May 23 and 24 became two days I will never forget. To start from the beginning, we took part as MSPs in the Istanbul leg of the globally organized Win10 Game Jam event. Under normal circumstances, only Istanbul MSPs were on duty for the event, but since I was in Istanbul, I joined in too. By the way, the event took place at Bahçeşehir University’s Galata Campus. Everything was already set up at the venue when we arrived. Then, the friends attending the event slowly started to arrive, and the place began to get a bit crowded. Afterwards, once everyone gathered in the main area, the event started. Kevin and our instructor Engin gave us preliminary information on what we needed to do and how to do it.
After the preliminary information, we went down for breakfast. Microsoft covered all our meals, morning and evening (including daytime drinks, snacks, etc.). After breakfast, another short presentation was given, and then everyone found a corner, formed groups, and started making their games. As MSPs, we were there to find solutions to the participants’ problems. Later on, I mentioned my idea for a game called “JUJU” to my friend Hamza Burakhan (he is also an MSP), or maybe the topic of the game just came up, I don’t exactly remember, but suddenly we found ourselves making a game too.
Even though we didn’t work on it too much until the evening, I think we managed to get something done. The idea, design, and music were from me, while Burakhan took on the game mechanics and coding. That evening, Burak Kaan joined the MSP team, which had started with Hamza Burakhan, Ahmet Anıl, Mine, Ecem, Özlem, Mehmet Reha, Tuğçe, Batu, Hasret, Kaan, and Dilara. Reha, Burak Kaan, and I ended up as the night watchmen. As we wrapped up that night with coding, playing games, and a long chat, a heavy sleepiness came over me around 3-something AM, and I laid down on the mats provided by Microsoft and fell asleep. When I opened my eyes half an hour later, I realized everyone had gone to sleep and turned off the lights. Then, without breaking my sleep, I threw my head back onto the fluffy BAU pillow.
When I woke up, it was around 7 or approaching 7, I don’t remember exactly. I opened my computer and browsed a bit. I went and got some coffee. We started waiting for the participants and MSPs who had left to come back. Then slowly everyone started to gather again, and to feed my stomach that had gotten hungry during the night (I was almost going to order a pizza, but then I told myself, “Sleep, Burak, morning is almost here, don’t make a fuss”), we went to breakfast. On the second day, Zeynep, Gökçe, and another Zeynep joined the team of Dilara, Burakhan, Reha, Ahmet Anıl, Batu, Ecem, Özlem, and Tuğçe again. By the way, I can say that Zeynep and Dilara are a level above the MSPs.
On the second day, Hamza and I worked a bit harder to finish the game. We left all the other tasks to our MSP friends; we just sat down and dealt with the game. Besides that, they helped us a lot as testers; in fact, Ecem held the high score.
When the time for the finals arrived, everyone had gathered, and with the jury taking their places, we were waiting for the game presentations to be made. Of course, Burakhan and I were among those who were going to present. There was also Reha, who participated solo. For the sake of having an advantage, we wanted to go up as the 1st group, but they said the order would be determined by a lottery system. We said “oh well” and waited for the draw, and to our surprise, we were picked in the very first draw! 😀 We immediately took our place for the presentation and started to deliver it. I got a little nervous, I won’t lie. While it wasn’t completely certain that I would come to Istanbul a week before this, being in Istanbul during the event week, attending the event, participating in the competition after arriving, and leaving the competition in 4th place was truly an interesting experience for me. By the way, normally, awards were going to be given to 3 groups, but before the winners were announced, it was declared that 4 groups would receive awards. And then, starting from the back, the 4th place was announced. And those people were us, “JuJu”. It was really my first time participating in such a competition, and I had won. It was truly fun. 😀
From here, I would like to thank Microsoft, who organized the event, and Bahçeşehir University. I sincerely thank all my instructors on the jury who chose us for 4th place, and my MSP friends who tested the game with us and offered ideas throughout this entire time :)) . And of course, a huge thank you to Burakhan, who teamed up with me and spent a long time coding the game. You were awesome 😀 It was my first time participating in this kind of app or game development event in my life. Getting a rank in the very first event I attended made me really happy.
Lastly, winning a rank at the event was nice, of course, but without my friends there, these two days wouldn’t have been this much fun; if it weren’t for my friends who hyped us up and supported us to make this game, it wouldn’t have been this beautiful and entertaining. Thank you so much for sharing your friendship. You all worked very hard, you were awesome 🙂
It’s reached 657 words. 😀 Anyway, see you later. Stay well. May God bless you..
