GDC 13: Corona backs GDC Plane Jam with SDK prize

Middleware outfit Corona has moved to support the coming GDC Plane Jam with a prize of its Corona SDK for the winning team.

The Plane Jam, conceived by UK indie developers Byron Atkinson-Jones and Andrew Roper, challenges devs to make a game on the flight to GDC, be it a video game, board game or card game.

"Corona stepping up to the mark and donating a year’s licence to the enterprise version of Corona SDK is amazing and very generous," said Xiotex Studios boss Atkinson-Jones. "If I weren’t one of the organisers of Plane Jam I would be going for this prize myself. Plane Jam is going to be incredible and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what people come up with. I will however be disappointed if at least one person doesn’t come up with Snake on Plane."

Middleware outfit Marmalade, which today released its new Juice tech, is also providing an SDK for the winner, while Unity is offering two copies of Unity Pro to the victor and YoYo Games is giving $500 to the best game made using GameMaker: Studio.

To help inspire ideas and demonstrate the kind of projects outside of board games he hopes to see created for GDC Plane Jam, Atkinson-Jones also offered an example of the kind of games he hopes to see.

"Doing Plane Jam is all about having fun on an aircraft while waiting to get to all the parties at GDC and it’s not all about making computer games either," he explained. "I’d love to see some creative ways people come up with paper based games. Here’s one I came up with:

One sheet of squared paper
One six sided die per person
One red pen for player one
One blue pen for player two

You each pick a square to start off on and take it in turns to roll the dice. You have to make a continuous line equal in the length of squares to the number rolled on the dice and it has to be connected to your last line. You can make turns by choosing a side of a square to follow but your line has to be continuous. The objective is to make your opponent collide with your line or their line. A turn base light cycles game on paper and for added fun – have more than 2 players?"

Dr Jo Twist from UKIE and Marmalade CTO Tim Closs will judge the best game, along with a representative from Corona.

UKIE is to host the judging and presentation of the games at 4pm on Thursday, March 28th at its GDC Play stand.

To find out more about the casually organised jam, join in the conversation with Atkinson-Jones (@xiotex) and Andrew Roper (@arndreth) on Twitter, use the comments thread below, or visit the GDC Plane Jam website.

Entrants do not need to travel on the same flight. The flight must, however, be a flight taken to attend GDC.