GCU students take part in second online Global Game Jam challenge 

GCU students teamed up to create a game in 48 hours as part of the Global Game Jam, which took place online for the second year in a row.  

The annual weekend-long event, which is usually held inside the Sir Alex Ferguson Library, brings together game creators from around the world to develop a game in just 48 hours. Staff and students from GCU have hosted the Scottish part of the Game Jam since 2009, which saw 57 attendees work in teams to create seven games.  

Participants of the Global Game Jam were set with the theme of “Duality” at the start of the weekend, and had until Sunday to create a game based around the chosen theme.  

Amongst the teams were Computer Games students and frequent Game Jammers’ Lewis McKeegan and AlessioScisci, who weren’t fazed by the limitations of working online.   

3rd year Computer Games (Design) student Lewis McKeegan worked in a team of five to create their game “Repus-Man” – a task based game involving a superhero who works in an office by day.   

Lewis explained: “The name ‘Repus-Man’ is the word ‘super’ spelled backwards! My team consisted of two programmers, one designer, two artists and a sound composer.  I was a programmer/designer in this year’s Game Jam.  

I absolutely loved this year’s event - having it online again didn’t faze me at all.  I just love working with people who share the same passion as me of creating video games.”  

He added: “I have participated in four other Game Jams before but not this specific one.  However, from the knowledge that I have received from doing other game jams, it made it a lot easier to create a game in such a small amount of time.   

If you’re wondering whether to take part in a Game Jam or not, I say do it!”  

4th year Computer Games (Design) student AlessioScisci, who worked in a team of four alongside fellow GCU student KristiyanKamenov, created “Labyrinthitis” – a maze style game which challenges players to find the exit using invisible props and passageways.   

Alessio explained: “By clever usage of visible and invisible props, the Labyrinth will be constructed in a way that the player is only able to proceed once he discovers what is lying beneath the surface, thus the game-loop being proceed to the next area section. The player has to then analyse the situation, address where all the pedestals are located in the current zone, discover the hidden pathways, levers, props and proceed until the ‘real’ exit is found!”  

He added: “Our team consisted of four people for this year’s Jam; me, the programmer and three other artists who are very close friends of mine - Kristiyan, Bruno and Elisa! The last two graduated from GCU last year and now they both work in the industry as professional artists. Much respect for them!”  

Despite not getting to work with each other in person, Alessio and his team threw themselves into the challenge. He said: “To be completely honest, the event was very well organised, on the actual GGJ website and also through Discord. There were also fun non-related activities to release the stress accumulated during the weekend, though I didn’t participate to them as I was too focused on studying the game engine!  

I was also able to share the table with one of the team members (Kristiyan) in person in the Sir Alex Ferguson Library and the other two through Discord webcam sharing system, so we managed to actually be present as a team even with half of it located very far away!”  

As well as using their current skills to create the game, Alessio and the team used their Game Jam experience to learn new game developing processes. He said: “Our team purposefully chose to set very harsh challenges for this Jam that didn’t quite work with us but against us, especially because we knew I was the only programmer and we had three artists to look after.  

We decided that the real value for this year would have been not to create a perfect, finished, polished experience, but rather learn as much as possible in less than two days whilst trying things for the first time!”  

Alessio, who takes part in the Global Game Jam every year, believes that getting involved is totally worth the long hours and hard work. The team, who produced a diary to log their progress and help other participants, were awarded the prize for ‘Best Game-Dev Diary’.   

He said: “Winning the prize for Best Game-Dev Diary really made that weekend special, especially because it was totally unexpected.  

I wrote that diary with the only purpose of helping the team members and to keep others up to date if they wanted to know how the team was doing and to what we were working on.”  

He added: “This year I have undeniable proof that you don’t have to have any kind of experience to really enjoy yourself, participate, help others or just be part of the event itself. You can find a team and other people that will welcome you, even if you’re by yourself. You will learn just by looking around and you can have fun even if you aren’t be involved in making the games in the first place.”  

Check out this year’s Global Game Jam creations on the GGJ website   

By Rachael McAlonan   

Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media  here