The Sarawak Game Developers Community (SwkGDC) concluded its second edition of the SwkGDC Game Jam that ran from 31st August, Thursday, to 2nd September, Saturday. This year’s game jam was held 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. MDEC also helped to fly Saqina Latif of Persona Theory Games, and Sophie Azlan from UOWM/TGA Future Class 2022. 

The event was held at TEGAS Digital Village in Kuching, where more than 40 participants gathered to face the challenge of building a digital game from scratch in 48 hours. Participants first went through a 3-hour game design workshop on Day 1, which was conducted by Sophie Azlan, an award-winning game designer and lecturer from UOW Malaysia. After that, the theme of the game jam, “Impact” was announced and participants formed their teams to get to work. Throughout the jam, 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.

At the end of Day 3, a total of 9 teams presented their game prototypes to a panel of judges. One of the teams was a group of 4 primary school children from Tunku Putra-HELP School. The children were not competing for prizes, but were allowed to join as they had expressed interest in the event and already bore programming skills. Their participation was also a pilot for the organising team to gauge if they could host future events for younger audiences. The three winning teams that emerged were BamTo! (Best Use of Theme category), TheDigiNomads (Best Game Mechanics category), and Frog Hammer (Most Memorable category). They will receive free conference passes worth RM400 to the Malaysia Digital Content Festival (MYDCF) 2023, from MDEC; and will receive mobility support from TEGAS to attend the festival. MYDCF is one of the largest SEA digital content exhibitions for business and public, and will be held at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre from 27th September 2023 to 1st October 2023.

The winning teams will also have the opportunity to 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, who is 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; consisting of students, enthusiasts, and working adults. Participants of the game jam came from across East Malaysia, with some travelling in from 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 concluded this game jam as a success, and are looking forward to growing the local community even more, plus make the game jam a coveted annual event.

For a list of all the games that were involved, head on over here.

The SwkGDC aims to be a hive for game developers, artists, designers and enthusiasts in Sarawak to come together and inspire each other. Currently, it operates as a volunteer-run group, with its main channels being its Facebook page and Facebook group. The community has been established for just over a year now, so do check them out if you wish to continue supporting indie game developers in the east side of Malaysia.