The Global Game Jam (GGJ) has become, year after year, the largest game creation event. It is all condensed into a 48 hour development cycle. Técnico joined once again this event and, together with the Faculty of Fine Arts, organised the Global Game Jam 2020 @ Técnico / Belas-Artes. 70 participants from the Lisbon region met at IST Taguspark campus and, at the same time, tens of thousands of people worldwide, in over 900 locations, were fighting for the same goal: to develop games around a common theme. 14 games were developed at Taguspark campus; the winning project was created by a team of Técnico students.
According to Ricardo Rodrigues, INESC-ID researcher and member of GGJ /IST team, “this is undoubtedly the biggest game jam in the world, not because it is a competition, but because it promotes cooperation between participants”. “The whole event aims to bring together people all over the world to have a great time making innovative games”.
The GGJ brings together programmers, writers, designers and other professionals to join a global community of game-makers around a common challenge related to a theme. This year’s edition topic was “Repair”. “Every year the themes are broad, which lead to original ideas”, explains Ricardo Rodrigues. “Last year we had a board game and this year we had 2 games using Augmented Reality”, recalls the INESC-ID researcher.
As in previous years, many members of Técnico community participated in the GGJ. “We didn’t count the number of registrations, but roughly more than half of participants are Técnico students or alumni”, points out Ricardo Rodrigues.
The FIX_ME.exe was the most voted game after the participants voting. The Circuit Slimes was the 2nd most voted game and won the Miniclip award, delivered by IST Game Lab and Miniclip. The Catastrophe took third place on the podium.
“Many participants outside Técnico attended this year’s edition, some of them were artists, which has led to very creative teams”, says the member of GGJ /IST team. “Many participants had never been in a game jam. But we also had professional gamers and veteran enthusiasts. Wonderful and innovative games were created, and we explored new technologies such as Augmented Reality”, he pointed out.
