What is a Game Jam and why should I care?
Game Jams are time-limited events designed to give curious creatives an opportunity to come together and learn from each other while working on a fun game project. Game Jams usually have a set theme and sometimes only specific tools are allowed. Some Game Jams deliberately set limitations to inspire participants to get extra creative.
You should care about this event because Game Jams are a great way to test your abilities and gain some new skills. You could also meet like-minded people and discover a whole new bunch of friends. And in week 2 you will get to play games and explore topics that other Game Jam participants study.
But I don’t know how to code…
Don’t worry about that! A game project could be a good way to start – there are a few options for no code and low code development tools in our tool section. – But games are so much more than code!
You could create a board game or a card game or something otherwise physical. Or if you wanted to contribute to a digital game, you could team up with coders and offer your art skills. Whether digital or physical, design skills are always needed. If that’s not your thing, you could contribute your writing skills: from game rules to character dialogue, games have plenty of space for good writing.
How this Game Jam will work
This event runs over two weeks.
The focus of week 1 is to build a prototype of a game that teaches the player(s) something about your field of study or discipline. You can build something on your own or you can join as a pre-formed team. Whether you decide to make a digital game or a physical one is entirely up to you. Plus, you have complete freedom over the tools you would like to use.
In week 1 we will also be hosting a few in-person and online sessions to share experiences with making games or teaching and learning with games.
The focus of week 2 will be playing the games that were created in week 1. It will be the week to give feedback and vote on your favourite games. We are planning a physical games meetup for the Wednesday afternoon of that week.
Read next: How to take part