What’s it like to join a Game Jam?

What are they? Where do they live? What do they do?

To develop video games, we must first understand that each game is always created under unexpected circumstances. And one the most abnormal ways to create a game is by participating in a good old fashioned Game Jam.

If you like or have an interest in game development, you’ve probably heard of the term Game Jam. These are online or presential events where people can join, team up and create a small game within a set period of time (usually 1-10 days, depending on the Jam) under a specific set of rules and boundaries, usually called a theme.

These get-togethers are unique opportunities for networking, testing your technical (and emotional) abilities, and most importantly, creating a tangible product through excessive challenges of trial and error. So, in May 2022, DevTalkBr went live with their 10 day Game Jam, where participants would have to compete to create the best game within the Jam’s terms. The themes where presented, which guaranteed that all teams began from scratch on a creative level. In this event, we joined in and formed a team of four, but we were all artists and creatives. Quickly realizing we would need some sort of wizard to stitch our ideas and creations together, we scoured the other teams for a possible candidate, and soon found the last missing piece of the puzzle; a programmer.

With a team fully formed, we could finally start the Jam and our journey. The first 2 days were essential to figure out the scope of the game, what each member can do best and validate the presented ideas. With all criteria met, we decided to take action. Game development depends on every single member. Each has their own specific function, deadlines to meet and total freedom to suggest and integrate new ideas to the production plan. This stage of development is called Pre-Alpha.

In this stage, communication and mutual agreement is key. Everyone must accommodate to the team’s work pace, understand each one’s function, who they’re working with and how to potentialize and unify these ideas into something playable. This stage is called Alpha. After polishing and cementing these ideas into a playable demo, we enter the Beta stage. In Beta, a game is tested and recalibrated to meet the standards of quality control. In small teams, such as ours, we resorted to testing amongst ourselves and sharing the game with friends to achieve enough feedback to be able to optimize the game.

With this done, comes the best part: a fully playable experience created in a matter of days which you can share with people and watch as they traverse through the challenges you created, and hopefully get some joy out of them in the process.

Creating games is a challenging and complex endeavor. You can even develop something not so great, but you always manage to learn something new, which usually leads you to want to create more, and so on and so forth. And that usually leads to something great. But no matter what you do, always be proud of your creations.

So, join a Game Jam, meet people, challenge yourself and go make games. Developing games is a journey and Jams are Side Quests, you can give them your best shot and see what comes out of it. Good luck!

Author: Reny

Reviewer and translator: Kallastr