Vega School Students Use AI as "Teammate" in High Pressure Game Jam

Second and third year IIE Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences in Game Design and Development students from The Vega School at Emeris uMhlanga recently put their creativity and technical skills to the test during an internal Game Jam. They were challenged to design games from scratch under strict time limits.

The second year students had 48 hours to complete the challenge in teams, while the third year students were given 72 hours to work individually.

The Game Jam formed part of the students’ academic assessment and it gave them hands on experience in teamwork, problem solving and in working under pressure.

The Game Jam formed part of the students’ academic assessment and it gave them hands on experience in teamwork, problem solving and in working under pressure.

This year’s Game Jam introduced a new element to third year students who were required to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a “teammate” throughout the development process.

According to Kuleza Phiri (Experience Design and Game Design and Development Lecturer at The Vega School at Emeris uMhlanga) the results were impressive.

“The aim was to explore AI-assisted workflows and to determine whether these tools can genuinely support the game development process,” he said.

“Students were required to use AI for around 60% of the game development process and document how they used AI tools such as Cursor, Gemini and ChatGPT”.

One standout project for Phiri was “Flicker” by third year student Louise Small. The game places players in a maze where they are chased by a monster, with gameplay shifting as lights flicker on and off.

“This was a unique concept with strong potential to be developed into a full commercial game. It featured a solid gameplay loop and showed a high level of polish”, said Phiri.

Some students noted that while AI was helpful, it also had limitations.

Fellow third year student Ceili Rain Abrahams enjoyed the art and animation side of game design and AI helped her with the programming of her Dungeons and Dragons inspired game “Multiclass”.

“If something goes wrong with the coding or if there are errors you can get stuck if you run out of prompts in ChatGPT, whereas a programmer would be able to fix it more easily,” she explained.

For the second year students, the collaborative effort was a highlight as working in a team allowed each of them to focus on their strengths, whether it was narration, animation or programming.

Second year student Adishesha Nandkoomar said the IIE Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences in Game Design and Development appealed to him because of its broad focus. “It doesn’t just cover one aspect – it covers all the aspects of game development. We learn about art, design, modelling, animation and programming which is the full picture of how a game is made”.

Another second year student Kiige Kamwaro said Game Jams provided valuable real-world experience and that this was an opportunity for them to build their own game from scratch. “It gives us something under our belts where we can say, ‘This is what we built’. It shows what we’re capable of”.