Global Game Jam Team 2011

48 hours Long | 44 countries participated | 170 locations | 6500 participants | almost 1500 games

The Global Game Jam 2011 was last weekend and it was great! We had over 100 jammers at our location and made some great games over the 48 hours. We had not only one keynote speaker (the global one by Keita Takahashi, maker of Katamari) but three! In addition to Keita’s recorded video, we had Scott Jones of “Reviews on the Run” and Kelly Zmak the former President of Radical Entertainment.

After the keynote we were given various icebreakers to meet other people. Then we were told the theme (this year it was Extinction!) and broke into teams to brainstorm game ideas based off of the theme. We had over 20 people pitch the best game ideas and then people joined the teams to make the games pitched (or formed new ones if none of the games were what they were looking for).

I was fortunate enough to work with Jake Birkett and Alex Vostrov, two experienced indie game designers, and two great artists. Together we put together a game called “The Invasion of Giant Planet-Eating Bacteria From Outer Space”. It was a good game, but we felt a tutorial would’ve helped. Alas, in 48 hours time is very limited so we generally told people the tutorial over their shoulder.

Check out all the games people made at globalgamejam.org