This post was a little delayed by an eventful summer, but I still want to talk about the awesome time that was the Hatchlings Game Jam event, back in mid June.
The kickoff was June 15th, which featured free pizza (always a winner!), and fun icebreaker and brainstorming games.
There were between 20 and 30 participants, some of which split off into teams but most people worked on their own independent projects. The projects themselves were not limited to video games, either. A few people were working on board games. And another guy was trying to make an RPG game for smart home technologies like Alexa and Google Home.
The energy was incredible the whole time, and I would know since I stayed overnight all weekend. People would take a break from their own projects to check out someone else’s. Some of the people asked those taking breaks to play test their games, making changes and editing mechanics between tests.
The Hatchlings team themselves were supportive of everyone. Though they were working on their own projects, several of them would walk around periodically to chat with everyone else. Occassionally one or two would stop to sit and listen to participants gush about their own games, offering support, advice, and ideas. One E.B. Updegraff stayed up the night before presenting and judging, using Gravitate’s 3-D printer to make miniatures for one of the board games. And the entire event, onsite, featured a huge playlist of video game music. It was fun to pause and play guess the game.
All-in-all the Hatchlings Game Jam was a rewarding experience that got everyone excited about building something new and being creative. Not a single person left the event empty-hande. Each person seemed enriched, and every project made progress, even if it was just learning to do their own pixel art for a platformer (a project of one ladyDev, who was also in attendance and hung out with me all weekend, Sarah Foster).
I look forward to future events held by the Hatchlings team. Their energy and passion was infectious and indispensable to the experience.
If you’re at all interested in game development, I encourage you to try your hand at a game jam at least once. It was an indisputably positive experience.
