Volta

This past weekend, Volta was buzzing with a vibrant creative energy as 75 developers, designers, students and newcomers alike, gathered for this year’s Global Game Jam – a worldwide event where participants have just 48 hours to develop playable games.

These people truly brought a new definition to the term “weekend warrior”. With overnight access to the event space, it wasn’t an uncommon sight for jammers to show up with sleeping bags and hack away at their projects into the early hours of the morning. The energy was high and the Red Bull fridge quickly ran low.

Each year, Global Game Jam releases the annual theme at 5 p.m. in each time zone on Friday to kick off the event. This year’s theme was “waves”. Some groups were literal with their interpretation of the theme, others took a different approach. Water waves, radio waves, gravity waves and shock waves – creators weren’t scared to think outside the box. From Doom-inspired first-person shooters, to 8-bit throwbacks, there was no shortage of originality, laughs and, of course… the dreaded, but expected, technical difficulties.

Whether their games came together or not, Jammers still left Volta on Sunday afternoon happy. For some, this was an opportunity to learn about the culture of game development, for others it was a chance to show off their skills. Whatever category participants fell into, everyone took something away from the event. Above all, it was about collaboration and creativity, which inspire innovation.

Check out a few of the games (in no particular order) from this year’s GGJ:

Fish Time Attack: http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=28687

Siren: http://globalgamejam.org/2017/games/siren

Cromdore: http://globalgamejam.org/2017/games/cromdcore

Secure: http://globalgamejam.org/2017/games/secure-booty

BatBorne: http://globalgamejam.org/2017/games/batborne

Gravitura: http://www.blockshipwars.com/Gravitura/