Global Game Jam lands at GCU
The Global Game Jam has taken over GCU for the 17th year in a row, allowing students to develop their teamworking skills for a career in their future profession.
Between Friday 30 January and Sunday 1 February students from many different disciplines across GCU joined forces to create their very own game in just 48 hours. The event is celebrated all over the world, with last year’s Global Game Jam bringing together almost 35,000 individuals at 796 different locations across 102 countries.
Over 150 students gathered at GCU Students’ Association before being split into teams and combining their creative knowledge. Two of those students involved were Catriona Cameron (3D Art and Visualisation) and Ryan Paterson (Games Development), whose team went on to win a special award for their efforts.
Why did you decide to study 3D Art and Visualisation & Games Development at GCU?
Ryan: “Gaming has been my biggest passion from a young age. There are so many interesting things you can do through games and programming that relate to physics. It’s just very satisfying when you get the chance to develop your own idea into a game and I wanted the opportunity to get better at it.”
Catriona: “I’ve always loved drawing throughout school and completed my Advanced Higher Art. My family are really artistic on my mum’s side so it came naturally to me. Nintendo DS was my first console and I then got the Nintendo Wii and the Playstation, so I wanted to know if there were any courses related to it and was delighted to find out there was. Covid happened when I was finishing high school, so I decided to come here when I could get the full university experience.”
Had you ever been involved in the Global Game Jam before?
Ryan: “I’ve been doing it for four years now. I studied at City of Glasgow College before coming here and we got an email about coming to GCU and joining the Global Game Jam when I studied there. The experience of visiting GCU actually led to me deciding I wanted to study my Undergraduate here.”
Catriona: “This was my first time! Ryan and I have been friends for a while so I heard about it through him and also Hamid Homatash (Deputy Head of Computer Science), who helps organise the event.
“One of the main things that appealed to me was that it was in-person on campus. I’ve been involved in remote events before but loved the idea of coming in with friends and bouncing ideas off each other.”
Tell me more about the 48-hour event and how it all worked?
Ryan: “You can technically get involved in the event remotely but the spirit of the event is to be there in-person and communicate with the team. People can come along as individuals and be put into a team or they can join up with their friends to create their own – nobody is left out. We were lucky with our team because we took in a programmer alongside the five of us who are all friends and signed up together. We had two designers, two programmers, one musician and an artist.
“At 17.30 on the Friday we were given the theme (which was “mask”) and we basically had to create a game from scratch in our team. You can then come and go as much as you like over the next 48 hours to work on the game – we weren’t locked in the room or anything! You can stay overnight if you like, but we were told to try and get some sleep!”
Catriona: “It was definitely a bit chaotic in the room on the first day because we had over 150 people there coming from all over Scotland. It was fine after that though because we got into the flow of things and were just so focused on making our game as good as possible.”
Tell me about the game you created?
Ryan: “It’s important to think about the theme and play about with a few ideas in your team, because people sometimes make the mistake of trying to pick a genre straight away instead of messing around with the concept first.
Catriona: “We knew it was such a small timeframe, so we wanted to make sure we didn’t have too much scope – it’s important to try and be precise.”
Ryan: “The simplest interpretation of the “mask” theme would be to think of a physical mask, but we went down the route of masking tape and what we could do with that idea. We liked the idea of running around with masking tape and the character taping themselves to things. We eventually simplified it to the player taping themselves to weapons and dragging those around as a sort of a top-down shooter. We made it a multiplayer set-up and allowed everyone to go up against each other.”
I take it you were pleased with the final finished product?
Ryan: “I wasn’t pleased with it at first but everyone plays each other’s games on the last day and I loved getting to see everyone enjoy the experience of our game. I think that showed that it was a success and we had achieved what we set out to do.
Catriona: “I had dabbled in programming before but I’m definitely not a programmer, so it was cool to see it all come together. How it worked was that we basically got the fundamentals done, the two designers then came in and did the lay-out and once they were done with the scenes I would add in the lighting effects to make it as pretty as possible.
“It was definitely the right idea to have it as a multiplayer because it meant we could get more people in when we did the showcase. It got really competitive and I think that’s probably why people really loved it!”
Your team won the award for ‘Best Application of the Theme’ – how did you feel?
Catriona: “I was basically in shock – my head was in my hands! Every team were given stickers to vote for the games they thought did the best job with the theme and I really didn’t think we were going to win. It was just awesome that we done it – we all felt really good!”
Ryan: “Yeah, it was a brilliant feeling. I won an award before at the Game Jam, but my friend and I had just joined a team - it wasn’t our idea or anything. It was really satisfying this time around to bring my own team with my own gameplan – we all worked really well together.”
Do you feel this experience has set you up well for the future?
Catriona: “It’s definitely another thing that has went towards me feeling more confident in my ability overall. I definitely wouldn’t be as confident if I hadn’t actually went for it.”
Ryan: “Definitely. I think one of the hardest things in terms of learning game development is actually getting feedback and having people test your game, especially with how hard it is to finish a whole game. Global Game Jam is a really good way to test what you can make and see how people can respond to that.”
Would you encourage other students to get involved?
Ryan: “It’s very easy to get wrapped up in your coursework and trying to make sure everything is finished for deadlines, so you can easily forget to practice what you actually came to qualify in. The Global Game Jam is definitely the best reminder of why you’re doing the course in the first place – I’d definitely recommend it.”
Catriona: “It’s particularly good for artists as well because if you’re looking for more experience in programming or design then you can put yourself forward and get involved. I think the other thing to remember is that it can be any kind of game, including board games, so there are different ways to show your talent. 100% go for it!”
You can find out more about Ryan and Catriona's game here
You can also find out more about the Global Game Jam here
By Ross Clark
Achieved something related to your course or in your personal life? Email me at Ross.Clark@gcu.ac.uk