The College of Arts, Media and Design; College of Computer and Information Science; and University Libraries present 2018 Boston Global Game Jam (GGJ) at Northeastern University!
Time & Location
Friday, January 26 (at 5 p.m.) – Sunday, January 28 (at 6 p.m.)
The event is open 24/7 but we recommend good health practices for optimal performance.
Digital Media Commons
Snell Library
360 Huntington Ave.
Quick Rundown
Fee is $5.00 and tickets must be purchased in advance here. Please be sure to sign-up in advance, tickets are open to all interested; we cannot accommodate walk-in jammers. This site will have on-site security and all participants must pre-register to be allowed entrance. All participants must be 18 years or older, or accompanied with a participating parent or guardian. We have 200 total slots open for this site. You do not need to come with a team; we highly encourage people to work with new collaborators.
Food
Food is available in the nearby area and participants are allowed to bring their own. We will be providing breakfast, beverages and snacks on site as part of the ticket price.
What is the Global Game Jam?
Global Game Jam is the premier annual game creation event that fosters the development of innovative game concepts and promotes international collaboration and teamwork. GGJ brings together thousands of game development enthusiasts participating through many local jams around the world on a single weekend. GGJ has proven itself to be an incubator for creative experiments and new start-ups. Some of the successes have included games being published and exciting collaboration opportunities for participants. More information at http://globalgamejam.org or look at our GGJ Participants Page that we put together with the help of many jammers all over the world.
We Want You to Innovate!
We encourage participants at this GGJ site to innovate. Teams can innovate by thinking of new game mechanisms or by using themes or topics that haven’t been used in games. The GGJ offers a great opportunity to experiment and to deliver short but wonderful game experiences. You want to capture players with something new and revealing in a short amount of gameplay time. That happens with something innovative. To help facilitate this innovation, we will brainstorm about possible new approaches on Friday evening.
What Should I Bring?
Although the DMC has computers available, we highly encourage participants to bring their own laptop. This is because some of the group spaces don’t have computers and you may decide with your group to work there. In addition, it is impossible to download software on DMC computers and if you are need of dedicated game software (e.g., Unity or UDK), you need to rely on your own laptop. Software can be found here.
Who Can Attend?
Anyone with an interest in designing games can attend. All participants must be 18 years or older. You don’t need to have experience in designing a game and you don’t need to have programming skills. In designing a game various assets and skills are needed other than programming: writing, art, sound, and game design. Teams need a mix of people with various backgrounds and while forming the teams we will try to make sure teams are balanced.
Where will the Jam take place?
The magic will happen at the Digital Media Commons (DMC), a state-of-the-art facility that opened her doors in Fall 2012. It is a collaborative learning facility made up of a number of group work areas, high-power computer workstations and expert support. The Digital Media Commons provides new access to professional-grade hardware and software previously only available to members in specialized programs. New capabilities in animation, GIS, CAD, high-quality printing, video & audio production are available to all. Dual-monitor Apple and PC workstations provide high-power computing to deliver seamless media production, modeling, data analysis, and more. A number of new collaboration areas also bring groups together to facilitate easy sharing with plug-in monitors for laptops, mobile whiteboards, flexible seating and movable tables, all based on a grid of power so users are never far from an outlet to power their devices.