Games and Interactive Media students won the Best Creative Content award at Global Game Jam 2026 with their game "Aliens Eat People.
The countdown timer stopped. Over 48 hours of competition filled with pressure and relentless time — that was a new lesson never taught in any classroom. But participating in Global Game Jam 2025 gave Team 99% a brand-new experience, along with the Best Creative Content award, earned through their quirky game "Who's Next" — a story about an alien who chooses to build friendship with humans in the most unusual way.
Team 99% Members
- Ananporn Klampeng — Artist
- Pim Somsak — Artist
- Pariyakorn Saelao — Artist
- Punnapha Aranyanarth — Programmer
- Chayapat Thatchayapong — Programmer
- Sinchai Sriudom — Programmer
From a Facebook Post to an International Stage
The story began simply. One team member spotted a Global Game Jam announcement on Facebook and invited friends to sign up. Global Game Jam is an international game development event held simultaneously around the world in a Hackathon format. All participants receive the same single prompt and compete to create a complete game within 48 hours. This year's onsite event accepted only the first 100 participants.
Train Before the Battle — Three Weeks of Preparation
What set Team 99% apart was refusing to wait until competition day. They began preparing immediately after registering. One member organized shared practice sessions, even though each person had different class schedules and could only meet together for two hours every Tuesday. "Our practice process started with drawing a mock theme by lottery, then everyone brainstormed, outlined the story, divided responsibilities, and actually built a game — to find weaknesses and prepare for them before the real competition. The team repeated this process over three weeks leading up to the event," a team representative shared.
"Mask" — One Word, a Thousand Meanings
When the theme was simultaneously revealed worldwide via YouTube and the word "Mask" appeared, Team 99% didn't rush to a decision. Instead, they chose to interpret it deeply — exploring the dimensions of a physical mask, concealing one's identity, and even Mask Layers in graphic design — before distilling it into a concept everyone on the team could clearly envision.
The result was "Who's Next" — an alien longing for companionship who chooses to build relationships with humans by eating them and transforming into them. Players guide the alien through a predatory cycle along a designed chain: eat a woman to lure a man, eat the man to approach an elderly person, and so on in a loop. The more victims consumed quickly within the time limit, the higher the score.
48 Hours — The Pressure No Classroom Can Teach
The team divided work into two clear sides. The Code side handled the UI system, character mechanics, and all entities using Unity and Visual Studio, while the Art side was responsible for drawing 2D characters, designing the map, and creating animations. A Tech Art role bridged both sides to ensure smooth collaboration, while a Project Manager coordinated the team and guided its direction.
"Day one everything went smoothly, but by day two everyone's energy started to run out. We hit a problem when the Code side was working faster than the Art side, which needed time to draw each piece one by one. Bugs also kept popping up, and time never waited. In the end, we stood firm until the very last second and successfully hit Submit — just 7 minutes before the deadline," the team representative recounted.
A Reward Worth More Than a Trophy
"Who's Next" took home the Best Creative Content award from a judging panel that included from leading game companies. But for Team 99%, the most valuable reward may not have been the trophy at all — it was the experience of proving to themselves that they could build a complete game under time pressure, and actually enjoy doing it. "If we can make a game under this kind of time constraint, a longer game isn't scary anymore," one team member summarized what they gained from the competition.
