One of the interesting Nordic Game 2009 sessions was titled “The Global Game Jam: Nordic Beginnings” (Led by Gorm Lai, Game Jam (DK)).

On this session Gorm Lai, co-founder of Nordic and Global Game Jams, was introducing the movement and some of the projects risen from the workshop weekends. One of the many interesting Game Jam projects included The Dark Room Sex Game from Nordic Game Jam 2008. The same game was also on display and free to try on the expo area of Nordic Game 2009 . The theme of 2008 Nordic Game Jam was “Taboo” and it is safe to say that this particular game succeeded in this goal. Nobody volunteered to play with Dajana Dimovska in the middle of the session 😉 (maybe it was just the Nordic shyness). Another interesting project presented at the session was  Love Child. Love Child is a game, where you are playing parents manipulating the genes of a child to get the best possible combination.

As a guest video appearance we witnessed  Kyle Gablers Global Game Jam keynote on YouTube. It is worth to check out since it is very entertaining as well as informative (and you get to see also Jason Della Rocca and Susan Gold).

Game Jams are usually set for one weekend workshops, where participants are free to form different production groups with a goal of a playable game at the end of the weekend. This practice ties together with other time constraining experiments, which are quite popular at the moment on indie game development circles.

The Game Jam movement is highly relevant for our project. It is an interesting movement from the perspective of systematic creativity and innovation practices. Game Jams provide place for collaboration and time constraints without commercial pressure. There is definitely a lot to learn from this practice.

Next Global Game Jam is scheduled for January 29-31 and is going to have a call for hosts in mid-July. More info can be found at: http://globalgamejam.org/

More info on Nordic Game Jams: http://nordicgamejam.org/

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