Two weeks back, from January 25
th to the 27
th, the
Global Game Jam 2013 edition was celebrated. I was fortunate enough to participate and I'm very happy for taking that decision.
Quick reminder: Global Game Jam is an event where participants have 48 hours to create a game. It can be a computer game or a board game. Everything from the idea to all the coding, graphics, sound and materials are produced during the event.
Every Global Game Jam revolves around a
theme that participants should follow when creating their games. This year was no different. The presented theme was
the sound of a beating heart, something like
this.
If you are eager to see all games created for this game jam just follow
this link and explore away. Or if installing and playing through the games is not your thing, just go through
this list of Youtube gameplay videos. Great stuff.
Games were created using technologies such as
Unity3D,
Flash/AS3,
HTML5,
GameMaker,
UDK and
XNA to name a few.
Jamming in Uruguay
I'll start by stating that this year's Global Game Jam was a huge success. About 10 games were created here in Uruguay with the most amazing group of people. My respect to all participants from these latitudes.
The event really took off since last year. The amount of jams doubled. Participants where able to go either to the jam organized by
Universidad ORT/Antel or the new one at
A+ Escuela de Artes Visuales. Hey, two is twice as much as one. Math does not lie.
In my case I decided to participate from
A+ Escuela de Artes Visuales. I'll continue this writing talking about my experience there.
Before moving on, you can access the list of games created in both sites at the following links:
-
Games created at Universidad ORT/Antel
-
Games created at A+ Escuela de Artes Visuales
I'd like to make a special mention to the game
Latin Lovers. Both the game and the team behind it rock.
Jamming from A+ Escuela de Artes Visuales
The event there was organized by
Fernando Sansberro, director of
Batovi Games Studio. Fernando selected a very interesting approach for the jam: Focus on
Game Design.
But, what did it mean exactly?
In a general sense the event was not only to "get together and begin full production right away". Instead, the schedule proposed by Fernando was as follows:
Friday
Sorry, I just had to put this image here somewhere.
Participants started arriving and received their badges. Most of them knew very few other people. In my case I knew almost no one. Which was great actually as my plan was to get to know motivated and talented people.
After participants shy away from one another, the organizers moved us all to another room where a discussion panel was set up, featuring individuals responsible for pushing forward the Uruguayan gaming industry. Guys like
Alexis Sabatovich (independent 3d artist),
Alvaro Gonzalez (Lead/Producer Game Designer at
Kef Sensei), a couple guys from
Trojan Chicken (
Ceibal game development, sorry I don't know their names!) and
Alvaro Azofra (Game Designer at
Ironhide Game Studio, creators of
Kingdom Rush).
They talked about who they were, what they did, and some life experiences that were gladly welcomed by everyone in the audience. They were also asked some questions by Fernando. The last question was quite interesting:
¿Are we [Uruguay] ready to create triple A games?
Some day, I'll be better at Photoshop
Now in my view, the reason why this question was interesting is because in order to answer this, you really have to analyze different aspects of game development. Let's try to see what they are:
1. What are triple A games?
2. What do we need to make triple A games?
3. Do we really want to make triple A games?
After the question was thrown at the guys in the panel, some discussion started popping between them and also from people at the audience. Most discussion was about question 1. To get over this question, let me paraphrase a text I got from
About.com:
A AAA game, or pronounced "triple-A game", is generally a title developed by a large studio, funded by a massive budget.
Mmm, massive budgets. That's not very likely to happen over here any time soon. Nor it is common to find
large studios over here. Despite these missing attributes, I don't feel we are in disadvantage. I feel that we are in a great position to seek other opportunities within the gaming industry.
This reasoning leads us to the second question about the needs for making triple A games. Yes, budget is an issue, and a big one (
that's what see said). But another one that is also very important to note is that even with the budget available, there is still the issue of getting enough people capable of developing a game of such caliber within a reasonable time frame. We are talking about developers, artists, producers, game designers, marketing and more. The full package. In my eyes, we are very far away from achieving this. And I don't see it as something terrible. Enter question three: Do we really want to make triple A games?
Personally, I don't.
I won't refuse to participate in the development of one.
In fact, I've been involved with one such big-budget gaming company before.
I learnt
a lot with them. I have no regrets.
But it is not one of my life goals.
I may end up in one of those again, but for other reasons.
Not for the soul purpose of making a triple A game.
I think that is just none sense.
This paragraph looks like a poem of something.
Whatever.
Okay, enough about that.
After the discussion panel, Fernando assembled three teams based on available skills (programming, art, design, audio, other/none). After the teams were made, each one went to a different room and the
brainstorming session began. The brainstorming session's objective is to get a game idea from the presented theme. Heart beat may lead us to a heart, that may lead to words such as life, love, vampires, zombies, and many others. The point here is to settle with one and then choose a game mechanic to go along with it.
After it was finished, at around 23:00 or maybe 24:00, we were encourage to go and sleep at our homes and come back Saturday morning to begin full production. Some of us did, some others did not. To each one his own.
Saturday
With the game idea defined and a basic mechanics established, groups began writing code, creating graphic assets and audio assets. This is what "full production" means.
Not much to say here, just that I've
uploaded some pictures from these days into Facebook.
I suggest not to send me a friend request if I don't know you. I tend not to accept them.
Sunday
Almost everybody stayed awake from Saturday to Sunday. Me included.
It's very interesting to see the effects that being very close to a deadline generates. I remember being asked about the possibility of implementing missing features and just answer with a blunt "that is just not happening". So cool.
Development was supposed to stop at 15:00 hrs. We finished almost 16:00 hrs. Classic game development story.
After games started being uploaded, Fernando organized a closure meeting with all participants. Each group presented their games and talk a little bit about their experience developing it. This was a great moment, one could see how these groups evolved. You could see that they achieved some kind of
mastermind alliance. Sort of, that's what I like to think. Anyway, you could see the satisfaction despite the tiredness. I also felt that way, and it's a great feeling to have.
Participants at A+ Escuela de Artes Visuales.
I'll close this section with this
GGJ 2013 teaser video. Seeing this video after being part of a GGJ gives it a whole new meaning. It really makes you appreciate the time invested there. Again, no regrets.
Special mentions
I would like to end this writing with two games created in this jam, not in Uruguay, though.
One of them is
LEGITIMATE BUSINESS SIMULATOR 2013. I just love the name. It's very clever, and the humor around it is just fantastic. It looks pretty complete: There is a titlecard, a play screen and a shop. Pretty polished if you ask me.
The other game that got an enormous amount of attention from communities like
Reddit and gaming sites like
Kotaku. I'm talking about
Surgeon Simulator 2013. Just check their
gameplay video. You will not be disappointed.
Props to Reddit's NightSage for this meme.
The game was developed in Unity3D, it features very nice 3D graphics and a
QWOP-like gameplay. Let's not forget its dark sense of humor. What's not to love!
Next year's Global Game Jam will be amazing. I can feel it. Until then!
