Game Jam 2022 Report

                                                   Game Jam 2022

A Pleasant Surprise

 

During year 2 semester 2 of Creative Digital Media, The Game jam 2022 took place. At the beginning of the year when we were being told about the game jam, initially I was thinking I would go with the second option as game development is not a strong point for me. After talking with peers and I had a little more knowledge on what a game jam actually is, I was a little more open minded. The game jam took place during the last weekend of February this year. As it was approaching and I still hadn’t made up my mind whether to take part or not, a friend in the course convinced me it would be the better option. So I signed up.

 

I was quite apprehensive about teaming up with students from other courses to develop a game as I didn’t have great confidence in game development. I didn’t want to let the team down. I got paired with Aaron Lynch from my course and two 4^th yeah students from another TUD course who were studying French. The brief of the game jam was to create a language learning game for secondary school level, Junior Cycle students. The two boys learning French I was pared with, told us they had to use these games during work experience, which piled on the pressure. 

During the first day of the game jam, I met my team, we were called team Jaguar. We created a group chat. The first live exercise was to have some ice breakers with our team and create a team logo in 10 minutes. I have a flare for graphic design so I volunteered to make us a logo as quick as I could! 

 

Figure 1 Team Jaguar logo

 

Shortly after leaving the big group meeting, we got stuck in straight away. Myself and Aaron talked to the boys about what they needed as they had their own separate brief for the game requirements. After a while brainstorming using Miro, we decided to create a supermarket simulator game. 

 

Figure 2 Team Jaguar, Miro Board

 

While brainstorming in Miro, each team member had a different job, Myself and Aaron started thinking of how we were going to make this game, while the French students were organizing vocab and translations for us to use. At first we had the idea to make a 3D game, where the player could move through isles and pick things from the shelves, but after more research we both decided it was a little too challenging given the timeframe we had to complete the game. We then decided to create a 2D game. 

After more digging we found a programme which allowed us to create our 2D game exactly how we wanted. It gave us blank slides which we inserted our own imagery onto. To do this I took to Adobe Illustrator to create our shelves for each slide. I first created an empty shelf background as my first layer. After planning out each slide I then edited all the different foods and drinks onto the shelves for each page. I also was able to create the other slides in Adobe Illustrator. I edited the front page to be in French and the last few pages where the player would be paying for their shopping. 

 

 

 

 

 

 The weekend was intense, but it was quite fun. I have to be honest I really enjoyed the game jam even though I was so nervous about taking part originally. When my team finished the game I was so proud. I never thought that I would be the one in a team that does most of the game work as I am not confident at all with game development, so it was a proud moment for me. 

A couple of weeks after the jam, I got a notification from the Jaguars group chat. They had told me that we came third! This was a big win for our team as we never intended on placing, we were just happy to take part. 

 

After participating in the Game Jam, I really feel like I made the right decision to do it having stepped out of my comfort zone. And it was actually quite fun!

 

Figure 3 Certificate- third place