2011 promises to be quite the creative wonderland for game designers and developers. Anything which encourages new talent, new games and more innovation gets our whole-hearted support.
The first development-related event of 2011 is rapidly heading our way. The 28th of January marks the start of this year’s Global Games Jam – a worldwide game design and development competition.
Previous years have seen dozens of locations, all over the planet taking part and hundreds of competitors creating original, experimental new games – in only 48 hours.
Its open to everyone, so programmers, artists, designers, or creative types of any description are encouraged to take part.
Just to add one extra spurt of awesome to the buffet of lovely, the 2011 jam has been expanded to incorporate non-digital forms of gaming, so board games and card game designs are also welcome.
The Scottish chapter of this year’s Jam has been organised by and takes place once more at Glasgow Caledonian University and runs from January 28th – 30th.
All you need to register is your name, e-mail and a brief (and honest) description of your skills (programming, animation, design, audio, whatever…)
With almost exactly three weeks to go, the competition already has 80 participants signed up – a record for the Games Jam in Scotland.
Several local companies have signed up to support and sponsor the Jam. Ruffian Games, Zoo Games, Ludometrics and Fragor Games are currently on board (though Romana, the brains behind the whole thing, has asked us to mention other companies would be very welcome, well looked after and made to feel ‘special’).
The competitors will also have a couple of industry mentors to help out during the competition. Stewart Hogarth from Chunk Games (indie games advocate) and Liam Wong from Crytek (featured in Develop’s 30 Under 30) will be on hand to provide sage advice and expert insight.
The whole event will be covered by Scottish games media heroes Square Go.
If you want to know more. If you want to see the whole process. If you are intrigued but need to see a little more about the whole competition, thanks to the miracle of the Internets, you CAN. Last year’s competition was recorded and can be watched online from the comfort of your own development bunker.
For more details, or if you have any further questions, go visit the games jam website: www.scottishgamejam.org or find them on Facebook.