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Interface

Time Crisis: The creative benefits of game jams

Interface

WRITTEN BY

ANDREW FISHER

ike most good ideas, game jams

are an easy enough concept

to grasp: they’re events where

developers get together and

attempt to create a working game

within a compressed period of time. Modern

game jams can be traced back to March 2002,

when developers Chris Hecker and Sean

Barrett launched Indie Game Jam 0 in Oakland,

California. The event was a small one, with just

14 participants crammed into a tiny office space,

but even then, the experimental possibilities

were plain to see: among the twelve games

produced at the four-day jam were such curious

delights as Angry God Bowling – which involves

knocking over crowds of people with a gigantic

ball – and Worship, a riff on Missile Command

with a similarly religious theme.

Just weeks after Indie Game Jam came Ludum

Dare (Latin for ‘to give a game’), founded by

L

Geoff Howland and later passed over to team

member Mike Kasprzak. Ludum Dare Zero took

place in April 2002 and established a strict

24-hour time limit, though this increased to 48

hours at subsequent events. Like most game

jams, each event follows a similar template: first,

a theme is chosen – one such theme was based

on the Zelda quote, “It’s dangerous to go alone”

• then there’s an intense period of design and
  development, and then participants are given
  time to vote on the winner. Ludum Dare is a
  virtual jam, so competitors don’t have to be in
  the same physical location; instead, participants
  are encouraged to provide a live stream of their
  work, or take regular screenshots which are later
  compiled into a time-lapse video.
  Other game jams, like Copenhagen’s Nordic
  Game Jam, draw coders and keynote speakers
  to Copenhagen for a live, two-day event.
  But whether they take place in exhibition

The creative benefits

of game jams

How the time constraints of game jams can

bring out the best in designers and coders

“It’s no accident

that video game

companies also

use jams as a

proving ground”

Time Crisis