Successful Global Game Jam at the TU Dresden

The Global Game Jam (GGJ) for Dresden took place for the second time at the Immersive Experience Lab (IXLab) from January 26 to 28. The GGJ is an international simultaneous event for hobbyists (and those who want to become hobbyists) and professionals from the games industry with the aim of creating games in a single weekend. The theme for 2024 was "Make Me Laugh". The type of game created can be freely chosen: whether board games or virtual reality - the important thing is to create a game that works as far as possible in 48 hours. The focus of the event is on cooperation, exchanging experiences and having fun, even if there is international prize money and other prizes from the GGJ sponsors.

Compared to last year, the number of participants has risen to 17 and the proportion of external creators has increased. To compensate for the hard-working game developers, members of Dresden's 404 Multigaming e.V. - Saxony's largest gaming and e-sports association - brought a gaming station to the Andreas Pfitzmann Building on January 27.

The GGJ offered the predominantly student participants the opportunity to make industry contacts with attendees and organizers from the Dresden GameDev Meet. The GameDev Meet is a platform for exchange between hobbyists and professionals on the various aspects of game development. In addition, this year the Dresden developer studio "BippinBits" offered five copies of its game as a reward for the best games.
A total of seven games were created by the 17 participants and uploaded to the Global Game Jam website for everyone to try out: https://globalgamejam.org/group/197/games
The top three games, which were selected by voting after a short presentation and a joint play-through, are:

1. breaking news: A paper card game in which you have to make the reader laugh by
    constructing funny sentences.
2. Slam to the Laughter: A Doom-like shooter in which characters from the public domain
    are made to laugh with sticky notes.
3. Age of Digital Anxiety: A game that uses voice recognition to chase away a 
    representation of inner anxiety with laughter

In addition to the time pressure, there were optional tasks ("diversifiers"), some of which were intended as a thank you for the helpers and visitors. For example, the developers were asked to incorporate a homage to "Dome Keeper", a popular game from developers "BippinBits", into their game. From 'IX' in the name of a game character to not using virtual reality and AI-generated images, there was plenty to choose from for teams who wanted to prove themselves.

Venue organizer Krishnan Chandran commented on the event: "We are delighted with the growing interest in this important and wonderful event. The GGJ participants all gave very positive feedback during the closing session. We are also very grateful to all the participants and supporters from the local game developer community here in Dresden. Not only should the contact with established developers provide our students and participants with networking and inspiration, but also give them a tangible insight into the world of game development. We are delighted that everyone had so much fun and hope that we can repeat the GGJ with even more participants next year."