Gamers jam around the world

Posted on 3 Feb 2009 at 17:47

Gamers around the world have worked to develop a multitude of video games in just 48 hours. The Global Game Jam saw a host of teams develop their own PC games, non-stop over the course of two days.

The event took place from 5:00pm on Friday 30 January until 5:00pm Sunday 2 February, and thousands of developers, programmers, designers, artists, musicians and students from all over the world got involved.

The London Metropolitan University and Glasgow Caledonian University opened their doors for gamers to convene and create their games at their campuses.

"We have been teaching video-game development courses at the university for many years and the Global Game Jam is an exciting and fun opportunity for us to share our extensive expertise in game production with the wider community," said Dr Jon Sykes, from the division of computing and creative technology at Glasgow Caledonian University.

"It's also a chance for Scotland's gamers to experience Caledonian's world-class facilities and for us to really challenge Scotland's gamers' creativity."

The Global Game Jam was an idea conceived by Susan Gold, faculty and international development manager for the Master's of Digital Media Program in Vancouver. She said that a global event would celebrate the collaboration of gamers from all walks of life.

"I wanted to find a project that explored the incredible creative collaborative nature of video games," she said.

"I thought a global experience would really show the strength of the game development community by having a project that crossed all cultural boundaries and everyone could participate simultaneously."

The games developed at the Global Game Jam are now available to download for free.

Author: Dawinderpal Sahota

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