Adobe gives workshop on Creative Cloud

As part of the official program for Global Game Jam Hong Kong, we have invited Adobe Creative Cloud to give a special workshop for participating jammers. Adobe Creative Cloud is one of the main sponsors of GGJ HK. The workshop will take place as part of the opening of GGJ HK January 23rd at 6pm immediately before registration and will be followed by the theme announcement and official opening.

You can read more about the session here as well as the prerequisite for attendees.

How Adobe will take you to the next level of game production and visual design

Time and date: 6pm, January 23rd 2015
Place: Training Room 1-3, Level 3, Core F, Cybeport 3, 100 Cyberport Road, Cyberport Hong Kong

Speaker:
Ernest Wong - Adobe Creative Solutions Consultant – Hong Kong and Taiwan

The Adobe Game Developer Tools include a complete Game Development Guide, Flex Builder and Flash Professional to build the games, the Adobe Gaming SDK with Native Extensions for iOS, Android Mac and Windows, Stage3D to make immersive 3D games, Flash C++ Compiler, Adobe Scout for profiling and optimisation, Flash Player, AIR and PhoneGap for publishing, Starling GPU libraries for incredible rendering speed, Feathers for UI, and support for Away3D, Crossbridge, Zest3D, Flare3D, EasyAGAL, Alternativa3D, Mixamo, Minko and Gamebuilder Studio.

The latest release of Adobe Creative Cloud provides new, connected Creative Cloud apps and services you need to create amazing work across desktop and mobile devices. No matter you are an artists or game development professionals you will have a wider range of software from which to choose, expanding your creative repertoire, and enriching your game presentation.

Prerequisite
Attendees at the workshop are advised to install Creative Cloud apps trial version and Game SDK by visiting the below link. They will be asked for an Adobe ID for which they can apply before downloading any software.

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/catalog/desktop.html

Adobe Creative Cloud are pleased to offer all attendees a limited edition cup cover.

Schedule for GGJ HK 2015

We now have an update schedule for GGJ HK 2015. More information will follow shortly.

See schedule, checklist and more here.

Haven't registered yet? Hurry up, the deadline for registration is 18th of January. Go to registration here

Game Jam 2015 - Registration is open

It is a pleasure to announce that the third Global Game Jam Hong Kong will take place January 23-25 2015.

The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world’s largest game development event taking place around the world at physical locations.

Over 48 hours at January 23 -25, Cyberport Hong Kong will stir of creative buzz while participants unfolds creatively and explores the process of game development, be it programming, iterative design, narrative exploration or artistic expression

Registration for GGJ Hong Kong is free, so join now and participate in and amazing 48 hours game development challenge.

This years GGJ HK will take place at Cyberport Hong Kong:

Training Room 1-3, Level 3
Core F, Cyberport 3
100 Cyberport Road
Cyberport Hong Kong

Register here

If you need inspiration for this years challenge or if you are just currious to see the games developed during last years GGJ HK you can see the games here

See our Facebook page here

If you have any questions fell free to contact us: ggjhongkong@gmail.com

Whether you're an ace coder, artist or a person who loves games, come along!

19 games!!

We did it again - thank you for all participants and visitors! We really enjoyed jamming with you!

23774 jammers in 488 jam sites located in 72 countries participated in Global Game Jam 2014. Hong Kong was 37th biggest among these locations with 113 jammers creating 19 games at Cyberport over the past weekend. During the 48-hour jam, a global theme was announced, teams formed and full game development cycle completed from ideation to testing including art design, programming, game design, sound design, user interface design and testing. This year's theme was an exciting quote from Anaïs Nin: "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."

The event lead to a two-hour award ceremony during which five sponsors handed out prizes for some of the notable and particularly productive teams.

The most innovative theme integration award went to a team of game developers who created a game 'WDSTATA WSTAWA'. The unique game is played using stereoscopic 3D glasses that allows the players to see the same screen differently. 'Mobile Match' award was received by the makers of 'Ga Ga Ghost' who implemented augmented reality features on their mobile multiplayer game.

While most of the jam participants were students, a team of professional game developers won the 'Solid Piece' award with their well-implemented 'Asceticism' with humorous 'clueless items' selection mechanic and beautiful graphics. The game 'Lie in Line' was recognised for its strong visual appeal. According to its developers: "Line is not line, and it tells lie hidden inside. Our game is offering you with mass of lines, and invite you to discover romantic images within them." Finally, 'Future Foundations' award was handed to 'Zombie Park' which is specifically designed for hearing and visually impaired players.

The games 'War War' and 'Odyssey' received special mentions for their innovative aspects. In War War, the player faces a new challenge of killing their character in each level thus reversing the typical game goal of staying alive as long as possible. Odyssey, meanwhile, translates world's oldest console game system Magnavox Odyssey for iPad using viewfoils on top of the screen creating new games with a physical extension.

The event in Hong Kong was organised by School of Design of Hong Kong Polytechnic University together with Cyberport. We would like to thank City University of Hong Kong, SCAD, IVE and the Chinese University of Hong Kong for supporting the event. We were happy to have Hong Kong Game Development Association, International Game Developers Association, Hong Kong Digital Game-based Learning Association and Hong Kong Maker Club as event partners. Finally, the generous support of OutBlaze, Grandtech, Unity, BlackBerry, OtterBox, 6 Waves and Hong Kong Freelancers Network made this event more encouraging for participants to aim for some of the great prizes. Thank you!

'All games created during the GGJHK, together with illustrations, are available here. For more photos, check out our Facebook page.

Thank you for our student volunteers for helping out while also working on your own games!

We hope to see you again in 2015,
Hanna, Almo, Aidan, Ayesha and Cord

Travel update

Shuttle bus service to Cyberport during the jam will be as follows:

Admiralty Exit A (near McDonald’s) to Cyberport 3
Friday 6:30 PM
Saturday 9 AM
Sunday 9 AM

The shuttle bus will be marked with our GGJHK snake logo. Please come in time as the bus will not wait.

If you choose public transport, please refer to http://www.cyberport.hk/en/about_cyberport/about_getting_here for details. You should get into Cyberport through Core E lobby. Jam location is Training Theatre and Training Room 1-3, Level 3, Core F.

Cyberport map in Chinese http://www.cyberport.hk/zh_tw/about_cyberport/about_cyberport_map
Cyberport map in English http://www.cyberport.hk/en/about_cyberport/about_cyberport_map

The second GGJHK is on its way!!

Happy 2014 everyone! To begin with an upbeat start to the new year we will be organising the Global Game Jam in Hong Kong for the second time running.

Let your passion for making games run wild for 48 hours this month on the 24th to the 26th of January 2014. Registration and entry are free so come along and join up.

The venue for this year's Game Jam will be in Cyberport. Come and stay over, we'll have hot meals at the ready to keep you going strong in this two-day event.

Not sure what sort of game to make? Here's something to get your creative juices flowing! Have a look at what last year's participants had managed to make in 48 hours!

The theme for 2013 was the sound of a heartbeat.

One such group made Rescue Party (http://2013.globalgamejam.org/2013/rescue-party) and turned it into an app. They made this game in 48 hours last year. And guess what? Their game is available to download on Play Store! They did it. So can you!

Whether you're an ace coder, artist or a person who loves games, come along!

We'll see you there! Register by January 20th.

The event Facebook page can be found here. 

Results (finally)

16,705 jammers joined the Global Game Jam 2013. In Hong Kong, we produced 15 games in 48 hours. Globally, more than 3,000 games were made. All games are available online, the ones made in Hong Kong you can find here:http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2013/hong-kong/games

  

While all games were innovative and extremely well executed considering the time constraint, we awarded five games with sponsored prizes. It goes without saying that the decisions were extremely hard to make. List of awards in no particular order follows.

Sony Social Impact Award

Milk Finder

Outblaze Game Jam Theme Award

Jack the Matcher

Logitech Special Mention

Heartbeat Hunter

BlackBerry Most Innovative Mobile Game

Rescue Party

Cyberport Judges' Pick

Heavy Balance

I am grateful to the members of the jury, who were 

Mr Yim Chun Pang from City University of Hong Kong

Mr Richard Chui from OEM Interactive

Mr Frankie Tam from Hong Kong Digital Game-Based Learning Association

Mr Tony Zander from Plastic fantastic

During the event we heard talks by

Mr James Hong

Director and General Manager

Sony Computer Entertainment Hong Kong

Mr Alan Wong

Application Development Consultant

BlackBerry, Research in Motion Hong Kong

Mr Ken Chan and Mr Mark Chu

founder/Chairman and Vice Chairman/Convener

Hong Kong Game Development Association

We were one of the official Games for Change locations this year. 6 of our games were made 'the bigger picture' constraint in mind and those games will be presented at the annual Games for Change Festival in NYC this summer. For more information, see http://gamesforchange.org/festival2013/

  

Our partnering institutions and NGOs were IVE and Hong Kong Design Institute, SCAD Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong (School of Creative Media), Hong Kong Digital Game-Based Learning Association, Hong Kong Game Development Association, International Game Developer's Association Hong Kong and Games for Change. 

Our sponsors were BlackBerry, Cyberport, Logitech, OEM Interactive, Outblaze, and Sony.

Thank you for all participants and other contributors!