Global Game Jam (GGJ) is an event where people form teams and build video games over a small window of time, 48 hours -- when most games built for retail take months or, more commonly, years to develop.
In 2011, over 1500 games were built by teams spread across 44 countries. This year, those totals have increased to over 2200 projects in 47 countries. And Tribeca Flashpoint Academy (TFA) was right there in the thick of the mix. With a little more than 50 students (and an alumni) taking up the challenge, the school successfully saw six separate projects each built to completion.
The whole process started late Friday afternoon when the event was kicked off by an inspiring key-note speech broadcast in four parts by game industry and multimedia veterans John Romero and Brenda Brathwaite, Gonzalo Frasca, Naiyon, and Will Wright. The key note discussed many issues, such as useful ways to brainstorm ideas and the best way to work under tight time constraints.
Participants were also given the theme for the current challenge. In contrast to past themes featuring more abstract terms like "deception" and "extinction", this year's theme was an image of the serpent Ouroboros, famously known as the serpent who is eating its own tail and indicative of the perpetual cycle from life to death and then rebirth.
With words of wisdom and theme in tow, students formed into teams and raced to figure out what they were going to build and how they were going to accomplish it in such a short period of time.
Relying on creativity, planning, and probably too much junk food and pop, the students started by going through the pre-production process, establishing their game ideas and goals, deciding who would be performing which tasks, and building prototypes to get the testing process started earlier.
From there, it was on to production, where teams built assets like character models and the various objects that appear in a game level, implemented challenges and balanced the difficulty, structured levels, programmed systems like the interface and how players controlled the game, and structured tasks to work-through various inter-team dependencies. And once the game was functional, then all attention turned to making sure the game was as bug-free and fun as possible before teams uploaded their submission to the Game Jam website.
On Saturday afternoon, thanks to generous donations from Microsoft and also Nvidia, participants in the Game Jam were able to take part in a raffle for the opportunity to win some fun prizes like video games, tee shirts, and carry bags.
As well, the school not only donated water bottles for all participants to help maintain good health throughout, but also brought in various snacks and treats, as well as food. Finally, several members of the game faculty donated many hours of their free time to make sure the students were safe-and-sound, handling the stresses well, and otherwise checking in on the games as they progressed.
The event ended up being a huge hit, and everyone enjoyed themselves immensely. Even better, this experience really helps drive the development of student skills, and allows them to continue learning about and understanding the process of game development.
A celebration event will be held on Wednesday, February 15th, between 11am and 1pm in the screening room on campus. We would like to encourage everyone to stop by and show some appreciation for the amazing games that were built over the course of a weekend. For those who can't wait that long, check out
the TFA page on the Game Jam site where you can download all of the finished games as well as see a full list of all participants.
Thank you to everyone who participated or helped out in one way or another, and special thanks to Tribeca Flashpoint Academy for hosting this event and allowing everyone to not only have a ton of fun, but also a great learning opportunity that will help them professionally.
About the Author: Mob McCabe, Game + Interactive Media
Bob McCabe began his career in game development at BioWare, Corp. in early 2000 after graduating from the University of Tennessee with a BA in English.
At BioWare, Bob was a member of the teams that created and shaped such critically acclaimed and multi-million selling titles as Neverwinter Nights, the NWN expansion Hordes of the Underdark, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect. With these projects, Bob served in prominent roles as a technical writer, creative writer, level designer, scripter, senior Quality Assurance (design team), and QA Design Lead -- as well as contributing media/editing to the PR/marketing process, contributing feedback on Baldur's Gate II and Dragon Age: Origins, and earning certified hours as a project manager.
Since leaving BioWare, Bob edited game text on the Motion Twin title Dino RPG, and helped as a beta tester for Tilted Mill's Hinterland game.
Bob has been an instructor at Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy since June of 2010, and through TFA has also been working with the Facebook developer KBooM! Games as a QA Lead and mission designer.
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