What’s Quacking? Unity at Quackathon 2022

What is the Quackathon?

Quackathon is the annual hackathon hosted at the University of Dundee and organized by the Dundee University Computing Society (DUCS). Due to this abbreviation, the hackathon always ends up all-things-duck-related. The 2022 hackathon made a big comeback as it was the first in-person hackathon at the university since 2019. This year, the sponsors included Blackrock, Unity, BCS — The Chartered Institute for IT, and the event was supported by Hackathons UK, with a total prize pool of around £6400.

What did Unity propose?

As one of the event sponsors, Unity had the opportunity to propose a challenge to the students. This year, the challenge was to create a game and integrate it with one of Unity’s values: In It Together; Go Bold; Users First; Best Ideas Win. The proposed theme for the game was a banana duck (more on this later).

The students were free to use any technology or framework, and the game could be of any shape or format (think 3D, 2D or text-based). We also encouraged the students to come up with a backstory and unleash their creativity. Bonus points were given for integrating with Unity Gaming Services!

Why banana duck?

The banana duck became a mascot from the very early stages of planning the sponsorship, as it was the very first emoji response on the initial post containing the event information. Quickly, everyone fell in love with it, and so it stayed. We went as far as considering including the banana duck in the prize list and putting plastic banana ducks in front of the QMB (the event venue). Sadly, we weren’t able to do this, so we instead honoured the duck by incorporating it into the challenge. It also just happened to be in line with the Quackathon theme.

The event

The opening ceremony started on Saturday March 5th, with introductions from Unity and the other sponsors, and the big reveal of the challenge. We spent the first day mostly hanging around our booth, chatting to students who stopped by. Many students were curious about Unity and its culture. A lot of great questions were asked about what we do, what technology we work with and what do our internships entail. We shared what industries Unity is actively involved in, discussed our latest acquisitions of Weta Digital and Ziva Dynamics, and highlighted which games use our newest suite of products, Unity Gaming Services.

Some attendees were not aware of our presence in Scotland, so it was great to share what we have been up to, and gather interest for future internship opportunities at Unity.

On day two we were able to check out all the projects that the students had made overnight, and select the winner of our challenge (this was particularly difficult as the submissions were so awesome)!

The workshop

Along with the challenge, we ran a workshop to cover the basics of Unity Engine, which was led by Tim Jenks, Software Development Consulting Manager. He showed students how to navigate the editor, create objects and define interactions between them. The workshop was popular; it not only helped the attendees get up to speed with the engine but also provided insight to third-year students who are currently doing a Games Programming module. Students who hadn’t used Unity or C# before were able to get the hang of the engine and create some great games.

The entries

We were delighted by the number of teams participating in the Unity challenge — out of 12 submissions, 8 were for Unity. We were thrilled with this number, considering some of these entries had little to no prior Unity experience. As in most hackathons, there was a trend to combine the different challenges into one project. Many came up with original graphics, and we even had an entry with a custom-made soundtrack. In only 24 hours, the teams made some incredible games.

Here are some of our favourites!

Botched Assignment

For this impressive project, a group of first years played to their strengths and created a game using Processing. The game involved mixing different potions together to create various creatures, which were all hand-drawn and animated by the team.

Duck Roundup

This game was made in Unity and consisted of herding a group of ducks towards the exit. It was inspired by a mini-game from Club Penguin, Puffle Roundup. Take a look at this gorgeous banana duck which was drawn by one of the team members.

Banana Split

Unfortunately, this bowling-like game was not submitted as the sleep deprivation kicked in too early to finish the project. We appreciate the team’s efforts as the banana ducks were outstanding.

The winner

The winning game was Ultimate Duck Squad Builder. In this game, a flappy banana duck had to collect scattered letters to piece together the word ‘duck’, which freed little banana ducklings. After each level, the player was shown facts about how they can help the ducks. All the graphics and comics were made by the team too.

This team embodied our Unity value of In It Together, through working collaboratively to create custom graphics and in engineering the game. They demonstrated another of Unity’s values of Best Ideas Win by iterating through various concepts of how the game could play, until they found a solution that everyone aligned on. Unity’s Users First value shone through with the polished user experience, which included multiple sound effects.

The team showed a great amount of creativity and innovation, and we were really impressed with the end product, after only 24 hours. They were awarded four £50 Amazon vouchers, along with four Unity Pro Licences, worth £1800 each.

“Ultimate Duck Squad Builder” team with Unity representatives

Summary

The Quackathon made a triumphant return, and we were honoured to be part of it. The games were impressive, and we were amazed at how much was achieved in such a short period of time. We were happy to help students learn more about Unity and spread the word about our internship and graduate roles.

We’re looking forward to the next Quackathon!

Join us

Ready to start your career at a place you’ll be proud to work? Visit our University Recruitment page to find out more and apply today!

Here are a few other places we recommend you take a look at:

• Our Careers site
• Unity’s culture and values
• Kick starting your career at Unity

At Unity, we believe the world is a better place with more creators in it. From large 400 person teams, down to the 13-year-old making games after school, we want to enable all of them to be successful. One way we’re doing that at Unity in Scotland is by building a suite of products that help game developers build, manage, and grow live games. All of the products we are building as part of Unity Gaming Services help developers create more rich connected experiences, without having to hire a backend team or worry about scaling their services. Game development is already hard enough, and we want to enable developers to focus on what matters: making fun and engaging experiences for their players, and we’ll take care of the rest. We have many roles open in Edinburgh and Dundee for various skill levels. Come join us!

About the Author

Hi! I’m Gerda, and I’m currently interning at Unity as a full-stack engineer as part of Game Ops. I am a student at the University of Dundee, and before joining the company, I’ve finished two years of Computing Science course. The Quackathon in 2019 was when I first heard about ChilliConnect, a multi-featured connected Live Game Management platform, which was later acquired by Unity. My team decided to participate in their challenge, and we won the category. It was my first hackathon, and I really enjoyed the experience of engineering solutions and meeting more like-minded students.

When I noticed that Quackathon 2022 was coming up, I proposed the idea for sponsorship from Unity. Although it was challenging to plan it all, coming back to the university and reliving the hackathon experience was rewarding and completely worth it. I am glad I could take part in this event and share my experience with other students.