At our major Game Design students learn making games. Besides all the theories, assignments and projects one of my colleagues Sean had the idea to organise additional game jams to support the learning and to let students really feel they are studying Game Design. Game Jams are a great way to get more hands on experience, try something out, see how much you can accomplish within limited time. It offers additional practice to everyone interested, without didactical constraints. Aspiring game designers should make more games.

We decided -practically- to offer 24 hours, making it a ‘Day Jam’. The student association Glitch helped out with organising again and Mimosa Lethinen made another stunning poster concept. Thanks for all the support! 

As the first years’ students are still learning programming, we made this a tabletop challenge. As an extra challenge we asked there should not be separate rules, but learning the game should be integrated in the gameplay experience. Not easy, but good to practice a specific challenge.

More than 6 teams participated. The results were impressive. Some teams made really nice looking prototypes, others managed to had quite some playtesting and iteration done and could showcase a prototype that was quite playable already. It is really hard to get to a finished game in 24 hours, but it is the practice that counts.

All in all, this seemed nice and worth repeating! Probably a digital game Day Jam (or both). Check out these pictures to get an impression of the November event: