The Global Game Jam 2010
(Visited 6959 times) Game talk
Jan 262010
The Global Game Jam 2010 | January 29-31.
You still have 2 days, 2 hours and 8 minutes to register for the Global Game Jam™ and join game developers from around the world in a 48-hour marathon game-developing weekend. From 5 o’clock Friday, January 29 until 5 o’clock Sunday, January 31, anyone who has ever wanted to create their own video game will have the chance to join others at 138 locations in 39 countries around the world.
You still have time to sign up!
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[…] Pro Tweets New blog post: The Global Game Jam 2010 https://www.raphkoster.com/2010/01/26/the-global-game-jam-2010/ raphkoster – Tue 26 Jan 18:54 0 votes All Things […]
I went out this time, for the heck of it. Tragically, due to parking problems, my entire team missed the keynote, and we ended up using an idea very similar to one that had been suggested in the keynote — which made me feel like a total lunkhead, when I finally watched the video.
But, then, ideas are cheap, right? 😀
Things I (grizzled veteran that I am) learned:
1.) Programming division-of-labor is very difficult on a small project with such a tight schedule. Even with aggressive use of version control systems, it’s hard to figure out how to break things down so you’re not going to be crashing into each other or waiting for each other.
2.) It is normally a complete waste of time and money for programmers to make art, but because of this, they learn to be extremely efficient at producing programmer-art, just to get something into whatever game system they’re working on. This turns out to be an extraordinarily beneficial skill, in this kind of environment. It almost inspires me to write an article, extolling the virtues and appropriate uses of programmer art.
3.) I was programming, providing Unity advice, and teaching Photoshop all at the same time. Given the constant context-switching, I certainly didn’t perform any of these tasks optimally. I’m wondering if next year, I shouldn’t just act as a roving mentor, instead of working on a team.
4.) I like the fact that the GameJam expects you to produce a shippable at the end of the weekend. It’s important keeping people focused on producing something distributable, so they don’t fall apart partway through. I was operating on faith, at times, that all of our code was going to congeal into something game-like, at some point in the process, but that was only because I and my fellow programmer were experienced enough that we knew what we needed to code and could get it right the first time. We still had to occasionally pause and ask, “OK, what things are still between us and shipping?” It’s easy, when we’re working on a project that takes years, to get lost in the woods, and forget to ask ourselves this question.
5.) This is a great trial-by-fire for a teenager interested in game development. It’s one thing to dream about making games, and talk about making games, but to get in there, and produce something, with the nearly-instant gratification of having a product at the end of a weekend, is visceral and empowering, but it’s also a big fat dose of reality. You have to pull your weight, or you don’t get the job done.
6.) I think this is a good experience for professional game developers who feel like they’ve been staring at the same little system in a big game for three years. Once you get onto big projects, it’s easy to forget your roots, because you never see anything built from soup-to-nuts anymore. It’s good to get back to basics, sometimes, so you can remember what the big picture looks like.
7.) It’s intriguing to see how far our tools and middleware (and even languages) have come, since the early days. In a weekend, we saw tiny teams of people build games that had depth of gameplay comparable to (and in some cases even exceeding) early console games. Looking at it all in perspective, that’s a shocking reduction in man-hours. As a (now) independent developer, I find that really encouraging.