 Can you please introduce yourself and the game that you worked on? Yeah, so my name is Jamie Swartzwalder. I worked with a team of three people this weekend. All of us were new to Unity. We'd seen VR before. I'd been part of a VR hackathon previously, but no coding. And our goal was to create a social justice game that would create empathy for a story. We were liking the idea of someone who had been sold into slavery, and we did a lot of research into what are the possible reasons that someone could be in a situation like that so that we can help develop a story that we really would resonate with people. We ended up telling the story about someone who was on a ship and had gotten a lot of debt inherited from their family as well as other situations, and then are forced to have to sort fish in a small room so that they can pay up their debts. When situations in real life happen like that, the people who own the boat or are their employers rig the system. They generally will charge more for rent or charge more for food or sudden expenses, and then there's no way to actually get out of debt because you make less that day than they ever charge you. So it's lifetime slavery. Can you tell me a little bit about your team composition? So all of us were interested in VR. None of us had any experience with Oculus. None of us had even played with the Oculus before, although I'd played with the Vive. And we had programming background. I've learned Java, PHP, Python, the other developer that was really strong on our team had done C sharp before, which is what Unity's in, but it never actually opened Unity previously. And our third developer had played around in Unity, putting shapes and stuff, but none of us had experience making a thing or launching it. Interesting. What were some of the challenges that you guys faced when trying to make a VR game? Well, setting up the VR was actually a really big challenge. We spent five hours on Saturday just trying to get the Oculus to register the sensors. And so we ended up kind of doing parallel programming in a way where we had two computers, two Oculus touches that had been donated, kindly from Oculus and Unity 3D. And then we were able to try and learn Unity, create a sample scene in Unity while the other ones of us were trying to get Oculus to work. And we were running back and forth between each one of like, did it work? Did it work? Okay, let's try this. But I also used a lot of information from people I'd worked with before. I've gone to meetups about VR, part of Seattle VR Slack. My husband does Unity development. And when I did the hackathon previously, he had been the one who did the development. So I was calling in lots of favors, lots of asks so that I could get not sped through things, but a lot of assistance. And it was Seattle VR that recommended that we use a prefab called Newton. And once we were able to get Unity up and running, they helped troubleshoot why that wasn't working. But once we got going, then we were able to start tying scenes together and get an actual demo that a lot of people could play through. Nice, nice. Is this your first game, Jim? No, I've done Ludum Dare with my husband before. And I've also been part of hackathons. I love Startup Weekend. And I've done the VR hackathon from Seattle VR previously, but I'm not a programmer. Normally, I'm the person that makes GitHub work or does the presentations. And most recently, I've learned how to do coding. So I'm venturing a little out of my comfort zone. How has this game jammed's theme been different than some of the other events you've attended? I've never attended one about social justice. Primarily, I love education and non-profits. And the Startup Weekend was Startup EDU. But this is something where it's helping non-profits, helping tell a story, and also games. So there are two things that I'm really excited about and passionate about. And it's also an amazing space. I love that it was at the Living Computer Museum. Nice, nice. What did you think about, I guess, so this one was social justice. What do you think about trying to tackle that versus just like trying to tackle a gameplay system as for a theme? Well, ever since I really started thinking about game design, because that's what my husband's passion was, I wanted to tie education and games together. Ten years ago, I was involved in Second Life, which is a virtual environment. And we helped create a library there. And so my passion has always been looking at ways that you can tie justice causes or education or more than just a play experience, but learning. And so I've paid attention to a lot of different things. I love Never Alone, you know, this dragon cancer and the power that games have to not just give you experience, but to cause you to feel something and maybe take action based on that. It's almost like writing a book or watching a movie, but it's the most interactive that you can get for those experiences. Very cool. What has been some of the more interesting things that have happened for your team in this game chat? Well, we were really surprised that we were able to accomplish what we could. I've always been a big advocate and then more viable product for all the hackathons I go to. So, you know, trying very early on of like scoping it, like what what really do we want to accomplish so we don't set our expectations too high? So we set up really early that what we wanted to do was have a cube in VR that you could hopefully pick up and move and stretch goal would be you can drop it in a bucket. And the end result was much better than that because we wanted to set our expectations low. If you would have told me Friday that it would have looked like that, I wouldn't have believed you. It was really came together quickly and beautifully. Nice. Very cool. Yeah, it was a very impressive project. And like when you see all the fish and especially when you could pick up the fish, that was good. How did you feel the community, the people participating in the game jam, differed from other game jams? Because I've heard that this community was rather unique in terms of how cooperative it was. Well, the other hackathons that I've been, the people have always been really nice and really welcoming and answering questions. I've never had someone walk away from their game to help your game before. It was really cool that someone else who was on their project, on their team, took over an hour out of their time to record the audio and worked with us to get the dialect to be right, had to change everything that we'd written so that it would actually sound like someone from their country. And we're very appreciative that they took that much time just to tell that story, which took away from theirs. Nice. What are you excited about for the next game jam? The next social justice game jam or the next game jam coming from these guys? I don't know. It's hard because I love the experience of being able to try something out and work with new people and the idea that anything is possible. And so anything's possible. I don't have expectations because then I can be oppressed and amazed by whatever does happen. It's a very good way to look at it. Do you have any final comments or things you'd like to say about the game jam or the participants? I would really encourage anyone who's watching this and thinking about participating to not hesitate because the first hackathon I ever did, I didn't know how to code. I didn't really know the subject matter, but I put myself out there and I went anyway. And I learned so much and everyone is always appreciative and helpful. So this is a great time to try something new, something never done before. And at the end of the weekend, you don't have to do it again. You can be done unlike jobs, unlike school assignments. There's no consequences for failing. And a lot of learning comes from failing. So you can learn fast and you can fail it fast. And it's an amazing experience.