The first X48 GameCamp of 2010 was last weekend at Birmingham City University, and Mat Simmons, Jason Thomas, Martyn Poole and I were there competing against 15 other teams from around the UK to produce a game in just 27 hours!

Our Friday started off with a 4-hour journey to get to the venue itself. Once we’d finally ventured over the English-Welsh border and up to wild and wintery Birmingham, it was simply a matter of finding the right campus of the university (no small feat as every second building we’d passed on our way in seemed to have the university logo on the side). After a little confusion, we were informed by a friendly lady behind an information desk that actually the science museum/IMAX cinema we were in was indeed the right place (why don’t we have one of those?).

This year’s theme for Birmingham was “Discovery”, quite an open-ended theme leaving plenty of opportunities for some interesting game concepts. We started off with a 1-hour session coming up with any game idea we could get our hands on, no matter how stupid or difficult-to-build they sounded. From previous experience, the best ideas normally come from something completely ridiculous and immensely over-ambitious, scaled down accordingly.

Working through the night (only broken by the now-familiar experience of 2 hours sleep on industrial computer-lab carpet), we came to day two when everyone decided it would probably be a good idea to let those of us not doing anything at a particular time to get some more rest before the final push (that and the fact that our bus home wasn’t due to leave Birmingham until 8pm, still a full 12 hours away).

At the end of the day we didn’t win any prizes, but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable two days and I know I’ll certainly be back next year to try again! You can download and play our entry for free from dcfgames.co.uk/games/drainbamage. As for the future, the team is going forward to compete in the Imagine Cup and we’re looking into entering Dream-Build-Play and Dare to be Digital 2010 so watch this space for further updates!