Jad Tawbi is studying to broaden his game development skills. Within the Immersive Experience Creator Programme at Futuregames, he focuses on learning more about and connecting with the XR Industry. This past summer, his team emerged as the champions of the LV99 Game Jam in Singapore!
The LV99 Game Jam was a competition in which teams had 9 days to create a game following the theme/phrase “Take a Deep Breath.” With over 350 games submitted, the team’s game, Nasal Nomad: Sniffer’s Delight, emerged as one of the top 3 finalists and ultimately as the Grand Winners. This achievement granted the team the opportunity to travel to Singapore during the Olympic Esports Week 2023 to compete for first place by presenting their game to a panel of esteemed judges and veterans from the gaming industry. It also allowed the team to connect with individuals from Refract Technologies, Project99, SEGA, PICO XR, The Swedish Esports Association, and many others.
– We wanted to make an impression regardless of if we would be the Grand Winners or not, Jad says. Before we travelled, we made efforts to contact potential sponsors and to gather support for our endeavours while also producing various merchandise, such as hats, business cards and pins / buttons to share with the people we would be meeting in Singapore, emboldening our presence at the events we attended.
The team’s submission for the Lv99 Game Jam was Nasal Nomad: Sniffer’s Delight. A Puzzle-Platformer game where you play as a Sniffer, a tiny nose stolen from his owner and discarded into the sewers. Using air as his main resource and mechanic, jumping by sneezing, and pulling objects by inhaling, he finds his way from flower to flower traversing many obstacles to keep the smelly sewer odors from overcoming him. His destination, the surface! Will he make it with your help?
– For the Pitch Presentation, our team combined our skills and efforts into creating a captivating and heart-winning presentation and rehearsing it until delivered by me in Singapore at the start of Olympic Esports Week 2023, Jad says. The Game Jam provided us with a chance to showcase and develop our skills and competences, mainly because of the combined limitations of a time limit and predetermined game theme. The finals in Singapore also gave us the opportunity to meet amazing people, who provided us with amazing hospitality and care as well as very valuable insight into the game industry and motivation to continue on our journey of growth.
– We’re three game developer friends who are driven by the passion to create engaging games that inspire laughter, captivate, and embody the positive influence of humour and light-heartedness in the gaming world. We all met in Visby during our University studies towards a Game Design Bachelor’s Degree. During this time, we quickly realized we shared many core game development values, and a strong team was born:
I would describe myself as a game developer and programmer with an aspiration to make memorable games that brighten up people’s lives using my expertise in the various fields I have explored. With a strong foundation and a track record of working on successful and award-winning games & projects, my plan is to keep pushing myself and my team forward to produce quality work in innovative ways.
Axel Sandstedt is a graphic artist, music producer, language enthusiast, currently based in Taiwan after recently acquiring a scholarship to study Mandarin. His plan is to use the knowledge to integrate himself & his team with the East Asian gaming market, facilitating pathways between cultures across the globe. He has extensive experience spanning various creative ventures across animation, music, art, and other media throughout his career. He contributed to the development of numerous acclaimed & award-winning games.
Leo Wognum is a jack of all trades when it comes to game development, having his own studio, Wognum Studios, where he creates and releases games as a solo developer. His most recent game being Bengbo, which won Best Art at Swedish Game Awards 2023, and is currently available on Steam. Being a natural at hard work and diligence, Leo has already shifted gears towards new projects!
Some of the team’s accomplishments include:
– As a game developer and programmer who had skimmed the surface of VR development in the past, the Immersive Experience Creator Program was a natural continuation of my interest in developing my VR creation skills. Of course, the IEC program’s curriculum is not limited to skills in virtual reality development, but since that is what I was most interested in improving, I was able to focus on exactly that, working as a developer and experimenting with innovative features and mechanics, shaping the assignments in a way that will benefit my learning in the way I see most fit.
– Working in teams during this education has allowed me to improve my collaboration skills as well as my VR development skills. Since Nasal Nomad: Sniffer’s Delight was not a VR game, those skills do not directly translate to its creation, but the “thinking outside the box” aspect of creating in the Extended Reality (XR) field does help in coming up with new ways of designing certain aspects of gameplay. And, of course, the teamwork skills I honed further proved valuable while collaborating with my exceptional teammates Leo and Axel, further strengthening the great chemistry we possess.
– Additionally, the amazing people I have met during this education are some whom I am destined to run into again in my future. Some of the brightest minds I’ve met and some valuable friends to have the pleasure to know.
– I am currently on an ongoing internship with Immersive Insiders, an XR development education company that is also a guest teacher at Futuregames for the IEC Program. As I’ve been previously taught by them during my IEC education and since my background and theirs aligns in many ways, I decided to reach out to them for an internship and I was very nicely welcomed into the team. I had, during my education at IEC, constantly pushed myself to provide help with development, troubleshooting and technical questions my teammates and classmates had, always figuring out solutions and providing useful insights, including courses on some topics the class wanted to explore that I had knowledge in. For that reason, Immersive Insiders found me to be a great fit and were able to easily integrate me into their workflow since I had already showcased my skills to them during the IEC program. In the near future I will be sent by Immersive Insiders to teach at Futuregames as an onsite lecturer, further improving the learning outcomes for the IEC students of 2023. Looking forward to that!
– I am also currently working on my degree project to graduate from IEC22. In addition, many plans are in motion for the future when it comes to continuing my efforts with my friends and teammates Axel and Leo to bring more amazing experiences to the world, and founding our own game studio is one of those plans! I’m as excited as everyone is to see what the future holds!
If you’re looking to follow this team’s accomplishments and updates, check out their linktree:
https://linktr.ee/tinygnomads
Read more about the Immersive Experience Creator education here
Applications for International Students are open until May 16.
Antonio Obeid is a Lebanese student attending Futuregames Warsaw remotely, due to difficult times.
Meet Fredrik Borg, to learn more about the Game & UX Design education and what it's like to study in Skellefteå.
