|
First Global Game Jam is a runaway success |
 1650 Gamers, build 360 Games in 48 hours
ROCHESTER, NY – February 6, 2009 – As the globe turned and the clock reached 5:00 pm in 14 different time zones, teams of gamers around the world hit their keyboards and began a 48-hour game building marathon. When it was over, they began uploading their games to the game browser on the Global Game Jam website, and now 360 free new games are available to try, download and examine.
“Collaboration is an extraordinary thing, and I am so amazed at what people were able to accomplish in 48 hours,” said Susan Gold, founder of Global Game Jam. “There was an energy in the room and you could feel the charge of excitement in what people were doing all over GGJ. For me, the highlight has been all of the stories about the experience people had with statements like ‘life-changing’ or the ‘best thing I have done in years.’ Once people realized what they are capable of doing when they worked together, they became more creative, more innovative and drove themselves to do things they did not know they could do.”
Gold and the other organizers know that creativity thrives when
constrained, and so all of the game teams were given three constraints,
two common to all the jams and then a variable set of constraints for
each time zone to ensure that no location had an advantage over
another. The constraints were that all games had to be shorter than
five minutes, and everyone had to use the theme “As long as we have
each other, we’ll never run out of problems.” Teams were allowed to
interpret that any way the cared to, but they had to add the 3rd
variable, which was a set of three adjectives that differed from zone
to zone.
In Angouleme, France participants had one additional constraint because
the event was co-located with a yearly comic book festival. Their guest
juror artists suggested that each of the games developed had to evoke
the graphic style of comic strips, so all games had to add an aesthetic
consideration as well.
“I heard from some of the sites that when the constraints were
introduced there was total silence in the room. But it was the silence
of the “people thinking hard” because in 15 minutes they had to pitch a
game,” said Ian Schreiber, one of the three organizers of the Jam.
While all the teams exemplified passion and dedication that pushed them
to extremes, Jammers at a few sites had to overcome a little more than
others. More than half of Ottawa’s original 22 registrants braved
severe rainstorms and a bus strike to get to the site. Pittsburgh
worked under the sonic assault of five fire alarms due to a mechanical
error in the systems and Charlotte, North Carolina had a radioactive
fire break out in the Biology Department building where the event was
housed.
“Jammers were evacuated into the freezing cold where they proceeded to
make their design pitches. By the time the last pitch was made, they
were relocated to a new building. So they survived the threat of death
by fire, cold and radiation,” continued Schreiber.
If you missed your chance to be a part of the Global Game Jam, the team
is already brainstorming next year’s GGJ. Look for announcements about
GGJ 2010 soon.
Dutch version
Sponsored by:
Organised by:
Supported by:
|
