Alberta Game Jam 2024 took place across Alberta from August 9th to 11th, with events in Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, and online. The jam attracted 120 participants who submitted 36 games by the end of the weekend.

Community events like game jams contribute to developing talent and creative energy within Alberta’s wider video game and interactive digital media ecosystem. For this reason, the Alberta Game Jam is crucial to the vitality of the province’s interactive digital media industry.

What are “game jams”?

Game jams are collaborative events in which participants create a video game within a short timeframe—often over a weekend. They are organized worldwide and are hosted in person, online, or in hybrid formats. Many game jams, including Alberta Game Jam 2024, provide prizes for winning teams.

Digital media and video game scholar Annakaisa Kultima defines game jams as “a game development event focusing on a given design constraint with a relatively short timeframe.” This broad definition encapsulates how different game jam events can be from each other, with different formats, rules, and overarching goals. However, consistent across most game jams are the time constraint placed on participants, the focus on indie game development, and the creative and experimental nature of the jams.

Who participates in game jams?

The Alberta Game Jam was inclusive to all and included students, job seekers, hobbyist game developers, and professionals currently employed in Alberta’s interactive digital media industry.

Game jams can be highly beneficial to participants—jams provide students and job seekers an opportunity to showcase their skills and ideas to industry veterans and further develop their portfolios of work. For hobbyists, jams provide a dedicated venue to collaborate and meet like-minded developers. And for those already working in the industry—either employed directly at studios or as freelancers—game jams provide networking opportunities, dedicated time, and a platform to experiment with new concepts that game developers and creatives can bring back to their respective studios.

How are game jam teams formed?

Successful game jam teams tend to be multidisciplinary. The Alberta Game Jam teams were formed at the beginning of a jam, with team members often only meeting for the first time as the team was formed.

Successful game jam teams need a core of developers skilled at writing code and working within video game development environments. Still, they also need team members skilled in a variety disciplines to be successful, including sound designers, 3D modelers, script writers, designers and concept artists, and team members experienced in project management.

The games produced during jams are created using game development environments commonly used in the industry, such as Unreal Engine, Unity, and Godot, and 3D modelling software like Blender. Teams will also use collaboration apps like Discord to communicate and transfer files and data between team members.

Teams must work together to quickly make difficult design choices as they strive to make a viable game by the end of the jam. Setting priorities, learning to work within resource and time constraints, brainstorming and quickly iterating through game design concepts, efficiently troubleshooting problems, and working seamlessly as a team are all essential to completing a working game by the end of a jam.

A successful game jam team also needs members who can effectively promote and market the final game to other teams throughout the jam and during end-of-jam presentations. As teams work under a considerable time crunch—with little sleep—throughout the event, cheerleaders and motivators are also essential.

What happens to the games after the jam is over?

While many games produced during game jams will not be worked on further once the jam concludes, some are developed further and eventually released to commercial success and fan acclaim. Teams may also release their jam games on free indie game platforms such as itch.io. It remains to be seen if any games produced at Alberta Game Jam will see further development and an eventual commercial release.

(A list of games submitted to Alberta Game Jam 2024 is available here, with many free to play in your browser.)

Community events like Alberta Game Jam are essential to the vitality of Alberta’s video game and interactive digital media ecosystem. They provide participants with meaningful connections and networking opportunities while acting as a creative conduit for new and innovative ideas for those working in the video game industry. Critically, game jams provide the opportunity to develop essential skills for students and new workers.

Erik Henningsmoen is a research and policy analyst with the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). He is a co-author of an upcoming ICTC report on Alberta’s interactive digital media and video game industry.