War Lab won the Gala game of the year at the San Jorge University, one of Spain's most prestigious colleges for videogame development.
The project that was shown was a small variant of War Lab that introduced some experimental features that will slowly but surely make their way into the main game. Some of those include demolition and deformation of objects in real-time, fluid physics, and of course, procedural generation of the infinite world system as well as small towns and villages.
The participating games were those made by college students for their assignments, game jams, personal projects, and any game where the students have participated during the previous years.
Some of the participating games were long-term projects and some of the best video games that have been seen in several years, as the previous year, due to the pandemic, there was no GOTY gala, so all the big projects were competing in a larger field than usual and had the opportunity of being developed for an additional year.
The jury was composed of professionals of the industry that gave feedback to each of the games after a brief presentation and then deliberated what games were worthy of getting on the podium.
During the deliberation, the audience, formed by students, teachers, professors, press, computer engineers (some of which have PhDs), and professionals of the industry, rated each game, and the sum of points ended up with the War Lab's victory.
After a long-awaited deliberation, the jury presented the top three games from all the participants, remarking War Lab was the best even if it was not a finished project and the experimental features impressed them.
For those interested in knowing when the public alpha will be released, all the users that asked to participate in the playtest will soon be granted access for an unlimited time, and new users will be able to join freely without the need to wait for the game to accept new participants, as this will set as an open playtest for all curious VR enthusiasts to enjoy.
The college made the news public, here is the source for those who want to know more about the event, note that this is a Spanish university, so the news is written in Castillian Spanish.
https://www.usj.es/blogs/universidad-san-jorge/actividades-academicas/el-grado-en-diseno-y-desarrollo-de-videojuegos-celebra-la-gala-game-of-the-year-para-premiar-los-mejores-juegos-desarrollados-por-alumnos