Why We Think Everyone Should Host a Game Jam

At Resolution Games we love game jams. We host them at our office and you can often find out employees participating in them with other organizations. We hosted our first game jam in two years this past January. As a company,  we value game jams because they are a good opportunity to take a break from our normal tasks, play around with new game ideas and technologies and  collaborate with colleagues that aren’t on our normal teams.

Written by: David F and Ryan W

We were very excited to host a game jam again after so long. The challenges over the past two years made it very difficult to host a traditional game jam, however using a hybrid work model allowed everyone to participate regardless of whether or not they were in the office.

This time most teams participated entirely remotely. This introduced additional challenges when organizing the game jam since people couldn’t as easily brainstorm and collaborate.

The biggest change we had to make was giving people a lot more time to think about their ideas and organize their teams. We put out a call for submissions a few weeks before where anyone, regardless of their day job, could pitch their idea to everyone else in the company and ask for help from those interested. This resulted in a diverse range of ideas from a VR game with only sound and no graphics, to an AR passthrough room experience, to a sword surfing game that tested the limits of locomotion.

In addition, even though Resolution Games is a VR and AR company, people with ideas in any number of dimensions were free to submit and work on them. One talented colleague really knocked it DOWN a notch with a 2D version of Bait!

Here are some insights from non developers who participated in the game jam:

“My regular job is a Community Manager for Demeo but during the game jam, I got to revisit being a 2D and 3D artist,” said Johanna. “I even got to play around in Maya again! I used to study 3D graphics, but haven’t touched them in years.” 

Our Marketing Coordinator Dennis also mentioned, “At this game jam, I was able to take a step back from my regular work to be creative with something new, quick and random. I helped my team with some art as well as voice acting which helped me feel energized and gain new perspectives into what our dev teams do everyday.”

The timing of the game jam couldn’t be better. We did it a few weeks into January which was the perfect way to come back from the holiday season. Going forward, we hope to have regular game jams since we feel that they are a valuable and fun experience for everyone to get their creative juices flowing.

A few days after the game jam, we hosted a presentation where each team shared what they built with the rest of the company. Teams were given a single powerpoint where they included their game’s name, summary, videos, and images. They presented their slide while speaking to the other participants about the challenges and learnings they experienced. This was incredibly valuable because it gave everyone else the opportunity to see what the other teams had been working on and learn alongside them. We feel the main purpose of a game jam is to learn and share knowledge in a fun environment and we were very successful in that regard.

We also hosted a game night where each game was loaded onto a VR headset or computer and people could physically go around trying out each other’s games/experiences. The game night was a lot of fun and gave everyone a much better understanding of what was achieved in such a short amount of time.

We’re very excited to use the learnings and feedback from this game jam to organize our next one in August! We’ve also been using some of our learnings from making the games in our day jobs.  

If you’ve never participated in a game jam, just say yes. You’ll be able to test new skills, work with new people and develop your creativity.