When I walked into the Hudson computer lab after brunch on a recent Saturday afternoon, I thought I had entered the wrong room. It was dark and silent in the main lab but as I took a few steps in, I could see the programming lab lit and five men – programmers, I would later learn – hunched over keyboards, squinting at monitors. It was clear that this, as they say, was where the magic happened.
Global Game Jam is, according to its website, a place for “participants [to] rapidly prototype game designs and…help grow the game industry.” But according to every participant from Blackburn I interviewed, it’s also “fun.”
And they do not seem wrong. As I began to interview the programmers, a few other people began to filter in and out. Though clearly there to do a job, they were all friendly – laughing and carrying on conversations, occasionally interrupted by moments of focus or frustration.
There is a clear vision here, and the art, writing, sound and programming departments work in tandem to bring it to fruition. Senior creative writing major Sara Lewis in the writing department said that as a fan of “story-driven” video games, she knows just how much flash fiction, which she describes as “shorter than a short story,” can influence the end result of a video game. “This story is told through seven lines of text…and that’s it, but it creates a complete story in those seven lines.”
By the end of the 48 hours, the team had a fully functioning game. Junior computer science major Lucas Burdell said earlier, “Nothing we’re doing is revolutionary or insane. It’s very easy to grasp and it’s fun.” He was right. The finished product, called “In Too Deep,” is a fairly standard diving game. You play as diver and collect fish for points to upgrade diving equipment to dive deeper and explore your surroundings. But it works, and for one weekend, it’s not such an easy feat.
Still, sophomore graphic design major Ryan Kachuba said he would “like to see more faces [next year],” as did many others. They are not in need of programmers, though, so if you cannot program, do not despair. Lewis said they need more “creative types,” as did Kachuba, who added, “There’s something everyone can do here.”
You can play “In Too Deep” as well as other games from this and the previous year’s Global Game Jam at globalgamejam.org.