Wolverine Soft’s January game jam produces strong games, three winners

Wolverine Soft, the student group dedicated to the development of video games at Michigan, held its third 48-hour game jam of the 2016-17 academic year, entitled “Space Jam 3,” in Design Lab 3 at the Duderstadt Center on the weekend of January 13-15.

About 35 students formed into nine teams of game developers to compete in the event, which challenges each group to conceptualize and build a fully working game within the 48-hour window of the event.

According to Wolverine Soft president Daniel Braunstein, “By and large, the quality of games continues to increase as we progress through the year, and this jam featured some of our strongest submissions yet.”

At the end of the 48-hour period, the teams submitted their projects for consideration. The first place winner was “Heart Hop,” an incredibly fun and cute 8-player game that featured a beautiful art style and innovative gameplay. The team, composed of Anthony Tesija, Michael Tesija, Nicholas Tesija, and Kurt Waldowski, also won the awards for “Best Music” and “Best Gameplay.”

Second place went to “Sky Bots,” a unique isometric platformer/puzzler with beautiful art direction. Team members for this project were William Li, Shobhit Adlakha, Michael Zhang,and Amy Liu.

Selected for third place was “Cyper Space Shooter,” a first person shooter which heavily utilized gravity mechanics. Team members for this project were Thomas Bartlett (not pictured), Mike Corcoran, Cooper Clay, and Pete Jurasek.