My First Game Jam

          I attended the 2016 Global Game Jam last year. There was a jam site right on campus and I was encouraged to go regardless of my skill at making games. Seeing most of my classmates there eased my nerves a bit. At least I’m among people I know.

          At 5 p.m. the organizer, Mrs. Lowther, announced that the theme will be shown to us on a video in the Foundation Hall. We all moved to the theater and sat down to watch the short video. It addressed many things from the past year and at the end revealed the theme: ritual. Immediately after the video was over, we went back to the Grand Hall and started coming up with ideas for games relating to the theme.

          We had four ideas in total. Everyone was split into four teams with one artist, one programmer, and one designer. Some teams had more than three members, but nobody was left out. The original idea I had was meant to address obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) as people who suffer from the condition tend to engage in ritualistic behavior. Over the next forty-eight hours, that idea became scaled down incredibly smaller than what I had originally hoped.

          Everyone was working hard on their projects. We sustained ourselves primarily on junk food and snacks. As for sleep, some of us slept under the tables we worked on, others in various corners of the room in sleeping bags. I didn’t bring anything, so I ended up sleeping in an unoccupied corner in the Foundation Hall where we saw the Global Game Jam video. It was very cold in there, so I didn’t sleep too much. The second time I got to sleep I napped in my car. It was much warmer in there, but still didn’t sleep enough.

          During break times where we had to wait on someone else on the team to do something for the game, I would talk with the other jammers. They had cool ideas, but a slew of problems to deal with. I had my own problems, but I wasn’t sure how to address them. Until then, I hung out with a group of jammers who were talking about various things and watching CinemaSins to pass the time when the rest of their team would be back. One of them suggested we play Scenes from a Hat. That was the best part of the whole game jam: playing another game to get our minds off the ones we were working on.

          At the end, everything was to be uploaded to the Global Game Jam site regardless if it worked or not. Fortunately, my team had a working game. The other teams had trouble getting theirs to function properly. They did have some funny glitches that could have been mechanics on their own. After forty-eight hours of planning, executing, stressing, sleeping, procrastinating, panicking, and working… the jam went excellently. I will gladly do it again.

          That’s all that happened from my point of view. My team did a good job and the game worked fine. But that doesn’t mean it will go as smoothly this year. Sometimes you get put with people you don’t get along with. As for any newcomers who plan to attend this year’s Global Game Jam, here’s some advice:

        - Get as much sleep before the jam as possible. I tried to stay awake for forty-eight hours straight. Even with the help of caffeine, I only managed twenty hours. It might vary per person, but eventually you WILL have to sleep. You’ll think better when you’re rested anyways.

  - Use whiteboards. They are essential to planning ideas. Paper works for your own individual ideas, but group plans are best conveyed on the whiteboard where everyone can see the process. 
  - Accept when things don’t go as planned. The idea I had was bigger than the team could manage. It was scaled down considerably, but at least it worked. 
  - Be flexible with roles. Your team may have a dedicated programmer or artist, but you may have to try some things yourself. One of my teammates made most of the art assets, but I had to pitch in and make some while he was away. 
  - Even if you don’t know what to do, do something. You don’t need to have a ton of experience to do a game jam. If you want to record sound and use it as a sound effect, go right ahead. Know how to draw on paper? Your team could try and make a board game. Non-digital games are allowed in the Global Game Jam. You’ll just be posting a picture of what the game looks like and the list of the rules. 
 - Take breaks. Stressing out over your game will only make it harder to build. Come back after talking with other jammers and you might not only help them, but learn something about how to handle your own game. 
 - It’s not a contest. There is no winner, only games. When you look through the website’s games from past jams, you will see a ton of broken messes, but also some impressive works. No one will be perfect at this and you don’t have to be either.

Hopefully this helps those of you who wish to join the 2017 Global Game Jam. Maybe I’ll see you there.