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:

Head there to find out all the pertinent info, including start/end times, etc.

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.

Yeah BABY!

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.

Example
You can play a template/example room by Noel Berry right over here.

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.

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.

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.

WINNITRON DemoCamp @ AquaBooks, 7:00PM November 17

What is the Winnitron 1000? Words alone cannot describe it. We could tell you that it’s a salvaged classic 80s arcade machine, retrofitted to play brand new indie games. We could mention that it’s capable of updating an ever increasing library of games by itself, over the internet – and that it was assembled by 5 young, talented and totally hot Winnipeg game developers. We could even point out that it’s a sexy blue and orange beast complete with 4/8-way switchable control sticks, a shiny new aluminum control panel, LED lighting, thumping bass and features gaming entertainment forged in the fires of a passionate game jam. But none of that would prepare you…

The only way to learn the true story of the Winnitron and experience the majesty in person, is to attend the NMM Demo Camp November 17, 7:00PM at Aqua Books. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. It will become a part of you.

ALL HAIL THE WINNITRON.

WINNITRON Game Jam Wrap-Up

The game jam ended up being a great time. We had about 22 people show up, and a lot of ridiculous games were worked on.

Devin + Calvin Reimer’s game “Robots, Robots Everywhere” is a pretty tense game about collecting batteries while trying to avoid being cornered by hoards of evil-bots. It also features music by 15 year old Liam Berry.

Liam also started adapting his game “WAVE” for the Winnitron.

Vieko Franetovic and Mike Lohaus flew in from Calgary to adapt their game “Krunch” to the Winnitron. Krunch is a game about claustrophobia; in every level a wall is closing in on you as you try to rush to the exit. Vieko and Mike recently added a 2 player mode that plays great on the Winni.

Noel Berry and Jordan Duchnycz worked on a game called “Sexy Fire Fighters 4″. I’ll leave that one up to your imagination for now…

Robin and Sandy Debreuil created a prototype called “My Big Head is Weighing Me Down”. I’m really excited to see this one finished:

I made a jam game called “TrashPilot”. It’s kind of like a fast-paced, 2 player battle version of Captain Forever – you fly around, collect junk that gives you the ability to shoot, and try to blast the other player’s junk off. It’s a pretty fun button-masher.

A lot of other games were worked on, but I didn’t have a chance to find out what all of them were about. Hopefully they’ll see the light of day sometime in the near future.

To close out, we will leave you with this hilarious remix of some really horribly confused CTV coverage of the game jam that Kert Gartner put together:

Latest Update

We finally put the t-molding in… and it looks GREAT!

A big Thank You goes out to Kert Gartner and the rest of the NMM peeps for figuring out how we could use the space.

New Media Manitoba

Location 1000 Waverley Street – Room 103
Use the back door: MAP

Dates Weekend of October 23rd
Oct 22: Friday 4:30pm – 11pm
Oct 23: Saturday 10:00am – Late
Oct 24: Sunday 10:00am – Clean Up at 11pm

You can still sign up for the jam here.

Yes, Bring!
- Laptop (conserve space)
- Good Pair of Headphones (so you can get in the zone)
- Working Workflow (engine/tools set up ‘n ready to go)
- Your Game Development Skills (code, art, design, music, etc!)

No, Do Not Bring!
- Bad Vibes
- A Huge Setup (* exceptions sometimes apply, check with us in the comments)

Not from Winnipeg?
If you’re not in Winnipeg, you can still participate online! We’ll (hopefully) be streaming the jam online, so you can check out what’s going on and send us your builds if we have time to test them.

Reminder
This jam is more about polishing up an existing idea, and testing it out on the machine. Working on brand new ideas is totally cool too, but coming in with an idea that is already up and running would be a great starting point.

Read on for the attendee list…

Attendees (18+)
Noel Berry
Marlon Wiebe
Liam Berry
Kert Gartner
Robin Debreuil (+3?)
Vieko Franetovic
mrghosty
Tom Rab
Jordan Duchnycz
Devin Reimer
Calin Reimer
Graeme Borland
Jacob Carewick
Aaron Klaassen
Dylan Fries
Michael Lohaus
Jen Dyck
Joel Forest

It’ll be held on the weekend of October 23rd.

Playing the Winnitron exclusive: 4fourths, on the beta unit

Jammer List
Noel Berry
Marlon Wiebe
Liam Berry
Kert Gartner
Robin Debreuil (+family)
Vieko Franetovic
mrghosty
Tom Rab
Jordan Duchnycz
Devin Reimer
Calin Reimer
Graeme Borland

If you haven’t signed up yet, please fill out this form at the WINNITRON website.

We haven’t figured out the location yet, so stay tuned for more news about that.

We do accept games made outside of Winnipeg! Feel free to join in on the jam online, if you can’t make it in person.

Start Now!
Ideally, we’d be finishing our Winnitron games at the jam – so that we can play them on the beast, trade feedback, and polish everything up. If you have an idea, it’d be rad to start prototyping it now.

Keep in mind that the machine will have 1 joystick and 2 buttons per player. (for 1-2 players, more info on keybindings later)