James Cook University in Singapore ushered in the 5th year of its annual Retro Inspired event over the weekend of 8-10 November 2019. The event comprised of a 24-hour Game Jam, a showcase of the games created, and a Public Lecture by Mike Pondsmith — the creator of the pen-and-paper Cyberpunk system.

110 students across 29 teams from 9 institutions took part in the 24-hour Game Jam. Each team was tasked with creating a game that illustrates the theme of “Humans, Cyborgs, Robots,” while incorporating retro-inspired elements into the game.

As the dust cleared after the day-long creation process, a public showcase of the video games that emerged was held on campus on Sunday morning 10 November. The games ranged from side-scrolling shooters and beat-‘em-ups to puzzlers to multiplayer experiences, and more.

Judging the games were an assortment of industry experts:

• Mr Mike Pondsmith – CEO and Lead Designer at R. Talsorian Games
• Mr James Barnard – Founder and Lead Developer at Springloaded
• Mr Allan Simonsen – Co-Founder of Boomzap Entertainment
• Mr Tony Peters – Digital Consultant; Managing Director of SAI Digital, Singapore
• Mr Gerald Tock – CEO of Kommunity Ventures
• Mr Hector Caballero Sombra – Creative Technologist at Iris
• Mr Pavel Kuzmin – CTO of Alpha Beta Omega
• Mr Gennadii Potapov – CEO of General Arcade
• Ms Dayana Hristova – PhD candidate at the University of Vienna
• Ms Barbara Goebl – PhD candidate at the University of Vienna

Members of the public were also invited to vote for their favourite game from the showcase, which contributed to the Audience Choice award.

In the end, a competitive multiplayer 2D shooter clinched first place. Congratulations to all the winners!

• First Place: Team “Really Spooky”; from NTU, Nanyang Polytechnic and 3D Sense Media School
• Second Place: Team “Vector Team”; from Nanyang Polytechnic
• Third Place: Team “RNG”; from Nanyang Polytechnic
• Audience Choice: Team “Nitko Entertainment”; from Singapore Polytechnic

An honourable mention to the other teams that made the top ten!

• Fourth Place: Team “11th Hour”; from DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore
• Fifth Place: Team “Finale”; from James Cook University in Singapore and DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore
• Sixth Place: Team “Frost Byte Studios”; from James Cook University in Singapore
• Seventh Place: Team “Nitko Entertainment”; from Singapore Polytechnic
• Eighth Place: Team “Rainbow Unicorns”; from Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Institute of Management
• Ninth Place: Team “Team Name V2”; from Nanyang Polytechnic
• Tenth Place: Team “CareRunOut”; from Temasek Polytechnic

The afternoon also saw a Public Lecture conducted by Mike Pondsmith. Drawing upon his extensive experience in the industry, he spoke about the qualities of different mediums and their audiences, as well as the challenges of handling intellectual properties and adapting them to different forms of media.

Retro Inspired is led by Dr Roberto Dillon, Associate Professor of Information Technology at James Cook University in Singapore.

Commenting on the event, he said, “I believe this year was arguably the most successful edition so far: not only did we have many participants and a very famous guest, but we also had more people coming over for the showcase and the lecture. The games were also quite impressive and several would have been worth a prize. I am already getting some ideas for making the 2020 edition even more exciting!”

For event photos, click here.

Find out more information about our Games Design courses here.

Contacts

Associate Professor Roberto Dillon [email protected]
Media: Pinky Sibal [email protected]