Mikhaila Poitevin continues her story "Cheesecake. The one thing that I crave more then anything ever, is cheesecake."

Every year in January, there's a conference for Gamers, Developers, Coders, Artists, and more. Age doesn't matter, nor does the level of experience a person has. So as long as you enjoy being in a room full of sexy individuals smashing away at their keyboards furiously, you'll love this 48hr time limit to build a fully functional game.

This event is called Game Jam, and it takes part all over the globe. Some of the counties partaking in this are Russia, USA, Brazil, South Korea, Germany, Spain, Iran, Canada, Indonesia, India, Argentina, UK, France, Australia and much more. All the games that were created, go up on the Game Jam website for all to see, and try out for themselves. 

This event takes months of planning, and lots of people working together to achieve the goal of bringing everyone together for 48hrs. I got to talk to some of the people partaking in this event, and they told me all about their games, and how much fun it was to have the opportunity to participate in this. For most of them, it was a great opportunity to show off what they had learned in the classes they've been taking at the collage in game design, and development. It helps in showing the company they wish to work for, that they are capable of building/creating a game under pressure, and in a small time frame.

So this event although fun as it is, also helps in future careers. Plus it's not all about fun, and games, you have a team to support, and you have a role to play, each team has about 6 or more people in each, and sometimes you'll have a perfect team with the perfect amount of coders, artists, writers, sound engineers, and other such needs. and then other times, you'll have one coder, and everyone else is an artist, and you all have to work together to teach each other what needs to be learnt to make a game. It's a tough 48hrs, but the end result is absolutely amazing, and you feel so proud of yourself as well as your teammates.

If you have no skill at all though, but still wish to support everyone, you could always make food. Since this is a 48hr event, the participants don't have a lot of time to go out and get/make food for themselves, so all they have to eat are the things they can stuff in a nap sack or duffel bag. I had a friend of mine who only had M&Ms, Monster (energy drink), and chips to eat for 2 days. So because I felt sorry for her and the other participants, I made a little something for them, I wasn't the only one though, someone on the first day had brought in some pasta for everyone. So you don't need to be a genius to take part in this event, if you know how to bake or cook, everyone will love you!

The event starts on a Friday, and everyone is given a word or sentence that they have to make a game around. This year's was "What do we do now?" No one knows what the theme is till the event starts, and that's only after a loooong speech talking about the rules, and then a clip with the winners of last year. But once the boring part is over, you get put into your team, get to know them a bit, and learn the secret theme.

It's off to build the most awesome game you can think of in 48hr time limit! But... sometimes there are those little moments in ones plans that end up crashing, and burning. Yup, power went out on the last day for about 5 hrs, meaning everyone lost 5hrs of building time. Some people were smart, and brought their laptops with them, but not everyone has the money for a laptop or they live too far away to get it. But on the bright side, someone brought a board game, and got some people to partake in it for a while, and others went off to play some (Horrible) game called "Kitty Blender" (Don't worry, no kitties were harmed in the making or playing of this game.) The rest of the people there, with nothing to do, and who got maybe 2 - 3 hrs of sleep the night before, are past out on the floor in a corner somewhere. But once I left to go see a friend I made plans with the week before, the lights turn back on, and everyone has about 2hrs to finish up their games and present what they had. Somehow how everyone made the deadline, and everyone did well with the showing. In the end the game that won was the bear game (Name unknown).

You can find all the games on the Game Jam website

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed my article, stay tuned for I will soon continue the series.

Cheers, Mikhaila