2012 Global Game Jam at UMBC, 27-29 Jan

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:50:27 -0500
events, gaim, games, graduate, news, undergraduate

UMBC is a host for the 2012 Global Game Jam which takes place this coming weekend, January 27-29. This is a 48 hour event, where teams from around the world work to develop a complete game over one weekend. The first year had 54 sites in 23 countries. The second year had 124 sites in 34 countries. Last year was up to 169 sites. The UMBC site is open to participants at all skill levels and affiliations. Thanks to generous sponsorship by Next Century, there's no registration fee and food will be provided all weekend. However, you DO need to sign up in advance, just log into globalgamejam.org and select UMBC as your site.

The jam will start at 3:00pm on Friday, January 27th in the UMBC GAIM lab, room 005 in the ECS building with presentations by Microsoft about developing for the Windows Phone. There will be some spiffy giveaways at the end of the weekend for teams that choose make a Windows Phone game. The main event starts at 5:00pm with video keynote talks by Will Wright, Baiyon, Gonzalo Frasca, Brenda Garno Brathwaite and John Romero. After these presentations, the theme for this year’s games will be announced, and participants will brainstorm game ideas and form into teams. For the rest of the weekend, each team will work to build a brand new computer game around the theme. At 3:00pm on Sunday, the final games must be uploaded and from 3-5, the group will review what was accomplished over the weekend.

For more information on the jam and how to participate, see the UMBC GAIM site.