What do you get when teams of artists, hobbyists, programmers, designers and musicians throughout the world collaborate to create playable video games in the course of one weekend? An exciting event called the Global Game Jam (GGJ)—a chance to explore creativity, tout inventiveness and to let imaginations roam.
Registration is under way now for the annual event and Morrisville State will again serve as a host site for this year's GGJ which will be held January 24-26.
Morrisville State students will be among thousands of participants from all over the world taking part in the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) GGJ which is open for amateurs, professionals, students, faculty, hobbyists and those with a passion for making games.
Participants meet at the college on Friday, Jan. 24 in Charlton Hall where they will be given a theme, break into teams which will be formed on-site, then spend the next 48 hours brainstorming and designing a new game from scratch without any outside help.
All finished GGJ games will be archived onto a Game Jam website for everyone to play. The Global Game Jam is recognized as the largest in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records.
For more information or to register to participate at the Morrisville State Game Jam site, go to www.morrisville.edu/gamejam, contact Richard Marcoux, PhD., at 315.684.6788 or e-mail him at marcourp@morrisville.edu. For more information about the Global Game Jam, visit www.globalgamejam.org.
Game Jam history
2009 Game Jam—53 sites, 1,650 participants created 370 games
2010 Game Jam—138 sites, 4,300 participants created 900 games
2011 Game Jam—169 sites, 6,500 participants created more than 1,500 games
2012 Game Jam—242 sites (47 countries)—more than 10,684 participants created 2,209 games. Jam sites were organized in a record 47 countries, including for the first time in Hungary, Iran, Panama, Peru, Romania and Uruguay.
2013 Game Jam—319 sites (63 countries)—more than 16,000 participants created 3,248 games