Game jams are a laid back, comfortable way to meet new people in the indie game scene while creating new and exciting projects. Even if you’ve never made a game before, game jams are fun to attend. The vibe is all about experimenting and trying out new ideas, so you can’t go wrong.
Marlon Wiebe, who created the t-shirt for last year’s jam has just come up with a brand new design for PegJam 2.0:
PegJam 2.0 will take place over the July 16-17 weekend. If you’d like to come to the jam, sign up here.
If you sign up before June 20th, we can guarantee that we can print your own shirt – please sign up ASAP so we can get the order in on time.
If you need help finding a place to crash or a hotel room, post in this TIGForums thread to coordinate with others who are travelling to the jam.
PegJam 2.0 is the sequel to a successful game jam of yesteryear: TigJam Winnipeg. James and Lisanne from Indie Game: The Movie were on hand, and they created a short video that captured the energy of the experience:
This is cool – a bunch of Dutch dudes decided to make their own Winnitron! The 1000 now has a sister: The Winnitron NL.
If you live in the Netherlands, now you don’t have to make the trip down to Winnipeg to see what’s what. You can hit up the Dutch Game Garden instead!
Rami Ismail of Vlambeer says: “The Dutch indie community is small, but has a lot of potential. The recent IGF nominations for Dutch independent titles as Paper Cakes, Bohm, Dinner Date and Super Crate Box prove that the Netherlands are becoming a force in the international indie scene. The WINNITRON NL will hopefully encourage students and aspiring game designers to consider going a direction that’s often overlooked.”
The WINNITRON NL is a collaboration between Dutch industry-supporting initiative Dutch Game Garden, Paul Veer, Bit Collective and Vlambeer.
Are you interested in setting up your own Winnitron? Get in touch with us at contact -at- winnitron.ca
Want to be involved in making a new, crazy game for the Winnitron? Check out the Room Jam post.
Local Winnipeg developer Devin Reimer came up with a great idea for a new game jam.
Over two days:
1. Everyone creates one “room”. 2. Each room is a separate 640×480 Flash game. 3. Each room starts with an entrance door, ends when the player gets to an exit door. 4. Gameplay, perspective, etc can be whatever each room developer chooses. 5. We’ll provide some basic Flash code templates that you can use to start building your game. Or you can start by scratch if you prefer. 6. Each game will feature a main character that will be based off of a design. Each game can interpret the design differently. 7. When the Jam is done, all the rooms will be strung together into one big, crazy game. 8. The resulting game will be released on the web! 9. We may also port the final game to the Winnitron.
We’ll be requiring that you use Flash to participate in this jam, but don’t fret! Flash is pretty easy to get into. Check out FlashGameDojo. We know we’ll have a few experienced Flash game devs on hand to help out, and there may even be a crash course in Flash game development a week or two before.
So if you’re new to Flash, you can look at this as a great opportunity to get familiar with one of the most popular ways of developing games for the web.
But I don’t know How to Program!
Doesn’t matter! We’ll help teach you how. Or maybe you’re an artist – in which case, you don’t even need to know programming. Pair up with a programmer, or create a visual concept to inspire another group. Maybe you write music? Sound effects? Also helpful!
Because every individual or team only has to make one room, the scope of the jam is pretty small and focused – which makes this a great opportunity to jump in, even if you’ve never made a game before.
Where?
The game jam will be held at New Media Manitoba, 1000 Waverley St. – Room 103
(same location as the Winnitron Jam)
Here is a Handy Map
When?
January 29-30
Probably with a setup evening on Friday the 28th.
What if I’m not in Winnipeg?
You can participate over the internet! We’ll set up some kind of chat, and hopefully some webcam stuff so you can feel like you’re really here, freezing your ass off. Just tick the option for participating remotely on the sign-up sheet so we know where you’re at.
Sign Up
If you’re planning on coming to the jam, please sign up here.
The Winnitron is a magical arcade machine that can update its game library over the internet. But it can also upload data – including play times and high scores.
Since the Winnitron was recently featured at a big chip tune party here in Winnipeg, (dubbed “Data Dance”) we were excited to check out the data from the box.
Noel Berry wrote an excellent stat tracking interface, that can generate all kinds of graphics for us. Here’s a pie chart!
Given our promotional video for Canabalt: 2 Player, it’s not too surprising that it topped the charts. My own physicsy shooter TrashPilot came in second. Psysal’s 2 player cooperative game GUN took third.
Oddly enough, there was a couple of older ladies who seemed to only be playing GUN the whole time they were on the ‘tron. Guess they really wanted to rescue that dog!
I’m surprised that 4fourths wasn’t played more, as it’s one of the best co-op games on the box. It might need some reworked intro screens so that people can understand it quicker.
There may be a skew of 2-player games being more popular, and that seems to make sense for events. A lot of couples and groups of friends would approach the machine together.
TrashPilot, Canabalt and Sumo Topplers are all games that automatically restart the match (without requiring user input), so it’s not too surprising that they ended up being replayed more than the others.
The total playtime for the event was 5 hours and 56 minutes. This makes sense, as the machine was set up at 8pm and was played consistently until the event shut down at 2am. The average time for each “play” was 3 minutes. This seems about right. (I would have guessed 5)
It was fun watching people play games that I’d worked on. There’s a “TrashPilot stance” that people enter into, probably because of the way it feels like you’re cranking the ships around and also because of the sheer amount of button mashing required to win.
Take aways: If you’re thinking of developing a Winnitron game, you might want to consider making it 2-player with short, catchy play sessions.
Adam “Atomic” Saltsman put together a new version of Canabalt for the Winnitron – one that lets you run 2 players at the same time! And Kert Gartner made this fantastic trailer for it:
The Winnitron 1000 is a refurbished 80′s arcade machine that plays brand new games created by independent developers. The machine will be travelling to different locations in the city of Winnipeg and beyond. Want to get YOUR game on the WINNITRON? Email Winnitron@InfiniteAmmo.ca!
Where can you find the Winnitron? If you’re in Winnipeg, come by the Lo Pub at 9pm tonight for “Data Dance” – a chip tune party and pop-up arcade! (What’s a pop-up arcade? I have no effing idea, so come by and find out…) The Winnitron will be there among arcade classics and other new games by local developers.
