Go to Hole, a video game developed in 48 hours by UT Game Development and Design students Jake Gollub and Dane Hildreth, placed second in the Austin Global Game Jam competition last month.
Gollub and Hildreth, both Arts and Entertainment Technologies (AET) seniors, have been working together for the past three years in developing games like Bosnian Salad Stack, Chef’s Kiss, Bambi’s Nature Adventure, and two games currently available on the Apple App Store: Down to Clown and Jetpack Goblin. With so much experience, they “knew they were ready for the Global Game Jam challenge,” Gollub stated.
The main requirement of the competition was to make the judges laugh. The duo kicked it off by developing a complex 2D game featuring ragdoll mechanics of a golf “ball” (the “ball” being one of two men with a golf ball-resembling helmet). Safe to say, the game was a hole-in-one, with the two students placing second out of 29 strong teams. Each of the other games explored comedic concepts that varied from playing as an unlicensed chiropractor to defeating “Karens” in a fast-paced fast food environment.
When asked what made their game different, Hildreth stated that it was simply their passion and their ability to make each other laugh: “Whether it was using our voices to make the background music or having the characters say ‘slay’ when they landed, we were constantly working to make each other laugh, which helped us place well in the process.”
Both Gollub and Hildreth credited the UT Game Development and Design Program (GDAD) in preparing them for success. Go to Hole is evidence of the program’s interdisciplinary approach due to its combination of distinct audio effects and fun ragdoll mechanics. Their game showcases the impact GDAD’s courses can have on student professional development in the game industry.
After graduation, both Hildreth and Gollub plan on continuing to make games together and integrating into the Austin game dev community. If you would like to check out more of their work, you can find Gollub’s itch.io page here and Hildreth’s here. “We are so proud of the work these students are doing and look forward to highlighting more student work throughout the spring semester,” Paul Toprac, Professor of Instruction and head of UT GDAD, commented.
The Game Development and Design (GDAD) Program at The University of Texas at Austin is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program between the departments of Arts and Entertainment Technologies, Computer Science, and Radio-Television-Film. The program produces graduates ready to design, develop, and provide leadership for the exploding growth in game, metaverse applications, and creative media agencies and studios in Texas and around the world. For more information on the GDAD Program, please visit gamedev.utexas.edu.
