Comments

IGN Southeast Asia previously covered the Sarawak Game Developers Community and their homegrown efforts through a Facebook group. Eventually, they organized their first-ever game jam, providing a space for East Malaysian game developers of all levels to come together.

This year, the team held their second game jam in partnership with Tabung Ekonomi Gagasan Anak Sarawak (TEGAS) and The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), providing aspiring local talents with access to industry mentors, a game design workshop, and attractive prizes for winning game prototypes.

The event was held at TEGAS Digital Village in Kuching, where more than 40 participants gathered and teamed up to create a game from scratch in 48 hours. To start, participants went through a three-hour game design workshop led by Sophie Azlan, an award-winning game designer and lecturer from UOW Malaysia.

The theme of the game jam was “Impact” and participants were able to seek help and guidance from a roster of industry mentors from CtrlD Studio, Rez Studios, Moredoor Interactive, Kloena Digital, Persona Theory Games, and UOW Malaysia.

On the final day, a total of nine teams presented their game prototypes to a panel of judges. Among them was a group of four primary school children from Tunku Putra-HELP School, all of whom already possessed sufficient programming skills.

The three winning teams of this year’s SwkGDC Game Jam are as follows:

Best Use of Theme category - BamTo!
Best Game Mechanics category - TheDigiNomads
Most Memorable category - Frog Hammer

The winners received free conference passes worth RM400 for the Malaysia Digital Content Festival (MYDCF) 2023 from MDEC, along with mobility support from TEGAS to attend the festival in Kuala Lumpur.

The winning teams will also showcase their games to the public at MYDCF 2023 under the SwkGDC booth. The game jam closed with a virtual sharing session from special guest Jun Shen Chia, part of the Xbox Global Expansion team for Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

This year’s SwkGDC game jam attracted more than 50 registrations, including students, enthusiasts, and working adults. Participants came from across East Malaysia, with some travelling from places like Sri Aman, Miri, Bintulu, Sibu, and Sabah.

The students also came from different institutions in the state, including University of Technology Sarawak (UTS), UNIMAS, Swinburne Sarawak, i-CATS University College, UiTM Samarahan 2, and Tunku Putra-HELP School.

The SwkGDC team and sponsors hailed the game jam as a success and are looking forward to growing the local community even more, aiming to make the game jam a coveted annual event.

Follow the growth of the SwkGDC through the aforementioned Facebook group. Check out the prototypes of the SwkGDC Game Jam 2023 on itch.io.

This post might contain affiliation links. If you buy something through this post, the publisher may get a share of the sale.