The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world's largest game jam event. Think of it as a hackathon focused on game development. It is the growth of an idea that in today’s heavily connected world, we could come together, be creative, share experiences and express ourselves in a multitude of ways using video games – it is very universal. The weekend stirs a global creative buzz in games… while at the same time exploring the process of development, be it programming, iterative design, narrative exploration or artistic expression. It is all condensed into a 48 hour development cycle. Although the event is heavily focused on programming, there are many other areas where people who don’t code can contribute to a game.
The Global Game Jam in Macedonia took place from 25th January to 27th January. We as a team decided to join, and we had no idea what was it going to be like.
This years GGJ theme was a heartbeat sound. We were told to interpret the theme as we wish.
17 games were made, where some of the teams had zero game development experience, and actually learned to program during this event. GameMaker, Unity, Flash and some other technologies were used to make the games during the Jam.
We interpreted the theme literally as a heartbeat. Meaning we made a game where you actually play inside of an organism, and try to overtake the heart, and fill it with hatred, thus the name Odium. We were inspired by one of our team members, who created this short animation for a school project. Six people were in our team, and each one had stuff to do. We did pretty good job in my opinion.
Our game got most of audience votes, and we won the competition.
Here is a link to the game: Odium
Link to games made during the event.
