It’s finally over. The games were completed a few weeks ago and 6 judges have toiled over the games and struggled to grade and rate them. But we have a decision and boy it was close…

Over the course of 6 weeks, over 150 teams forked our original project and worked their little gamedev butts off to finish the games in time. In the end we had over 30 playable entries – more than enough to keep our judges busy.

First, we want to send a big Thank You to PlayJam our partner and sponsor for this PLAYHACK.

PlayJam is a leading game publisher from the UK currently launching a new publishing/gaming platform. Winners of this PLAYHACK automatically qualify for launch and publication on this new platform and PlayJam representatives will be in touch. PlayJam is constantly on the look out for new and exciting HTML5 games, so please don’t hesitate to contact them for details, funding or even just advice. (Steve.Horne@PlayJam.com).

Now, lets get to the results!

First Place – £2000

Orbital Survival

Congratulations to el-pepi who takes the grand prize with this fast paced orbital shooter. Defend your tiny moon from incoming UFOs and slimy blobs using only the upgradable gun on your robot arm. There’s nothing more terrifying than seeing a rogue 5-shot-burst looping over the horizon back towards you. Our judges said: “Simple but fun and keeps you coming back for more”

Second Place – £1000

Galaxies: Combat

Congrats to dstalk and maungers who take (a very close) second place. An arena style shoot-em-up. Take on wave after wave of increasingly tough spaceships and earn money to upgrade your UFO with new weapons. Displaying impressive polish from the explosions to the upgrade tree and the UI. Our judges said: “nice physics, intuitive controls”.

Third Place – £500

Space Pirates

An impressive amount of work in 6 weeks by whydoidoit nabbed him third place. Bomberman meets Pac-man in this spherical dot collector game. Oh and networked multiplayer too! Our judges said: “interesting gameplay mix, nice use of the engine”

Special Mentions

A few special mentions to games that caught the judges attention but didn’t quite make the top three. Imperial’s Secret Plan is a survival horror game. Our judges said: “Very nice idea – a superbly atmospheric puzzle adventure game.”. Into Deep Space is gravity slingshot game. Our judges said: “Beautiful graphics, flawed by some technical shortcomings”. Robo Racer is a classic racing game. Our judges said: “Good solid entry”.

Play All Entries

We’ve put together a special page which has every “game” that entered.

Go and try them out

Don’t forget to show the creators some love and star the projects you like!

This month we have an extra special PLAYHACK, our monthly game jam, to announce. We’ve teamed up with ARM, to bring you both a excellent new 3D Model to start your game with, but also an excellent prize.

PRIZE

This month the author of our favorite PLAYHACK game will walk away with a Chromebook 2, the ARM powered laptop that’s perfect for game development with PlayCanvas!

Here are the specs:

Samsung Chromebook 2 13.3”

• Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (5800)
• ARM® Mali™-T628 MP6 GPU
• ARM Cortex®-A15 MP4 and Cortex-A7 MP4 CPUs
• ARM big.LITTLE™ processing

To win this lovely bit of kit we want you to build a game, and to help you build that game ARM has supplied us with this beautiful Buggy Model.

We’ve set up the vehicle physics for you (but feel free to re-write that if you like). All you need to do is come up with an interesting idea for a game (Racing, Stunt driving, Buggy Football!) and code it up. You don’t even need to make the buggy the center of attention, as long as it’s in your scene you’re good.

Short on ideas? Check out the forum thread to join the idea discussion.

HOW TO ENTER

Entering is simple. Visit the PLAYHACK March project and click the FORK button. This creates a new project for you to build your game in. At the end of the month (Midnight on the 31st March to be precise) we’ll check all the public projects that have been forked from the original and work with ARM to select a winner.

Style points (these don’t count towards winning) will be awarded for posting updates to your Devlog throughout the project and sharing screenshots, daily builds and updates through PlayCanvas, Twitter, Facebook and anywhere else.

What are you waiting for?

START PLAYHACKING!

Terms and Conditions

These Terms defined below apply to the PLAYHACK March Competition.

1. By entering the Competition, entrants agree to be bound by the Terms. In addition, all entrants are required to comply with the PlayCanvas Terms of Use.
2. PlayCanvas reserves the right to cancel or amend Competitions or the Terms at its sole discretion.
3. In the event of any dispute regarding the Terms, conduct, results and all other matters relating to a Competition, the decision of PlayCanvas shall be final and no correspondence or discussion shall be entered into.
4. PlayCanvas reserves the right to disqualify any entrant if it has reasonable grounds to believe the entrant is not eligible or has otherwise breached any of the Terms.
5. PlayCanvas does not guarantee to use any entry. PlayCanvas may also, in appropriate circumstances, and at its sole discretion, reject, edit, remove or disable access to entries that it considers may be legally or otherwise problematic.
6. By entering the Competition entrants are also confirming that they own the rights to or have permission for all work submitted and any violation of this disqualifies them from the competition.
7. By entering the Competition entrants give PlayCanvas and ARM permission to use your game and details for any marketing purposes.
8. The competition Start Date is March 1st, 2015.
9. The competition Closing Date is March 31st, 2015.
10. All Entries must be created using PlayCanvas and final games must be published and hosted on the PlayCanvas site.
11. Judging will consist of playing the published primary app in the submitted project.
12. The following prizes will be awarded based on the set criteria for the competition: A Samsung Chromebook 2.
13. If the entry was made by a team, the person who owns the account used for submission is eligible for the prize.
14. PlayCanvas and ARM employees are not eligible to enter the competition.
15. All entrants under the age of 18 must have their parents’ permission before any prizes are awarded.
16. There is no limit to the number of entries that an entrant can submit.
17. Each game can only be entered once.
18. In order to participate in the competition entries must:
    • Be created using the online PlayCanvas platform and game engine.
    • Be a fork of the original PLAYHACK March project.
    • Include and use the Buggy 3D Model in the game.
    • Have a published primary app.
19. Winners will be notified by PlayCanvas on or before Friday, April 5th, 2015.
20. Competition winners will be announced via the PlayCanvas website.