After exam season was over last June we held our annual 1Up 48hr Charity Game Ja, with 26 attendees and 6 games created. The theme was “Not Human” and we raised over £500 for Cancer Research UK. It was an amazing event! We then had a break for the summer before taking 30 members with us to EGX (Eurogamer Expo) at the end of Freshers Week.
The autumn term focussed on providing tutorials for our members. These were guided walkthroughs for a specific areas of game development and proved rather popular. We had tutorials in using Unity3D and Java for games development, as well as on artificial intelligence and 3D modelling using Blender. Over the Halloween weekend we held another Game Jam with the theme of “Masquerade” and resulting in 6 new games submitted.
After the winter break we returned to our tutorials, this time in level design, followed by further development sessions in our weekly meetings. In February we participated in the Miscellany Gala; a multi-society social event on campus featuring live music, video games, board games and performances. GDS contributed our LAN to the event, where we played Counter-Strike across multiple computers and streamed the game live on a projector so more students could get involved. March heralded the Spring Game Jam, in a similar fashion to the Halloween edition we spent a weekend creating games with the themes of “Plantation” and “Rebirth”.
Looking ahead to the summer term, our annual 1Up 48hr Charity Game Jam returns shortly after exams, and planning will begin for EGX coming up in September. Overall it has been a great year for GDS, with a 75% increase in members since last year, and we hope to continue with our successes for next year! If you like what you’ve been reading please nominate us for an EPS Societies’ Award!
James Adey
Chair 2017/18
