Global Game Jam has been fueling the imagination of game developers around the world for over a decade! That is also approximately how long Ashley Alicea, a Unity Technical Evangelist, has been joining the Global Game Jam as a jammer herself. This year, many members of Unity’s Evangelism team joined jamming sites around the world to unplug and create alongside other jammers. Here are some of the favorite stories our team brought back and moments from 2020’s Global Game Jam that made it special!
United in Turkey
Unity’s technical evangelists joined jammers at ten sites worldwide from Seattle, WA to Istanbul, Turkey. Their goal was to both jam with their teams and support jammers that may need a little extra help. Sam Dogantimur, an online evangelist, brought back a heartwarming story of how the community came together and put the effort in presenting their projects in English once the organizers announced that there are multiple people at the jamming site that don’t speak Turkish. Sam was deeply inspired by how considerate the jammers were and how much effort they put into presenting their projects in English so as not to exclude the few jammers who weren’t fluent in Turkish. In Sam’s own words, “I was on-site to help people with Unity and all of a sudden jammers were coming and asking me to help them translate their presentations to English. This was truly a joint effort and it helped us feel united. We may not have spoken the same language or came from the same place, but we all shared our love for games and we didn’t let a language barrier get in the way!” Sam’s hope is that events like Global Game Jam will help jammers walk away feeling closer to their fellow developers regardless of their background because creativity has the power to unite!
From Seattle to San Juan
Ashley Alicea, who joined the Seattle site jammed both virtually and in-person. Ashley, whose family is originally from Puerto Rico wanted to give back to her community and help coach new jammers online. One of the young jammers from the Puerto Rico site not only completed his game during the GGJ, but he also published the game to the Google Play store by the end of the weekend! You can now download and play The Beaver Hero from any Android device! We hope that this young jammer will inspire you to join an upcoming game jam in your area or online, since the next Global Game Jam is in 2021, and push yourself to start and finish something within the jam. We don’t expect that you will create an open-world real-time multiplayer during the jam, but we hope that you will have fun with the wild game jam game concept and let your creativity run wild!
Brothers in Curitiba
This year, Unity’s LATAM evangelist Alexandre Kikuchi participated in the Global Game Jam both virtually and in person. Alexandre joined in-person in Curitiba, Brazil which was one of the largest sites in 2020 with over 600 people!
Alexandre was particularly happy to see a large number of young developers. Our team believes that learning has no age restrictions and curiosity and love for games are universal across all ages. But, of course, seeing young developers at game jams always gives you that feel-good feeling! Two of Curitiba’s jammers inspired Alexandre in particular! Two brothers, Freddy and Vinicius who recently started learning Unity participated in GGJ 2020. This was their first game jam and not only did they make a game in two days, but their game Over Crooked was chosen as the best Unity game in Curitiba! If you speak Portuguese you can listen to Freddy and Vinicius talk about their game here or check out some gameplay here.
Celebration in Malaga
You may already know one of our evangelists, Andre Cardoso, from his YouTube channel Mix and Jam. This year Andre participated in a Global Game Jam in Malaga, Spain where he was both mentoring jammers and working with a team to make a game.
This year Malaga’s site celebrated its fifth anniversary and welcomed a group of students from the Game Design school in the Netherlands who were sponsored by their school to travel to Spain.
Andre was so excited to see the students who made a trip and he decided to join their team and jam together. Following the theme of repairing, Andre and the crew made a game about fixing tattoos, called “bad tattoos are not forever.”
At the end of the jam, the organizers treated all jammers to “Palmera de chocolate,” a local cake that is unique to Malaga.
Did you jam?
While we love sharing our favorite Global Game Jam 2020 stories, we really want to hear some of your stories!
If this was your first time jamming or if you are a veteran jammer, we’d love to see your project and hear your favorite GGJ stories. We hope to see you all at the next GGJ in 20201 and see all of the amazing games you’ll make!
Thanks for reading!
Elena
We even had a Human Resources game! Ohyes!