Global Game Jam Melbourne Report
Last weekend saw the Global Game Jam descend on planet Earth, with over 6500 jammers congregating around their local jamsites to make a full playable game in 48 hours. These keen jammers had nothing to go on but their experience, imagination, teamwork and the theme “Extinction”. What resulted was an amazing weekend for games with almost 1500 games being made in what was officially the largest single game jam ever! Run by the International Game Developer’s Association, the Global Game Jam was this year in around 170 locations in 44 countries around the world, including three in our little neck of the woods here down under, in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. I was lucky enough to be asked to help out with the judging at the Melbourne jam, run by the awesome IGDA Melbourne chapter crew, so I got a great inside look at the inner workings of the jam.
Friday the 28th of January saw a group of eager developers, professionals and students invade LaTrobe University’s Bundoora campus for a presentation, run down and keynote speech kicking off the jam. A panel of experts from the local games industry including Stephan Schutze, Academy Award winner Ben Britten, Tom Killen and local developer Firemint gave the jammers some advice on how best to get the greatest result from the small amount of time given, before a keynote by Keita Takahashi officially reigned in the beginning of the next intense 48 hours.
From there the jammers organised their teams, started brainstorming ideas and picked their prime positions to buckle down. Two computer labs at the university were used -- one for sleep and another as a small common room for tea, coffee, soft drinks and more instant noodles than you can poke a stick at. It was a great atmosphere as heaps of game fans got together for what was figuratively a glorious geek-camp. Game-related in-jokes were aplenty around the hallways and many a “the cake is a lie” joke surfaced when I was ambushed surprised with a cake for my birthday on the second day of jamming. Getting a big group of people all passionate about the same things in a room together was energising, inspiring and most importantly, absolute TRUCKLOADS of fun.
The games varied from puzzlers to shooters, 3D platformers to strategy games, with each of the 18 teams bringing something very different to the judging panel. When it came time to frantically finish development at 3pm on the Sunday, all games were playable and finished to an acceptable standard, which was a real surprise to me. I was joined on the judging panel by Ben Britten of Tin Man Games, Tassos Stevens of Coney, Sam Mayo of Firemint and Donald Duong of Level 3. As the countdown hit zero we assembled to peruse the finished games and play them for ourselves, having each team present their game to us, talk about their teamwork, the developmental process and if there was anything they’d like to add if they were given another 48 hours to work on the project. Using this time to speak with them we judged the games based on fun, gameplay, adherence to the theme, ambition, polish, graphics, sound, and division of labour in their teams before we escaped for a good old deliberation on how to best decide the award winners.
By the end of the judging process we assembled in the lecture theatre we had previously been in just 48 hours beforehand for the opening ceremony to hear a few heartfelt words from co-coordinators Giselle Rosman, Craig Peebles, and Tom Killen of IGDA Melbourne as they started to announce the winners to a tired but excited bunch of games creators. Best Sound went to Saldo, Best Graphics to The Last Flight of the Bumblebee, Best Gameplay to Floodlight, Most Innovative to Planet Panic, Most Fun to Space Defenders, and Most Daring was Got Wood?. The Participants Choice was a tie between The Last Flight of the Bumblebee and Ultra Happy Death Virus HD, and the Organiser’s Choice was Whip Frog. But the game that took out the biggest gong and can proudly wear the label of “Melbourne Global Game Jam Winner 2011”, was Ultra Happy Death Virus HD, a game where you aim to wipe out every species on earth via completing puzzles to infect their DNA. The art style was out-of-this-world adorable and the polish fantastic; I especially enjoyed the way the developers turned the game around on the player at the end. I was amazed to see such a level of polish in a game created in such a minuscule amount of time, and I was thrilled to see them win.
The Global Game Jam will go down in my memory as a time I witnessed the extensive treasury of talent this city has at its disposal when it comes to game development. It’s only made me more passionate about indie developers and looking after and fostering the creative drives of these artists. I felt chuffed to be asked to be a part of it this year and look forward to seeing what next year’s Game Jam has in store. I hope passionate game developers can take from this experience the lessons they’ve learned and start pumping out their ideas for us all to play with.
You can play some of this weekend’s games now at the official Global Game Jam website.
By Leena van Deventer.
Leena is an Australian gamer with a passion for the industry and writing. Learn more about her at GrassIsLeena.com. Follow @Grassisleen on Twitter