BAFTA Scotland recently hosted an evening showcasing Scottish games talent, and I took the opportunity to pop along and see what was on offer. There was a really diverse selection available to play, including award-winning games from the 2013 Scottish Game Jam and the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards. I was struck by the innovation of some of the games, and also the ambitious scope of others. Considering many of these games started life as quick prototypes hacked together for a 48-hour games jam, I couldn’t help but be impressed.
I forgot to take photos of any of the games so you'll just need to make do with a pic of yours truly instead.
My favourite game of the night however was probably conceptually the simplest. Lub vs Dub is a minimalistic two player game with both players holding onto the same iPad and facing each other. Essentially the screen is split in two with both players racing to be the first to collect a target number of hearts. It’s essentially a multi-player endless runner with a nice power-up mechanic. I spent a good amount of time playing it and chatting to developer Greame McKellan, who described Lub vs Dub’s beginnings from a series of rapid prototypes to its current incarnation. There’s still some work to be done and the team are eager to include a single player mode too, but it’s shaping up nicely.
All in all, it was a great night and it has really put me in the mood for taking part in a future games jam. You never know it might actually encourage me to actually finish one of my game ideas.