At a local level, six Globant sites in three countries took part in the event: Mar del Plata, Mendoza and Tucumán in Argentina; Santiago de Chile in Chile, Bogotá in Colombia and Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Argentina
At Mar del Plata’s office, 60 people participated, and 11 teams were set up. This site produced 10 proposed games, highlighting two board games and one role-play. “Participants were very happy, those who had already attended previous editions were very pleased to have been able to do it in person. And the people who participated for the first time were very excited. All of them were very grateful”, said Matias Raimondo, organizer.
Mendoza is the third most important province in the country in the game development industry. At this office, approximately 120 people signed up for this and ultimately 20 games were created and submitted.
In Tucuman’s case, the chosen place to develop the Jam was the Ente Cultural de Tucuman, where around 30 people in 5 teams completed four games.
The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is a unique, free event held worldwide among game creators, where participants come together and work to develop original and innovative experimental game development based on a secret theme.
This year’s edition was the most special one so far! Close to 40,000 participants joined 800 online, hybrid, and in person sites in 108 countries worldwide, combining their talents to make over 7,600 games related to this year’s theme: Roots.
Brazil
In São Paulo, 4 participants presented one game: The Rootual. “The weekend was super fun, we worked a lot as a team, the jammers created a very interesting game with the support of talent from Globant’s Gaming Studio”, mentioned Brunna Vilas Boas de Paula Pacheco.
Chile
At Santiago de Chile, the Manquehue site hosted this edition locally 12 Globers participated with two game proposals presented.
“The teams connected perfectly with each other, and everyone was motivated from start to finish. Aside from developing the games and learning about the industry, it was an opportunity to meet people with similar interests and possible future project and work partners,” commented Jesus Gonzalez Martinez, Game Developer.
Colombia
The Connecta site at Bogota was the place chosen in the Colombian country with 36 participants, and 6 games submitted.
“The Jammers really enjoyed our space, its design and distribution encouraged collaboration, even the rest areas were very well used by them. This was the first time it was done on site, and even though most of it was hard and constant work, the attitude of all the participants was to enjoy their experience, to help, to have fun and to learn from the whole process”, explained German Dario Galindo Rincon, Game Artist at Globant.
Global Game Jam will return 22-28 January 2024! Schedule it!
How much do you know about the GGJ?
“The first GGJ ever sponsored by Globant was in 2016 in CABA, Buenos Aires”, explains Mariano Mariscal, a planner of the event in Argentina. “Anyone can organize it, which is what I started to do in Mar del Plata after I started working at Globant as aJava Developer. A year after joining the company, I joined the Gaming studio. Soon after, the Global Game Jam came, and it occurred to me, along with a colleague who worked with me at that time, to organize it in Mar del Plata. This event had already been done outside Globant, with the community of game developers of the city, which was very small at that time consisting of about 20 professionals. So, we thought we could do it, and that’s how the first GGJ sponsored by Globant Mar del Plata came about, inside the offices”.
What’s the methodology?
Created by a non-profit association, it’s an event where participants try to make a game from scratch. This international and annual encounter takes place in a collaborative format. It is not a competition, it seeks to develop networking among developers encouraging innovation and creativity. The event starts on a Friday at 6 p.m. and ends Sunday afternoon. It is developed at the same local time all over the world.
How are groups formed?
At the beginning of the event, participants introduce themselves and then form teams according to their ideas and interests. The assembled teams have to work to propose a game according to the defined topic, which can be anything. The next thing that happens is that we enter the brainstorming stage, where people start presenting different ideas.
Do teams have to create a demo of their proposed game?
Yes, a repository of all the presented proposals is generated and can be seen in the event’s web page. If you enter the site, you can see all the games that were made around the world and search for them by country and venue.
The rules indicate that participants have to upload the source code and all the assets, images, 3D models and music that have been used, and they also have to upload the executable file of their game so that people can download and play it. All the games that are uploaded on Global have to be under the Creative Commons license. So, people can’t commercialize them but can take them and improve them, among other possibilities.
Must participants be programmers?
Designers, developers, artists, musicians, etc. Anyone is welcome to try their hand at making a game!
