My Daydream at Daydream Lahore

Daydream Lahore was an event organized by Muhammad Dawood, part of a larger event organized by HackClub. I bet the whole thing is kinda confusing to explain within a few lines, but the idea was to host a game jam, in which you learn to make a game, and then make a game, and then keep making games! It was about inspiring as many people as possible to learn a new skill and start their own journey as a developer. I mean, that is also the main motive behind HackClub. A teen-led community, with only one purpose: to learn together new things.

[Before Daydream, 19 July - 13 September, 2025]

Day 1, I found out about Daydream. I thought it was just another ysws about game dev. But then, after having watched the video on YouTube.

"What if there were more people like me, who didn't think they can do it until they tried? So we had this crazy idea-" -Renran.

I immediately got interested in it. There was no one running it in Lahore yet, and I didn't know anyone in Lahore who was part of HackClub. So I signed up as a host myself. I had no idea how I would run it, where I would run it, and how the sponsors and everything would come together. I thought the best option was to wait a bit and see if we can come up with a plan.

A few days later, I was DM'ed by someone named Muhammad Dawood. "yeah so what plans do you have because you are apparently the PoC" "Honestly I have absolutely no solid plans yet for daydream Lookin forward to working with you sir "

So yeah, I simply handed over the responsibility to Sir Dawood because he said that he had prior experience at hosting a program like this (Counter Spell). He told me that I would have to prepare for a workshop in which I'd have to teach game development. Sir Dawood had no experience in it at all. I am a Unity developer, but before I switched to Unity in July 2024, I had been making games in Godot for about 8 months. I was ideally suited for this task.

Basically, the rest of August flew by quickly while I prepared most of the slides that I'll have to present. I was unsure about the framework and the approach that I'd have to take to teach because I had never done teaching or a workshop before.

[14 - 26 September, 2025]

By the 14th of September, everyone started getting serious. It was about to happen, Daydream in 130 countries, with thousands of participants worldwide. The merch was in, the venue was ready. Daydream Lahore was to happen on 27 September, 8 AM to 8 PM, at Coloc Work in Gulberg, Lahore, under the supervision of Muhammad Dawood and Mustafa Alvi, with a HackClub grant of ~190,000 PKR, out of which ~100,000 will be used to pay for the venue. I was getting excited but also very nervous at the same time. "What if I am not able to deliver my workshop? What if I just freak out or lack the confidence to even speak?". Along with all the stress I had due to my test session at school in the middle of it all, I managed to glue together the last few bits of the slides and called the thing 'ready'. (Slides are available at https://cdn.alimad.co/f/daydream-lahore.pptx and the other software used to present was https://github.com/Alimadcorp/matrix )

I had invited my classmates to Daydream. And my cousin Arman was also to join. He will arrive tomorrow at 7 AM, so we can leave for Daydream together in the morning. I was in this state of thinking whether I can do it or not. At one point, I was nervous, at another, saying it'll be ok. Well, anyhow, I went to sleep, hoping that tomorrow will go the best.

[27 September, 2025]

The day itself had dawned. What we anticipated, what we were waiting for, what we prepared for. I am so excited for this thing, and I have this new feeling in me saying that I'm about to do it, and I will do it, or at least try. Until now, I had never met a developer like me in person; they are few and far between. But Daydream Lahore, it was my chance to meet so many people. And knowing that some of them will not have good knowledge in this field, it was my chance to teach and inspire a new interest in their lives. It was my chance to make an impact, my chance to grow, my chance to know that I can do it.

13,153 teens, from 101 different cities in 30 different countries throughout the whole wide world, will come together for 12, 24, or 48 hours for once to make a game and to showcase it to the rest of the world. Thirteen thousand participants, easily more than the most entries in a game jam on itch.io. It was a dream come true, a Daydream.

We are the first to arrive at the venue, which is a beautiful coworking space with many great features.

Then Hashim arrives, who is a friend from college, the person who invited me to HackClub in the first place. He had come to Daydream for two purposes, one to learn game dev, of course, and two, to do some shady business but I think Daydream may have been too exciting for the both of us that he literally forgot about it. Then I finally get to meet Muhammad Dawood, who has surprisingly also brought a huge computer setup to the venue, saying that "When you are used to a much faster system, you cannot switch back to the slower one at all." Ok?

Slowly but steadily, the rest of the participants arrive, and as they do, we scan them in and install Godot on their devices. The workshop has to start within 2 hours, so everyone has some time to get ready for the jam. I am given the Daydream t-shirt, which has a very cool design on it. "HackClub Daydream" and some words in Chinese are written. The back of the shirt has four different slabs of different vibrant, colored paintings. Made by Renran Sun from HackClub, the one with the idea behind all of Daydream. If you are reading this, I would like to say that I loved the art.

Moving on, we got the display ready for the workshop presentation. Sir Dawood then did the theme reveal. With a double set of drumrolls...

The theme was...

"Sacrifices Must Be Made"

What a theme. It gave me like a general idea that a game would have some sort of tradeoff mechanic, in which the player will have to pay with something that is not only important to them, but they also care for it from the perspective of the game's protagonist, to gain or save something else.

That guy in the sunglasses is me, with Muhammad Dawood, the host, standing next to me.

Ok, it's about time. My workshop had to start. Everyone goes inside the meeting room. I go outside to take a little breath of air, and then come back. Everyone is looking at me, expecting me to say something. An air of silence and expectation fills the room. I wish I could've been able to hype it all up, but I started with the simplest of things; the sponsors. Then, after a few seconds, I found myself having the confidence to continue speaking and communicating.

"How do you make a game?" I started,

"I don't know. Said Markus Persson in 2005, and then in 2009, he released Minecraft." Everyone has a starting point, a time when they decide to start learning, and to continue it slowly yet steadily up to a day when they can look back and be proud of what they have created in their lives. And now, at Daydream Lahore, today, it is that time for you. I want you all not to just make a game and leave. No. I want you all to take this as a start to making a game. You will continue working on your game, and you will continue working on other games. You will move on and you will learn new stuff. You will create and you will contribute. But today, you will Daydream.

Because many of the participants had zero experience in programming and development, I had to teach with a very basic framework that I came up with. According to which, to develop a game, the first thing you need, is patience. Yes. To be patient in game dev is to have succeeded in the first step on the ladder of learning it. Second, you need a tool. An app to make the app, a place where you can drag and drop things, a thing that can simplify the process, and allow you to export it and port it to the internet. Third, of course, you need good logic design and programming skills, and fourth is game design. Game design is like half of game dev. It is essential to map out what UI, UX, art, and mechanic your game will have. Then we started setting up Godot, after which I made Pong in it while explaining every step. The workshop was meant to run for 1 hour, what I thought the duration I might be capable of, was 20 minutes; but I ran it, for two hours. And I can say that by the end of the workshop, I had proven to myself that I can do it. I can do it now because I tried. And all thanks to HackClub for giving me this opportunity to try.

Well now the development phase has started. I found out the host has no experience in Godot, and cannot help much, so that makes me the only person who will help the participants out during the development, and boy, was that a busy time. Everyone was calling "Ali bhaiiiiiiii" every two minutes, and I had to move from table to table to provide small amounts of help to each person to keep the thing going. Thankfully, there were no more than about 20 participants, so I was possibly able to manage. We all had a fun time at Daydream. Here are the rest of the images I wanted to paste in;

Then we all submitted the games to the podium, packed our stuff, and distributed the shirts among the participants. It was 8 PM, and it was the end of a long day. A great day.

Organizing Daydream Lahore was a stressful yet inspiring opportunity. I got to share my knowledge with so many other people like me, to help inspire projects that would be the start of a whole new game development journey, and to know that as long as creativity is alive, no one can stop a bunch of teens from getting together and making something out of the question.

‎Thank you for having me, Daydream Lahore.

‎And thank you, HackClub, for having changed my life. I wish us all good luck, and I wish HackClub continues to prosper and continues to organize awesome events like these.

Written by Muhammad Ali

29 September, 2025

Thanks to Renran Sun, Muhammad Dawood, the rest of the staff, and all the participants to have made Daydream possible.