GI Jam

Preparation isn't necessary, strictly speaking, because all skill levels are welcome.

After signing up on Eventbrite, we will send you a list of tutorials and other resources that can help you get started to learn how to make a game. 

You can consider attending Proto-Play Nights every Thursday of the academic year from 6pm until 9pm, at the Games Institute. In collaboration with the UW Game Development Club, Proto-Play nights give the opportunity to meet and collaborate with local game developers in a casual environment.

Attending the Game Development Club's weekly events will allow Waterloo Game Jam participants an opportunity to meet up with other GI Jam-ers and discuss possible projects and teams. You will also get a hands on experience to different aspects of the Game Making process in the weeks leading up to the jam.

The Game Jam this term will be entirely online.

Absolutely not! Waterloo Game Jam is all about having fun and learning about games! If you’ve ever played a game of Monopoly, Charades, or Super Mario, you can make your own game!

Our advice: Keep it simple and focus on creating something fun! Start with what you know/like and remix from there!

There is so much more that goes into games other than coding and programing. You can create a simple game mechanic, some artwork, the game's narrative and characters, rather than an entire game itself.

What about adding a ‘shareholder’ mechanic to Monopoly? Or adding sheep-stealing alien invaders to Settlers of Catan?  How about making a bizarro version of Pong where players control the ball instead of the paddles? Or a tablet version of Twister for your fingers? Or a multiplayer version of QWOP? Or a platform game where you race against a rainbow?

The possibilities are endless, so no matter what your gaming experience, all you need is an open mind!

We encourage participants to form teams for the event. You’re free to go lone wolf, but it’s been our experience that working in teams helps round out a group’s collective experience. Don’t worry if you aren’t able to put a crew together beforehand either, we’ll be helping people team up at the start of the jam too.

In fact, some of our most successful games have come from teams that had never met prior to their first Game Jam!

Developing games in teams is a lot of fun but it also takes a little bit of careful bookkeeping to make sure everyone is contributing to the same code base. Even if you’re participating as a one-person team, keeping track of different versions of your work can be important. That’s where “source control” systems like Git come in.

Don’t know what “Git” is? Don’t worry! We will have GI experts at the event giving tutorials and helpful talks to explain the basics. It’s so simple and useful you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it!

Using the right tools can save a lot of time when tinkering and prototyping new game ideas. Below are some sample tools we recommend at the Games Institute and what’s even better, most of them are FREE!

For analog board games and party games, nothing beats good old pencil and paper! We also try to have some cardboard, clay, and tape on hand.

For video games, the recommend tools are little more new-school and diverse:

Engines and Editors

Unity and GameMaker are excellent game engines and editors in one.

Tiled map editor is great for grid based (including isomatric) map creation.

Visual

GIMP and Inkscape are popular image editing programs (for raster and vector graphics respectively.)

Piskel is a nifty online sprite editor.

Sound

Bfxr is a great, simple way for non-audiophiles to generate a wide variety of retro-style sound effects for use in their games. Twiddle the various knobs and experiment with combinations of basic waveforms to create as many free to use sound effects as you need.

Content Resources

Various sprite archives are also a good place to find a variety of pixel art and sprite sheets to use if you lack artistic skill. Be mindful however: many such sites feature art assets from commercial games and so are subject to appropriate copyright laws. As an example, you are typically free to use sprites of Mario or Sonic for educational purposes like the GI Jam, but you cannot use those assets in commercial games! You wouldn’t want someone ripping off and profiting from your creative work, would you?

The Waterloo Game Jam events happen three times per year, typically once every academic term at UW. To get all of the up-to-date information and event invites, join the GI events mailing list from the GI home page.

All other inquiries can be emailed to our events coordinator.

There is no set limit on how large a team can be, but the recommended size is between 3-5 people.