Who's got time to do a cool web site? See below for the Clock, a Live video stream (during the event) and videos/games from last year...
This year's keynote was by Keita Takahashi
The theme for this year is "Extinction", but there are a series of optional achievements. We are currently very tired, but live streaming in two rooms:
Participants, in no particular order, include:
Mac Simmons; Rhys Thomas; Ahmed Zaman; David Prior; Paul Seaman, David Treharne, who are old hands now.
Matthew Jackson, Craig Fox, Tim O'Connell, Tom Wood, Alister McInnes, Kate Killick, Jason Thomas, John Reed, who are first time jammer virgins...
Stephen McCrann, William Warren, who didn't turn up in the end. :-(
Helpers included:
Dr. Mike Reddy (Chief Hair Puller Outer); Corrado Morganna (with grateful thanks); Henry Hoffman (floating artist)
Here will be links to the Newport submitted games for 2011:
Amnesia Quest (aka Parkiman)
Pixel Rot (aka Predator/Prey)
Splitscreen Scroller (working title)
Quagga (?)
During the 2011 event I wrote another GGJ semi-official song (done during the event in the spirit of jamming). It is entitled "(We) Built This Demo " and is inspired by Starhip's "Built This City ", which wikipedia tells us is one of the worst pop songs ever! It was suggested by one of the participants, after an impromptu karaoke broke out in the early hours of Saturday morning..
The revised lyrics are available here and a midi of the instrumental version of the song is here, while a lovely piano version in mp3 format is available here.
The original lyrics were obtained from here.
More stuff to come once it is edited.
Here is the 2010 Keynote by Ste Curran:
The theme for 2010 was "Deception" and the local constraints for GMT were (one of) "rink", "sink" and "wink"; different time zones had different constraints. And here are the submitted games (with some additional notes by me):
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/camoshark - Most straightforward implementation of theme and constraint award!
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/desert-bug - Most simplistic and rushed placeholder with a promising name Award! P.S. Done in an hour at the end of two tiring days!
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/global-game-jam-game-jam-boat-game - Most ambitious use of network code and continuation of a stupidly long game name Award!
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/global-game-jam-game-jam-maze-game - Best stealing of a long game name tradition and fastest development of two different platforms, while starting 24 Hours into the jam as a means to save the sanity of contributors Award!
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/squeek-sneek - Most polished use of Skype to prove that game jams can be truly global Award! This means I owe some Welsh whisky to the two Kentucky participants.
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/super-global-cute-furry-cuddle-happy-game - Most family friendly and generally "Happy Super!" Award!
This year, there were optional "achievements" which were only for those that wanted the challenge. We were offered 10, but could only claim 4 per game:
Instant Online Gratification Game: requires no file downloads (browser objects are OK), and has been verified to work on IE8, FF3, Latest Safari and Latest Chrome
Singing the Body Electric: A game that uses only sound effects produced by the body, stomach gurgles, vocalizations, clapping, etc
The Hack: Integrating external gadgets not normally associated with games (e.g. radio, electronic weights, lamps, toasters, barbells, staplers, etc.) as part of the game. This achievement requires that you upload a video of your game to YouTube and link it to the upload (you still have to hand in your game), as well as describing the construction in detail
Take Five Game: can be played to completion in less than 5 minutes
Lo-text Game: has an interactive tutorial
Over Achiever: Implemented the main constraint with 3 or more different game mechanics
Community Game: behaviour is depended on how many people are playing it simultaneously at the same time
Alternate Control Game runs on a pc (Win/Mac/Linux) and is controlled with (a) device(s) other than mouse, keyboard or console controller
Universal Language Game: has absolutely no text or numbers
EGA Lives: Game uses a maximum of 16 different colors in all, including light and shading
Here is a press release PDF for the Newport event.
Here is a video, describing rapid prototyping techniquesMP4 (Quicktime)
Here is the Ste Curran keynote MP4
Participants, in no particular order, include:
Mac Simmons; Rhys Thomas (the programmer); Rhys Thomas (the artist); Ahmed Zaman; Stuart Thomas; David Prior; Paul Seaman, Kelvin Ferris, Greg O'Brien, Josh Hodge, Stuart Thomas, Scott Thompson, David Treharne, Thomas Miller, Chris O'Donovan, Martin Boole, AND in Kentucky (!) Tim Fowers and Tom Mason.
Helpers included:
Dr. Mike Reddy (Chief Hair Puller Outer); Charles Rawlins (Room Tech Support); Tom Doncom and Matthew Dennis
Here are links to the Newport submitted games for 2010:
During the 2010 event I wrote a GGJ semi-official song (done during the event in the spirit of jamming). It is entitled "You have to write the code" and is inspired by "Now you're a hero", the end credit theme to "You have to burn the rope".
The revised lyrics are available here and an mp3 of the instrumental version of the song is here, which was originally from:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/download/144711 via http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/144711, which has the author credit on it.
The composer is Reachground,who's site is . The original lyrics were obtained from http://www.lyricstime.com/reachground-now-you-re-a-hero-lyrics.html
Here is a video of the song in Karoeke form: writethecode.wmv 9MB
More video to come once it is edited. All these will also be available on Youtube
That year's excellent keynote:
Here is a low quality video 15MB WMV of the first 13 hours at Newport in two friendly high rez parts: NewportGGJ2009Pt1.wmv 29MB and NewportGGJ2009Pt2.wmv 48MB
Here is a video of the second 11 hours up to T+24 at Newport: NewportGGJ2009Pt3.wmv 71MB
Here is a video of more of the third nine hours up to T+33 (and a bit MORE): NewportGGJ2009Pt4.wmv 92MB
Here is a video of even more of the third nine hours up to T+33 (and a bit MORE Again): NewportGGJ2009Pt5.wmv 86MB
Here is a video of the later stages hours up to T+43 HOurs: NewportGGJ2009Pt6.wmv 62MB
Here is a video of the later stages hours up to T+46 HOurs: NewportGGJ2009Pt7.wmv 48MB
Here is a video of the last stage of T+46 and the Final Results: NewportGGJ2009Pt8.wmv 42MB
And I rewrote Still Alive lyrics for a new Global Game Jam inspired song: Still Awake
And I quickly knocked up (needs a tweaking) Karoeke video of Still Alive: NewportGGJ2009StillAwake.wmv 16MB
These videos are also available on YouTube
Thousands of Game Developers Will Be Building Games Around The Same Theme In 2010 138+ Sites In 38 Different Countries Across 14 Time Zones) from 5:00pm on Friday to 3:00pm on Sunday on the last weekeind in January (all times local to each participating site). IN 2010, we expected over three thousand college students, faculty and industry members will join together for a 48 hour game building marathon popularly known as a Game Jam. Participants were given the details of the game design theme, constraints and mechanics allowed when the clock hit 5:00 in their local time zone, which remains a closely guarded secret until all locations have started. In 2010, for the first time there were a number of optional "bragging rights" achievements that teams could elect to add to those constraints, to mitigate any advantage global location might give one team over the other. While individual and regional Game Jams have been held wherever gamers congregate in the last few years, never has there been one of such size and scope as the Global Game Jam (GGJ). We are hoping the 2010 event will be recognised as a Guinness World Record!
The Newport heat will take place in H2 at the Rathmell Building on the Caerleon Campus of the University of Wales, Newport. For details of the local event, contact Dr. Mike Reddy at:
Twitter/skype: DoctorMikeReddy
Email: mike.reddy@newport.ac.uk
Mobile: 07971170199
For further details, look at the official site: http://www.globalgamejam.org/
Bring snacks, drinks, treats, bedding of some kind - like you are going to have time to sleep! - and lots of enthusiasm. I will provide a coffee machine and one (1) ONE tray of Relentless, and whatever food I can lay my hands on. You will have to crash wherever you can, but if you are sloping off home, remember to sign in and out with Mike, or on the provided form, so we know whose bodies to identify, when the fire starts! Make sure that you are at H2, Rathmell, Caerleon BY 5pm!!! Come before, if you can. If you can only make some of the time, then let Mike know in advance, so we can manage teams more efficiently.
Once you have signed up at http://www.globalgamejam.org/sites/newport/ you will need to bring:
1) sleeping bag, pillow, hair and tooth brushes, and should you desire it some clean clothes. No really, you will be surprised how less tired you feel with a clean mouth and t-shirt when the sun comes up.
2) headphones (with microphone if you have them) as we are being the lucky recipients of an experimental pair of remote jammers from Kentucky!!! You may have one of them on your team and they will be communicating via skype. This is a unique thing for Newport out of 135 venues, and reflects the lead organiser's confidence that we are "bloody excellent."
3) food and snacks. I will be providing some from my own pocket (don't tell my wife!), but you will inevitably want more than my extravagant lecturer wages can provide. I'm going to ask if the Business School can provide some sponsorship - er... Dave O how are we financially? - but things ARE tight. We anticipate making a raid on nearby fast food venues, should the need arise...
4) Laptops if you have them and they are suitable for the expected development software. Wifi will be available at the venue.
5) an open mind. There are some former graduates and professional game developers taking part this year, and several people with a lot of experience of game jams. If you feel inexperienced, we will find someone that can support you. NO game will get left behind.
And that's it. The room has been booked from 10am on Friday for me to come in and install software. From 12pm lunchtime onwards, if you want to come in to familiarise yourself with the software - Game Maker, XNA, Torque3D and Unity for programming/developing software - I'll sit down with you, or previous participants can take you through the software; volunteers for this would be great, as I may not have much time to do this. Here is a rough timetable of activities. More details are in the instructions provided. NOTE: we may deviate a little from the instructions.
10am Friday Mike (and volunteers - see a trend here?) - Set up
12pm - Software familiarisation
5pm - Keynote video and announcement of theme and secret achievements
5:15pm - Initial local briefing, team building and brainstorming
6pm - Teams formed, initial concepts assigned and games under way!
11am Saturday - Deadline for groups to have created a project page on the web site
3pm Sunday - Submission of final games to web site.
4pm - Local awards and honourable mentions and feedback
5pm - Clean up (er... volunteers again?)
To give you some idea of what kind of things are possible during a jam, here are some examples from last year, where Newport had three of its five submitted games recognised as exceptional by independent critics:
http://www.globalgamejam.org/games/buminabin
http://www.globalgamejam.org/games/global-game-jam-game-jam-game
http://www.globalgamejam.org/games/lag
Software will be GameMaker 7, Maya and the usual arty stuff in H2, XNA, Unity and Torque, and finally Flash(?). Go for stuff you know or is simple!!!