The winner of the first GameDev-hakaton DataArt was a team from Kiev

48 hours, nine teams representing individual DataArt development centers or distributed between cities created their own HTML5 games.

“It all started with the idea of ​​Max Knyazev, our front-end developer, who wrote edu.coordination to our newsletter,” said the hackathon coordinator Alexander Dudin. “He offered to host an internal hackathon for all DataArt.”
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According to Maxim himself, he initially thought of the hackathon as a way to remind colleagues of important internal and R & D projects, where there are often not enough people with special skills: “I offered to gather those who are not fully loaded now and train in such a pleasant format their necessary skills and give them acceleration. But the colleagues who picked up the idea immediately found support from our iGaming practice, and the hackathon decided to refocus on the games. ”

iGaming-practice appeared not so long ago and is now actively developing. Therefore, for her the opportunity to meet people who are interested in games and are in different locations, was particularly interesting. Initially, the organizers hoped to gather about 30 participants, but the response exceeded expectations - 60 people registered for participation, and more than 40 passed the hackathon from beginning to end. “I think the role was played by the fact that the prize was finally chosen as cool. DataArt has provided Oculus Rift virtual reality glasses for the authors of the game, ”Dudin specifies.

Alexey Pchelintsev, game designer and business analyst for iGaming practice, explains that the main goal of the hackathon was to acquaint colleagues with iGaming practice: “It seems to me that from this point of view, the goal has been achieved. Several dozen people participated in the hackathon itself, even more people voted for the teams - I think almost everyone knows in the end that we did the hackathon. And I think that we can try to zastaffit someone from the hackathon participants in future projects. ”


The game Bouncy, created by a distributed team from Kharkov and St. Petersburg, according to the audience, best embodied the idea of ​​a parallel universe.

Tasks and conditions

The restrictions for the teams were minimal: for Saturday and Sunday they had to create an HTML5 game using only their own work and open sources. Participants were recommended by two libraries, the most convenient from the experience of iGaming-practices, but it wasn’t necessary to contact them specifically. The size of the teams at this time were not regulated and ranged from one to 15 people. They could gather in conference rooms, stay in their usual places or work from home - different teams approached the organization of the creative process in different ways.

“Immediately I did not succeed in finding people who know exactly how to do the hackathon distributed between the cities from the beginning to the end,” says Alexander Dudin. - Therefore, we needed to agree on each item of the regulations, of which there were a lot. And whether or not to announce the theme for future games, we decided not immediately. ”

As a result, the topic was nevertheless chosen - “Parallel Universes”, and for its best disclosure they established a special nomination. Separately noted for the most successful use of an important for DataArt symbol - tangram, better graphics, sound and gameplay. In addition to the jury, the audience could have chosen the best game, although the results of their voting coincided with the opinion of experts. The winner of both those and others recognized the Kiev team with the game Fly & Math.


Fly & Math combines elements of a classic flappy bird and math game.

Games and winners

Sergey Chernykh admitted to Senior Game Developer DataArt that he was a little upset when he was included on the jury, because he wanted to participate in the hackathon: “I basically love the tasks that need to be solved in a limited time. But it was also interesting to judge, although it was not easy - we worked out the evaluation criteria and the full list of nominations already in the process and were largely guided by subjective feelings. I think next time we will write them out more clearly and we will be able to explain them in detail to the participants before the hackathon begins. The guys are really great! They showed both enthusiasm and professionalism. There were no bugs and shortcomings, but if you can play a game made in two days with pleasure for at least half an hour - a great success! And I liked the game.


Gameplay shooters Petersburg team Bloody Balalaika viewers rated the highest.

Both jury members and spectators, and the participants themselves noted that many games were really fascinating. This is especially surprising, given that in most teams there was not a single person with GameDev experience. However, this does not apply to the Kievans who won in the hackathon. “Probably, from the very beginning they could be called favorites,” says Sergey Chernykh. “These are my colleagues, very talented and professional guys who have been playing games for a long time.”

The Kyiv team consisted of programmer Igor Vlasenko and artist Anton Goncharov, none of them had participated in hackathons before. At the same time, Igor clarifies that, in principle, he is not a fan of competitions and contests, and, in general, the team’s motivation was the love of games and the desire to work in the indie genre.

Igor Vlasenko told about the preparation process for the hackathon: “We could often discuss ideas - we sit opposite each other, and the closer the time approached the hackathon, the more often we asked each other:“ Well, did you come up with something? ”. Of course, I had some ideas and workpieces on game mechanics, as I work in this area. But, in fact, the main thing - to hook the player. For example, I was thinking about the option of tower defense, but in the end we decided to simplify our game as much as possible. And they stopped at a combination of a flappy bird and a mathematical game. ”

The concept and mechanics were a little bit drawn to a given topic, based on which Anton invented the setting: the main character flies in a parallel dimension, where he constantly solves simple arithmetic examples. The wrong answer instantly opens the portal to the universe where it turns out to be a vegetable. Additional motivation for players - a pre-set record of 129 points, which is not easy to beat.

The winners agree that the results achieved by their rivals are impressive. “For people who are not involved in games, to do this in a short time is cool! - says Anton Goncharov. - The only thing it would be good for all the teams to have an artist, because he plays a big role in the preparation of the concept and in game design. For those who work at GameDev, the platformers already seem a bit bored - you want something new and fresh, bold and unexpected - for example, take something like a monopoly. Sometimes it is better to lose in mechanics and physics, winning at the expense of the idea itself. If the game of three dice and one circle brings pleasure - this is the best game! ”


The game of the team from Odessa received a prize in the nomination best sound effects.

The hackathon winners especially liked the games made by the team from Odessa and the distributed teams of St. Petersburg and Kharkov and St. Petersburg and Kherson. And for their Fly & Math, they do not exclude a commercial perspective. “We have many options for its further development,” said Igor Vlasenko. - Any new rounds, achievements, bonuses. Someone wrote that this game is ideal for teaching children to count. I thought that you can use it to learn elementary English words. In general, we are ready to modify the game, fix the bugs that remain hidden from the users' eyes, and post it in the form of a finished product. ”

Alexey Pchelintsev emphasizes that the iGaming practice is happy with the hackathon, although some participants concentrated on the program part much more than on the GameDev component: . For the first time it is very good. In the future, you need to think about how to supply teams with people and tools in order to make even more interesting products. But we have not yet set a goal to make games that can be immediately sent to the AppStore or GooglePlay. On the scale of the hackathon, everything turned out great! ”