fair workload, with Hans estimating 180 hours of time spent developing the game as a group.

Students from CMPT 306 showcased their games to their peers, instructors, and the USask community on December 5 in the Spinks Addition building. They all mentioned how meaningful that showcase was to them. Epp explains, “This may sound shallow at first, but getting complimented by a professional in the industry is an amazing feeling, especially when they tell you they think you should publish it because they think it is very good [and] has potential.” They all also agree that one of the best parts of the class was the group aspect of it. Wright says, “There is a certain kind of magic to developing something with such a tight-knit and successful group. During the project, it was always amazing to pull and see new code that fixed [or] implemented some new feature – yet it was code that I didn’t write on my own!”

Hans encourages gamers and non-gamer computer science students to try out CMPT 306! Epp leaves the reader with the advice to just start and “not be afraid of mistakes” because that is “how you learn.”