Global Game Jam at UMBC

For the 10th(!) year in a row, UMBC is the Baltimore host site for the Global Game Jam!

Where: Engineering (ENG) building on the UMBC campus
When: 5 PM January 26 – 5 PM January 28, 2018
Cost: Free, but advance registration is required (register at globalgamejam.org)

What is a Game Jam?

In a game jam, participants come together to make a video game. Each participant joins a small team at the jam, and over a couple of day period creates a new, unique and creative video game according to the rules of the jam.

Game Jams are a great way to meet other developers, beef up your resume, or just learn what it takes to make a game. Teams need designers who can come up with a creative game idea according to the jam constraints, artists, programmers and testers, so there is something to do for participants at all levels of experience.

So what is the Global Game Jam?

The Global Game Jam takes place in the same 48 hours all over the world! The first year there were 53 host sites in the US, Canada, Brazil, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Spain, Turkey, Wales, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Last year had hundreds of host sites across the world.

The Global Game Jam will start 5 PM local time Friday, January 26th and end 5 PM local time Sunday, January 28th, 2018. All participants in the Global Game Jam will be constrained by the same theme and set of rules. After the theme is announced, participants will have the chance to brainstorm game ideas and pitch them to other participants to form development teams. After a couple of mad days of game development, all the games are demoed and submitted to the global game jam site.

Even if you don’t participate, you can track the action on twitter #ggj18 and #umbcggj, and try out the game submissions after the event is over.

For the full list of sites, more Global Game Jam information, and information on the keynote speaker and other exciting developments, be sure to visit the main Global Game Jam site.

UMBC Site Information

The UMBC Global Game Jam site will close from 11 PM to 7 AM each Friday and Saturday night. Non-local participants should plan accordingly.

We’ll have a mix of computers and development platforms:

• Windows
• Mac
• WiFi (with your own laptop)

These have a mix of the following software (not all software on all platforms)

• Visual Studio
• Unity
• Unreal Engine
• Maya
• NVIDIA PhysX
• Adobe Creative Suite

What you should bring

Yourself. Your creativity.

Don’t come with a pre-planned team. Teams will be formed on-site after the game pitches are made. Also, don’t bring pre-made content (art, code, sounds, etc.) that is not publically available. The idea is not to see how well you anticipate the constraints, it is to see what each team can create during the Jam!

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