Ever thought about organizing a game jam? In this article, we will give some suggestions from our experience organizing game jams and using the Tavern Tale Jam 2024 (which happened from February 9th-11th) as a case study. Ready? Let’s do it then!

What is a game jam?

If you are reading this article, odds are you already know what a game jam is. However, for the case that is not true, let’s explain the concept a bit: a game jam is an event where the participants must create a game in limited time. This period will usually be of 48 hours (essentially a weekend), but there are jams of all sizes and length, both online and in-person. They usually have a theme, which will work as a way to direct/constrain the resulting projects (which is something good, since creativity comes from limitation). Some famous examples are Ludum Dare, Global Game Jam and Game Jam Plus. Such events can be both ranked, with prizes and awards, or completely for fun. One great source to know when such events will take place is the itch.io jam calendar .

Why organize a game jam?

There are various motives why one would benefit from running such events. For example, you might want students in a game dev class to exercise some concept they’ve just learned. You could also do jams where all the participants are modding a game, or if you run a studio you could do one internally to create a prototype that could be used later. Whatever the exact reason may be, an event like this will have the benefits for the individuals participating and for the entity organizing it, such as:

• Learning: the individuals will probably learn something in the process, specially if they are new to this kind of event. It can be something technical, such as programming a feature or doing an art style, but could also be related to production/managing a project, such as learning about scope, game development pipelines and soft skills. This is a great benefit for an individual seeking career in game dev, but if you are running an education institution, this will also help you put students to exercise such important concepts.
• Portfolio: for the participants, the resulting project, be it something they later use commercially or not, will be a valid portfolio when looking for job positions in the industry.
• Engagement: for both the teams and the organization, this is a great opportunity to generate engagement. The dynamics of a game jam are nice to show off if you are a content creator participating in such event, and is a great way for the organization to create a community around game development.
• Networking: every participant will learn people during the process, even if they are going solo (without a team). Many studios and games were born from game jams, and even if it doesn’t come to that, the individual will have the opportunity to work with other people, make friends and learn more about soft skills.

Many of these reasons apply in different ways for each party involved, of course, and will depend on the event features. With those in mind, let’s take a look at our case study, the Tavern Tale Jam 2024.

Tavern Tale Jam 2024

We organized this jam with a simple prize: some keys from both our games and from other developers of our local community. This way, we expected to bring some more attention for the event, also creating awareness in our local developer community. Even though the jam was beginner-friendly and quite casual, the keys would be the “skin in the game” that would generate some competitiveness, which is always a motivator. It was also organized in the weekend of the brazilian Carnaval, so we expected that this would make the jam attractive for other brazilian devs/students. Also, our Discord became the main hub for the event, allowing for a greater networking between the participants and, for us, as organizers, a greater engagement in one of our main social channels (Discord).

Lets analyze how each aspect went:

Learning:

Most of the participants in the jam were people just getting into game development, with some being developers from our local community. Although we haven’t detected much exchange in our social channels regarding learning new features or techniques , it was certainly a internal factor among some teams, which were reported by participants. For many, this was their first event of the kind. Although we do not have enough data to conclude if each participant learned something in the process, the fact that teams which never made a game ended the jam with a game prototype is a good indicator that at least some knowledge was practiced.

Portfolio:

Looking from the lenses of someone who runs a studio, if I’m running a selection for a position, I would consider most of the resulting games as a differential should the position be of an intern. Of course, many studios will require experience on a commercially published game to be a priority on higher positions, but that makes sense. Therefore, since this was a beginner friendly jam, a participant ending the event with an entry for his portfolio (the first one even for some) is surely an example of this aspect.

Engagement:

The amount of individuals who joined our Discord server during the event was great, and many interactions happened in our channels. Around 50 people joined it, allowing the server to hit the 200 member mark. In this sense, we can say this was a success.

Networking:

Some people joined the jam without a team and managed to find fellow jammers to work with before/at the start of the event. These people ended the jam not only with a game on their portfolio, but with experience (even though a starting one) in the development process, which has many disciplines and people with different mindsets involved. They also now have contacts that they can work together in other jams, or even creating something for commercial publishing.

Advertising the event

One important factor to get people to participate in a jam is advertising it correctly. The itch.io jam calendar is a great place for discovery and awareness of such events, and in the case of Tavern Tale Jam 2024, it was the main point of visit according to itch.io analytics. It is valid to note that the jam had 79 joined users, and 24 submissions. Also, it was tagged as beginner friendly, something that proved to be effective since many of the submissions were made by first-time jammers. Also, use of social media, such as X/Twitter, Facebook and Instragram are probably great ways to create some awareness and direct some traffic to the jam page. Note the use of the word probably, and that’s because we didn’t really do a extensive advertising on such networks, only around 5 X/Twitter posts a week before the event, so we can’t use this case study as a valid proof for social media marketing regarding game jams (althought other case studies will probably confirm the importance of it). We did, however, advertised it on our local game developer community groups, and from what we were able to check, at least 4 teams joined from these spaces.

For sure, the itch io calendar was the most effective way of gathering participants, which was very important to build the community around the jam.

During the event

It is nice to always be checking on the jammers to see if they are having any problems or need any help, specially in a beginner friendly game jam. Some good suggestions from another game jam we organized (Game Jam Plus DF 2022), but didn’t actually applied on the Tavern Tale Jam, is to have mentors available on the voice chat at certain periods (if online) or on site (if in-person). This way, the jammers can better direct their development and learning experience. Also, if the jam is of greater length (such as a week or a month) some workshops or talks are interesting activities to make it a more attractive and engaging events. You could, for example, call a senior programmer to talk about how jams influenced their early career and fast prototyping techniques, or perhaps an artist to elaborate on possible styles that are easier to do in a limited time period. My personal favorite is to call some producer or a studio owner to talk about the business side of things and how to turn the game they are making in a product. In the end, the possibilities are endless.

Conclusion

Game jams are a powerful learning tools for individuals, and a powerful engagement tool for organizations. Of course, they come in many types and sizes, so it is important to know what your objective with such event is. If you have any questions on want to talk more about creating/participating in game jams, join our Discord! You willl be very welcome!