Student team wins third prize at Tencent Cloud global hackathon with a game blending Lingnan culture and cyberpunk

The team “Replicator Alliance”, made up of students from Shenzhen Technology University, Nanyang Technological University, and the University of Michigan, has taken third prize in the video game category of the global final of the Tencent Cloud 2026 Hackathon. They competed against 2,589 teams from around the world and stood out with a project that blends traditional Chinese culture and cyberpunk aesthetics.

The news was announced by the Chinese university itself, which explained the team's journey throughout the competition. In the initial phase, they developed The Dream Weaver, a 2D action platformer that placed second in the regional presentation for southern China.

A game that switches worlds when you attack

The Dream Weaver mixes elements of Lingnan culture — the region of southern China that includes Guangdong and Hong Kong — with a dream world corrupted by a “digital erosion.” Its environments feature qilou, those arcade buildings typical of the area, blue-brick alleys, and the figure of the huadan, the young female role in Cantonese opera.

The most striking feature is its dual-world mechanic: when the player attacks or takes damage, the world state, terrain, and enemies all change at once. It's not just a narrative device; it's integrated into the gameplay system. It's a bit like if in Guacamelee! the switch between the world of the living and the world of the dead were triggered by every hit instead of by a button.

For development, they used the Godot 4 engine and AI tools like Rika, FrameRonin, and Gemini to generate the initial sketches of characters, enemies, and environments. The core system code was supported with CodeBuddy, Tencent's programming assistant.

Two creation tools in nine days

In the final, the team had to shift gears. From the time the challenge was announced to the deadline, only nine days passed, and in that time they built two “workbenches”: Forge-2D and Yuexiang.

Forge-2D is designed for 2D asset production: it connects original character images, animation sequences, map expansion, layers, collisions, and export to Godot. In short, it helps a developer check whether their materials meet the standards to work within a real project.

Yuexiang, on the other hand, focuses on creating Lingnan cultural content. The user writes a simple idea, and the tool draws from an internal database about that culture to generate stories, videos, websites, and three-dimensional assets. That said, all results go through a human filter before being approved.

A collaboration that goes way back

The university and Tencent Cloud signed a collaboration agreement in October 2023. Since then, they have worked together on research, training, and campus resources. Now, with this award on the table, they plan to bring tools like CodeBuddy or Cloud Studio into game development classes.

In fact, Shenzhen's Faculty of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence has already made game development one of its priority areas for undergraduate students. They also teach Unreal Engine courses alongside companies in the sector, bringing industry workflows into the classroom.

The hackathon distributed a total of one million yuan in prizes and had three categories: video games, animation, and AI agents. The winning team consisted of Xie Tianlang, Fu Wendi, and Liu Zeyu, all first-year students at their respective universities. Xie was mainly responsible for game design and testing.

It has not been announced whether The Dream Weaver will be released commercially or whether the team will continue developing it after the competition.