In one of the rooms of the Experimental Station, Porte de Pantin, things are working hard this Saturday. There’s chatter to the background of electro music and video game soundtracks, almost in the light room of computer screens. It turns into coffee and chouquette. Objective: have a playable video game demo before the end of the weekend.
In this third place, 35 people divided into five groups participate in the Global Game Jam. Like 35,000 other registered participants around the world, they are trying to make a video game in just forty-eight hours. This international event has existed for fifteen years, and offers developers from all over the world the opportunity to take on this type of challenge over a similar period, traditionally the last weekend of January.
The weekend began on Friday at 6 p.m. with a “creative meeting”, with discussions and exercises “inspired by laughter yoga”. Above all, it’s enough to break the ice, find first ideas on the theme of the Global Game Jam 2024 (“Make me laugh”) and form groups, because the majority of participants do not know each other before. Afterwards, it’s off to two days of rush. No one is taken hostage and going home is allowed, but a nap room is even provided.
A playful art
This is the second year that the Circle of Galactic Orbit (COG) has hosted a game jam. The group describes itself as a “playful and digital art association”. “I am passionate about coding without having done any until now, and above all, about digital art,” explains Maxime Richard, its treasurer and organizer of the event. In the world of video games, we develop these intentions. »
According to his own words, his vision as an assistant director – he also participated ten times in the 48 Hour Film Project, the same event for short films – prepared him for his role as pilot during this game jam. “My game is to organize the game, like a master of the game,” he slips. I also planned to create a little paper game to keep me busy during downtime. »
Get high without pressure
A little before 4 p.m., COG volunteers pass among the groups to test the first playable game segments. Just to make sure there’s no slippage in sight before making something playable the next day at 7 p.m. “Friday is a hippie atmosphere. Saturday, we see the first tensions appearing,” notes Maxime Richard.
“Obstacles could be a drunk guy, a can of beer…” “Do you see the movie with JCVD and Dennis Rodman? » At one of the tables, we are in the middle of a brainstorming session. A team of six develops Zinzinbyrinth, a collection of wacky mini-games. “We’re pretty good,” says Gabriel, a dev who graduated two years ago. It’s forty-eight hours of getting high with no pressure. » Several participants have roles related to their real profession, but there are also pure amateurs. “Last year, we had a parliamentary collaborator who was passionate about video games,” assures Maxime Richard, for example.
“It’s project management that’s intense”
There game jam organized by the COG is also open to board games and hybrid games. The bravest groups are free to create their own controller or arcade machines. One of the groups, made up of a fairground games collective and an arcade machine recycler, is taking advantage of the Experimental Station workshop to develop an interactive story using various levers and buttons. Upstairs, Etienne models a turtle, next to a nap room. “We’re tired, anxious, but it’s okay,” he smiles. For him, the biggest challenge is not technical. “There are issues of time and organization that we tried to anticipate, but that we still struggle with,” he describes. With the constraints, it is rather the project management than the development which is intense. » His group must, for example, communicate with a musician remotely.
Sunday evening is time for rendering and testing the games. The projects are also all playable on the Global Game Jam website. Beyond amateur and fun projects, game jam have also become a relatively widespread exercise in video game schools or business incubators. Some commercial successes have even seen the light of day in this type of event, such as Celestial in 2018. But above all it is an opportunity to have fun for forty-eight hours around a common passion. “Before being a competition for technicians, it is a human adventure,” summarizes Maxime Richard.