Global Games Jam

This weekend just past I had the opportunity to take part in a Global Games Jam, an event which as the name suggests takes place world wide, and also reallly enjoy jam (we were each given a jar of indiecity jam as a joke present). What can I say about this event, well for one it's pretty hardcore. On friday evening we arrived at Birmingham City University's TIC computer room and met the fellow Game Jammers, roughly over 30 people including Jammers and a few event organisers. At 7 ish we were given a quick keynote presentation and told the theme of the jam, which was extinction. We then had 48 to design and create a game from scratch! This seems like a dawnting task to anyone who has yet to make (or in my case yet to finish) their own game. So we got too it and I, like many others didnt sleep until getting home on sunday night once the jam was over, a very hardcore weekend. I worked in a team of four jammers, two artists myself include working with two programmers. We decided we wanted to make a 3D game using Maya and Unity. We started spit balling ideas and decided on something a bit survival horror-y set in a derelict victorian hospital, that was a front for a lab which worked on bio weapons ( a bit Resident Evil much??, this back story was pretty much created in the last 10 minutes of the game we had a brief story/background at the start but thought mainly about gameplay mechanics and how we would implement them), anyway one of the weapons and air born creature without a physical form (manifested as a cool but scary cloud of smoke/particle mess) escaped and has been making everyone extinct. Your task was to escape the maze like destroyed hospital (which was in the dark) with nothing more than you wits and a flash light to guide your way, the handy thing was that the creature doesnt like light and so backed away from you when you shone your light on it (a handy coincidence). We also created various platformer like obstacles for the player to overcome; pit falls, ledges you had to shimmy along slowing and doors you had to spend time bashing open. The best bit was definately that we managed to finish the game in 48 an achievement I am so impressed we managed. But even better at the end each of the 7 games made ( seven groups of jammers) presented what they had made, which was awesome as we spent most of our time working and not being nosey so it was good to see everyones outcomes. The games were then judged by the lecturer of the BCU programming course, Paul Taylor of Mode 7 games and Daniel Jones of Binary Tweed, and the team I was in came joint first with a team from Nottingham University's Dev Soc. We were very surprised/overjoyed and we rewarded with bags full of presents from Blitz Games. So in conclusion games jams like this one (and events like X48) are awesome. Best weekend ever