顿补濒丑辞耻蝉颈别'蝉听 invites all gamers to get creative this weekend at its , an event that promises to help everyone level up their game-creation skills.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a good starting place because you don't need to have any prior knowledge about how to design a game,鈥� says Emily Fenton, general manager at ShiftKey, an innovation sandbox devoted to computer science and technology. 鈥淢ost people who come just love gaming.鈥�
Global Game Jam is the world's largest game-creation event taking place around the globe with tens of thousands of participants at hundreds of physical and virtual site.听Last year, 35,000 people participated from 796 locations in 102 countries worldwide.
This year鈥檚 Dal-affiliated event kicks off Friday (Jan. 24) and runs until Sunday (Jan.26) in the听Goldberg Computer Science Building.听Teams and individuals can . The cost is $5 per team, which includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all three days of the jam.
For younger developers,听听is the under-18 version of Game Jam, and the Halifax event takes place at The PIER on Saturday, January 25 in partnership with local STEM non-profits听听补苍诲听.
ShiftKey organizes its event in partnership with the non-profit听. Members of Halifax-based game development studio听听will also be joining the jam as mentors, offering participants the benefit of real-life game development experience.
A focus on fun
Jammers don鈥檛 know the theme of the jam until it officially begins, and once they know the theme, they spend the weekend building a game from scratch. Themes from previous years have run the gamut from simple directives like 鈥渕ake me laugh鈥� to the more abstract 鈥渞oots,鈥� which Fenton says participants interpreted as anything from vegetables to teeth to family trees.
The games themselves are similarly diverse. Games can be built using any platform, such as MakeCode Arcade, Unity, or even Roblox or Minecraft. They can follow any sort of narrative arc or follow no arc whatsoever.
鈥淪ome people decide that they're going to have a game with really beautiful music that they recorded themselves during the weekend,鈥� says Fenton. 鈥淪o maybe there's no actual gameplay, but the music is insane. Others will focus on storytelling, so you just push a character along through a story. And then some are these really intense VR experiences. It can be anything.鈥�
The Game Jam environment is non-competitive 鈥� the weekend鈥檚 big prize in Halifax, the People鈥檚 Choice Award, is a jar of jam 鈥� and HCI4Good director Rina Wehbe says that鈥檚 critical to the event鈥檚 success.
鈥淚t鈥檚 an inclusive, safe space. A learning space that welcomes all people and allows them to practice skills they have and encourages them to try something new,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t is in the spirit of the Jam to develop new skills or strengthen weaker ones.鈥�
Fenton agrees, saying the spirit of exploration is key to building jammers鈥� confidence. 鈥淚t's really rewarding to see people who don't necessarily know if they're going to be able to build a whole game at the beginning of the Jam. And then, two days later, they've got a game that others are playing,鈥� Fenton says.
Game dev in Halifax
Pedram Safari, a fourth-year Computer Science student who attended his first Game Jam in 2019, says the growth of the game development community in Halifax is exciting. He began attending Jams only knowing the basics of Unity and game development. That changed as he progressed through his studies.
鈥淚 was fortunate enough to join a local studio called MDAD [Maritime Digital Art and Design] and learned Unreal Engine and working with virtual reality. So, from that point, I could make much cooler stuff in Game Jams,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he game dev community in Halifax is very welcoming and supportive.鈥�
Safari acknowledges that computer scientists and gamers are notorious for being shy and introverted, but events like Game Jam are a good reminder that if they find the right people, they can have an amazing time creating together.
鈥淕o out of your circles and connect with writers, musicians, artists, film makers, or literally any other field,鈥� Safari says. 鈥淕ames are multidisciplinary, and you might be surprised by how actually cool it is to make games with people who know things that you know nothing about.鈥�
From games to jobs
While jammers spend the weekend building games, FCS Career Development Manager Kewoba Carter says they鈥檙e also building crucial employment skills at the same time.
鈥淥ne of the best ways to land an interview for a job is to have a portfolio of experience on your resume,鈥� Carter says. 鈥淎 fun and easy way to gain that experience is with an activity like Game Jam.鈥�
