Written by TY 2022 Cohort
I participated in the global game jam with a friend earlier this month. We had 48 hours to make a video game and created Roots Defense. It was a fun experience (one of many) where we yet again had to push ourselves to our limits and find solutions to problems within a minimal time.
This brief recent history might have answered the question of what a game jam is: it’s a game development event where developers and artists combine their skills to create a playable game within a limited time around a specific theme (roots in our case), usually between 24 to 72 hours.
While game jam organizers always emphasize that it’s all about “having fun,” I do game jams because designers can be forced to think creatively when working under limitations, e.g., time limitations. After all, necessity is the mother of invention, right?
While this might not always work out the way it’s expected to, especially when jammers lack technical skills or they take the event too seriously that they burn out before it even ends and get frustrated about it, most of the big developers out there agree with the idea of adding intentional constraints to get a minimal viable product (or MVP.) Unity even posted a community blog to support the participants this year.
Goat Simulator, Snake Pass, and even Hollow Knight are games that started as very basic MVPs and ideas created for game jams that were eventually fleshed out. Because mostly, unless a capable game developer has a full-time game development job, they’ll most probably be victims of Parkinson’s law, which states that: “work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” Parkinson, Cyril Northcote. Case in point, I’ve been working on a horror game for almost two years now, and the time it takes me to finish it remains indefinite.
A game jam forces designers not only to ideate a game around a theme (which is challenging enough) but also forces them to come up with a doable idea within the given time that is fun to play, good in terms of graphics, and as bug-free as possible. The ideation process can take between an hour and 6 hours, depending on the theme’s complexity.
As stressful as this all might sound, getting done with and seeing a playable game at the end always pays off, and I don’t see myself ever stopping this tradition. And you, as a game developer/designer, should indeed join the next jam. You won’t regret it.