Global Game Jam, Malaysia 2010 – A huge success!

The Global Game Jam event was conducted recently and it took place over 139 locations in 39 countries around the world. GGJ started at 5pm (in the each country's time zone) on January 29th and went on for 48+ hours through January 31, 2010.

The goal was for developers to come together and make a video game as 16 game developers participated for the IGDA Malaysia Global Game Jam. Developers rapidly prototyped video game designs and injected new ideas which certainly helped the gaming industry. Participants had to create a game from beginning to end in a prescribed time (GGJ is 48 hours). The brief time span was meant to help encourage creative thinking to result in small but innovative and experimental games. It was all down to the developers as a massive 48 hour brainstorming session was underway. The 16 participants were split into 4 teams of 4 each as they were given a set of 18 themes, the top 4 ideas were short listed and the developers started working on them.

The Global Game Jam was created as collaboration between Susan Gold, Gorm Lai and Ian Schrieber - three active members of the IGDA who wanted to connect the community through cooperation, innovation, creativity and experimentation. The 2010 GGJ wants to triple in size, including more locations and making GGJ a truly global event.

MSC Malaysia Animation and Creative Content Centre (MAC3) was one of the host of the Global Game Jam 2010 Malaysia. Talking to Animation Xpress Asia Pacific, Hasnul Samsudin, Head of MAC3 shared, "MAC3 has the infrastructure and they will provide an awesome venue for the Global Game Jam. We support IGDA Malaysia in its role to stimulate the local games development industry. Our collaboration is hoped to spur creativity and innovation in the design and development of new ideas for games."

GGJ brings together talented individuals from within the community and gives unique opportunity for people to push their skills and challenge their way of working. Participants work concurrently along with developers around the globe, rally around a central theme, which the participants have 48 hours to create a game. Many games developed in 2009 have become fully realized games. The GGJ is open source, hardware & software agnostic and all projects are protected under a creative commons license. It encourages people to try out new ideas and push themselves within reason.

Telling us more about the participation and the games developed was Bazil from Global Game Jam, Malaysia.
“There are no winners as the spirit of Global Game Jam, to collaborate not to compete. Even if there is competition, it is a healthy competition. This is apparent as most of us do help other team with their games, either by sharing ideas, codes and event art assets. The response was awesome. Everyone was really happy for the chances to be part of something as big and as cool as this. At most of the time during the event, we were broadcasted live through webcam and we also streaming other locations live video feeds from the official website. It definitely creates a strong feeling of being part of the global event. We all can't wait for next year's Global Game Jam to have another round of it. Some of them even asked me to held similar event at a local scope. IGDA Malaysia Chapter will definitely be looking into that” Bazil added by saying “As it was the first time, I was rather on a lower key on my expectation of it. After it is over, I'm so glad that we did it. Thanks go to Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) for sponsoring the venues and foods. Hopefully, next year's Global Game Jam will be bigger and better.”
The 4 games developed are as follows:

Sun Dust - http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/sun-dust
Sway: A Game of Love - http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/sway-game-love
Aliens Vs Cakes - http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/aliens-vs-cakes-0
DeBuG - http://www.globalgamejam.org/2010/debug

This even was definitely a great initiative to move the gaming industry forward and bring developers closer. The organizers would certainly be happy and would be hoping for double the number of entries or even more for the next Global Game Jam.