A few weeks ago, we held a small Game Jam to encourage people to make mini-games for our project and test out the mini-games API that Geoff has developed for Micro Missions. The jam was quite successful: 10 people made 20 mini-games, and we tested the API pretty thoroughly along the way (and fixed a few bugs). A few other people who didn't have time for the whole jam stopped by and kept us company. It would have been even better if even more people could make it, but I really enjoyed the friendly, relaxed atmosphere that the small group of people working together for the whole weekend provided. We exchanged ideas freely, gave each other feedback on our works in progress, and had a lot of fun.
I plan on putting together a mini-game browser to show off all the mini-games we made, but for now, some details on how the organization of the game jam went.
I started talking to individual students who I thought might be interested last quarter, trying to get a feel for when they would be available, and what kinds of things they would like to see at the jam. I also wanted people to start planning for the jam early so that it wouldn't be a surprise to them when it happened. As soon as Spring Quarter started, I put up a note on the whiteboard in the main lab advertising the jam, which included an informal poll about which weekend would be best for it. Unfortunately, that note got erased almost right away despite my written request to not erase it. I was very surprised by that turn of events, since normally everyone just leaves notices like that alone unless they really need the space, and there was plenty of space on all the whiteboards, it being the beginning of the quarter.
A few days later, I settled on week 2 (since week 3 turned out to be taken for another game jam), and posted a facebook event on the RIT Game Design and Development facebook page. I chose not to mass-invite everyone to it though, mainly because I find it really annoying when people do that to me. I eventually invited all of my personal facebook friends who were also RIT GDD students. By the time of the Jam, there were 9-10 people on the "confirmed" list and 7 on the "maybe" list, although two of the confirmed people dropped out at the last moment because they had too much other work to worry about.
By the beginning of week 2 (so a week from the jam date) I had settled all the important details about the Jam, and made fliers, which I posted all around the main lab, and on the doors of a few other GDD labs.
Throughout this time, I also kept talking to individual students in person, making sure they could make it, and getting their opinion on what is needed to have a good game jam. Free food was one of the top suggestions, and some people also suggested awarding prizes at the end of the weekend. I took both of those suggestions, and I also decided that for the free food, we would avoid pizza if possible, since pizza is the go-to "free food for students" and I felt that I was getting sick of it. We did end up ordering pizza for one of the meals, because the people present at the time felt like pizza, but we also had sandwiches, cookies, and even Boston Market ("home-made dinner" style food) on Friday. I think the jammers appreciated the variety; at least I know I did!
One of my biggest concerns before the game jam was whether I could get a critical mass of people to attend and make mini-games. I think I succeeded in doing so, despite the two major factors that made it difficult to get more people to come: how soon I got all the information out there for people to make plans (I nailed everything down with about a week to go, which was too late for some people), and how busy everyone was already even this early into the quarter. Quite a few people wanted to help but couldn't, because they had too much work to do.
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