This week on Ask Gamedev we take a look at Game Jams, a game developers hackathon where
individuals of varying talents come together in the spirit of game development.
These jams range anywhere from 48 hours to a full month.
Participants are given a theme to follow as they work solo or as a team to create a fully
functional game.
Developers have the freedom to use their favorite game engines and can meet both in person and
online.
In this video we will be taking a look at several great Game Jams.
Lets get started.
We are Ask Gamedev AKA Gamejam & Earl, AKA the Ludum Dare-Devils, AKA Lilo & Itch and
these are 9 Game Jams to check out!
First, on our list, we visit Global Game Jam.
Founded in 2008 the first Global jam took place at 53 locations across the globe, with
1650 participants creating 370 unique games.
Participants are required to register and then visit their physical local jam site where
they watch a keynote presentation from top developers and then review the single global-wide
secret theme.
Global Game Jam is true to its name and holds the Jam at the same time in late January world-wide.
Due to different time zones and regions, Global Game Jam strictly requests participants to
keep the secret theme to themselves until the final timezone is on board.
Participants discuss ideas and form groups with their fellow local developers to begin
their 48-hour game development journey.
The Global Game Jam is held once per year, with the upcoming 2019 version scheduled from
January 25th to January 27th.
Hosts must have a location that is available to participants 24 hours a day, with a close
proximity to food and beverages.
Global Game Jam encourages comradery by downplaying competition and instead celebrating the gaining
of experience and knowledge of game development through teamwork.
Many titles developed during the Global Game Jam have become full-fledged games.
The second jam on our list is One Game A Month, which was founded in 2013 by McFunkyPants
AKA Christer Kaitila, One Game A Month is geared towards encouraging developers to keep
it simple and get it done!
We all know that starting a game is easy, finishing it is the hard part.
Those interested in game development can jump in at any point, work on, share and post any
of their games.
With an optional monthly theme, there are no rules to adhere to.
Participants can go solo or bring a team, complete a project they have been working
on for years, or start fresh.
The overall goal of this Jam is to finish and post one game per month.
To add motivation McFunkyPants has made game development into a game itself by adding experience
points and achievements for development progress.
For every game participants submit to the jam website, they get rewarded with a pat
on the back in the form of experience points and various achievements.
This system is in place to help keep developers motivated in finishing the games they’ve
started, continuing to develop skills and above all else, having fun.
Number three on our list is Ludum Dare [pronounced “Loo-dum Dah-reh”].
Founded in April 2002, Ludum Dare is an online community best known for its Game Jam event
which takes place every April, August, and December.
During this event, game jam participants have a single weekend to create a game from scratch.
The theme is suggested by the Ludum Dare community to which creators may or may not follow during
the development period.
Once the game is complete, participants may submit their finished product to the Ludum
Dare website and then proceed to judge the other games through a 1 to 5-star rating system
in 8 different categories.
Criteria includes Innovation, Fun, Theme, Graphics, Audio, Humor, Mood, and of course
the Overall feel of the submitted games.
Fourth on our list is Low Rez Jam which was originally created and hosted by Devi Ever,
and is now being run by Jack Oatley.
This jam gives participants 17 days to complete their submission.
Held once per year, this jam is hosted on itch.io where participants from all around
the world may join in.
What makes this jam unique is that there is no theme to follow, instead, there is a requirement
for the end product to have a restricted viewpoint of a mere 64x64 pixels.
If you think this sounds like an impossible objective, then visit Low Rez Jam on Itch
and take a look at their top rated games for inspiration!
There are well over 200 submissions each year, with Umbri by Cronus, and Legend Of Xenia
2 by Baku, being the highest rated games of 2016 and 2017 respectively.
Coming in at number five we have Game Off, created by Lee Reilly in 2012.
Game Off is sponsored by GitHub and is Another jam that is hosted on itch.io.
Inspiration for this jam came from Global Game Jam and its held during the entire month
of November.
This jam celebrates open source development by inviting participants to join in the fun
with collaborative game development along with the use and sharing of open source software.
Submissions are done through itch, after which participants may then vote on each games’
Gameplay, Graphics, Audio, Innovation,Theme, and overall rating to decide the year's winner.
At number six we have GM48, which is also popularly known as GameMaker 48.
Participants have - you guessed it - 48 hours to create a title using the Game Maker engine.
Organized by former game maker moderator Peter Jorgensen and sponsored by YoYo Games, GM48’s
quarterly jams are community ran by its over 2 thousand participating developers.
A theme is voted on through two phases beginning two weeks prior to the jam start, and voters
determine the best game based on the categories of art, gameplay, immersion, innovation, sound,
stability, and theme interpretation.
Aside from using the GameMaker engine to create the entry and meeting the deadline, participants
must vote on a minimum of 10 games.
Moving on to number seven we have a game jam which began in 2014, offers a prize pool of
$15,000, and was founded by Degica Games - the publisher of the RPG Maker series, OneShot,
and several other games.
Held once per year,the Indie Game Making Contest is a month-long jam focusing on the completion
of a game created with RPG Maker.
Prize options include the organizer’s Degica’s choice, the People's Choice, and Youtuber’s
choice.
Each of which awards $5,000 cash with the added bonus of a humble bundle gift.
Participants may submit up to two entries and Degica reserves publishing rights for
up to 3 years for games that win the prizes mentioned above.
Number eight is Epic MegaJam sponsored by EPIC game jam and the Unreal game engine.This
is a great option as participants automatically get a number of free benefits from a variety
of game development products including free software trials, and game assets.
On top of the participation benefits, all participants will be entered into numerous
raffles for prizes.
Finalists are then guaranteed a list of additional prizes.
It’s fair to say that this game jam provides participants with some of the best incentives
to participate!
The goal of this game jam is work individually or with a team maximum of 5 peers to create
a game using the Unreal Engine.
The end title must have custom gameplay that exceeds the gameplay found in the Epic games
starter templates, and assets need unique material outside of the defaults.
2017 winners included Team Spectrum with ASSIMILATION, Beard Envy with Filament and AnnieNation with
Light Bearers.
Before we review our final game jam, let's take a look at some smaller game jams that
have implemented unique themes into their offering.
We’ll start with GB Jam, also known as Game Boy Jam, which has a strong focus on the original
Nintendo gameboy theme.
Participants have 10 days to complete their titles while adhering to the original GameBoy
viewpoint size of 160x144 pixels and with only 4 colors allowed to be on screen at a
time.
There were 95 entries this year for the GBJam 6.
Next, A Game By It’s Cover, is an annual game jam where participants develop titles
from their favourite fictional cartridge art from My Famicase Exhibition - an annual art
show of fan-made Famicom cartridge designs.
Participants develop their title over the duration of one month and this jam aims for
a relaxed environment that is void off competition, judging, and prizes.
Ever heard of a Train Jam?
2018’s Train Jam was a collection of developers traveling to the Game Developers Conference
and creating games during the 52-hour train ride from Chicago to San Francisco.
Through founder Adriel Wallick’s vision, the Train Jam’s has grown from significantly
and now boasts 342 participants.
Seven Day First Person Shooter is a recently returned jam with the goal of making a first-person
game in seven days.
The idea behind this jam is to remove the stereotypes of FPS games being shooters and
instead expand to include alternative ideas.
One of the most notable games to be conceived at this jam is the indie hit Superhot.
We know you’re all excited to hear about the final game jam in our top 9 list.
But before we reveal the finale we want to give a shoutout to Ask Gamedev community member
Khaalid, who shared their recent jam with us, ScoreSpace Jam.
ScoreSpace Jam is unique in that it involves both Game devs and gamers in the contest.
Once the winning submissions have been chosen, a second contest is started where gamers will
then play the winning titles and compete for high scores.
The final jam in our top 9 list is none other than the Game Maker’s Toolkit Jam that is
organized by fellow gamedev youtuber Mark Brown.
This year’s theme revolved around a big question that had participants’ creativity
in hyperdrive.
How would you develop a game that has one of its most fundamental mechanics removed?
For example, what if you had a platform jumping game but couldn’t jump?
Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
Participants thought so as well.
The Game Maker’s Toolkit jam lasted 48 hours had over 1,000 entries, and proved to be very
popular.
The 2017 #1 ranked game was Glacier hop by shadowndacorner and this years 2018 #1 ranked
game was Grand Snail Prix, a local 1v1 racing game by castlemark.
Want more Ask Gamedev, check out this video on how to get the best out of your game jam
experience, or this playlist on developing your own games!