January 25th-27th, the SUSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science will hold the Global Game Jam, the largest international contest for the development of video games, for the 6th time. The participants of GGJ are given 48 hours to gather a team and create a game from scratch within the given topic – at the same time as more than 20 thousand programmers, artists, game designers, and game lovers from dozens of countries!
Participation in Global Game Jam is the best way to begin to develop a game, meet like-minded people, and realise your experimental ideas. Prototypes of such games as Surgeon Simulator, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, and Mushroom 11 were first developed during GGJ, but later became commercially-successful hits and earned prestigious awards at the Independent Games Festival.
In addition, Global Game Jam is also an excellent way to learn to develop videogames, since both newcomers and professionals can take part, and all of the games of previous years and their codes are available on the GGJ official site. With each year, the quality of games created in such a short time improves. Take for example Magnefique and Clumsy Cult. It’s difficult to believe that they were created by a few people in 48 hours.
The sponsors and organisers of Global Game Jam include the largest IT companies and universities in the world: Facebook, Google, MIT, California Polytechnic University, and many more. The sponsors of the event at SUSU include famous IT companies from Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg: SKB Kontur, TAPCLAP, Caravan Games, and Napoleon IT. Professional developers from these companies don’t just help jam participants gather a team of like-minded people and choose good ideas for games, they also award the best game with valuable prizes.
Participation is open to anyone, but the number of spots is limited; potential participants must fill out a questionnaire and register on the Global Game Jam site. You can find out more about the event, ask questions of the organisers, and see photos and videos of past jams in the VKontakte group: https://vk.com/globalgamejam.
Event date:
Opening – January 25th, 16:30;
Closing – January 27th, 17:00;
Contact: Ivan Volkov (coordinator);
Phone number: +7 (919) 311-96-32.