For over two decades, game developers have turned to game jams as sites of training, experimentation, and community-building. That’s My Jam is a new project we’re starting that studies the importance of jams for both emerging and established game makers.
Game jams are often framed as springboards into professional development, and we’re curious about the challenges jammers face when transforming prototype games into commercial products, ad-hoc groups into indie development teams, and compact jam timelines into extended development cycles.
We also want to learn more about the power of the game jam as a production tool, as a number of established studios have adopted game jam tenets—experimentation, rapid prototyping, and even failure—into their creative processes.
If you are a game jammer who has turned their jam project into a commercial game or are a developer who uses game jams at their studio, we want to talk to you! Fill out the form linked here if you’d like to participate: https://forms.gle/8oBBR7uCMPCT53XUA. If chosen to participate, we will provide a small honorarium for your time.That’s My Jam is a Game Arts International Network (GAIN) project supported by Ontario Creates and Mitacs. Previous GAIN research projects include If You Don’t Like the Game, Change the Rules and Isolation Nation.