The Ultimate Guide to Game Jams
/Game jams are a foundational part of the games industry – they’re a place where lots of game developers can discover their love for making games, where people can showcase their creativity and flair away from their current project and allow people who work in non-development roles to understand the process of a games creation.
Photo of the auroch team gathered in a room together brainstorming.
In December 2024, Auroch Digital ran their first-ever game jam within the studio and offered one to three days for 46 developers to try their hand at creating a game from scratch and explore game dev disciplines other than their own.
During the event, Jemima and Ellie from the Auroch Digital Marketing Team put on their journalist caps and went undercover to talk to developers around the studio about their experience, as well as broaden their understanding of the benefits of a game jam and how they are run.
Game jams are hugely important in games and they're a place where a lot of developers discover their love for making games. In December 2024 we decided to run our first ever Auroch Digital game jam, where anyone could take part and try out any role they want, whether it's what they do in their day-to-day job or something they’ve never done before.
Jemima and Ellie from the marketing team decided to be journalists during the game jam to interview participants and get a better understanding of what a game jam is and how they actually work. But first, what is a game jam? Jem shares her thoughts below:
What is a game jam?
A game jam is a time-limited event where participants work together to create a video game from scratch. You can enter a game jam solo or in groups and they usually last anywhere from 1 day up to a few weeks. Game jams often have a theme as well.
Why participate in a game jam?
There are loads of great reasons to take part in a jam, no matter what point in your game development career you are at. There’s always something you can learn, new people to meet and a good time to be had.
At the end of the jam, you can end up with a fully functioning game, but you could also end with an idea, some prototypes, artwork, or any combination of these. These are great to use in portfolios, especially if you are earlier on in your career and don’t have work you can show.
There are a whole host of other benefits to taking part in a game jam, including:
Trying something new
This is the perfect place to try out something in game development you’ve not done before.
Loads of our developers tried new disciplines during the game jam, and some did a combination of their current role plus tried something new.
“I always knew I was interested in getting into this and the game jam was the perfect sink or swim situation to give it a go.”
Improving your discipline-specific skills
Game jams don’t have to be about trying something new, you can bring the skills of your day-to-day job to a game jam; if you are an artist already you can practice and improve your craft at game jams or try out an area of art you don’t normally do and develop your everyday skills.
“I wanted to study procedural generation additions to Unreal, so the jam was also an opportunity to learn from the project as well as just create a game.”
You can also practice soft game development skills used every day, such as adaptability, modifying features, controlling scope, and understanding what's possible within a very limited timeframe
Tee is a Junior UI/UX Artist and chose to also take on a UI/UX role during the game jam.
““I’d never used Unreal before and wanted the opportunity to try doing my current role in a new engine.””
Despite having a background in programming in the past, John Kennedy, Producer, explained that he joined this game jam as a producer because he wanted to see what it would be like. “I have an understanding of my discipline, but you don’t often see a producer in game jams. So, I was curious to see if it works, if it’s useful and if it’s needed.” It’s an interesting experiment to see how you take a month and year long process and compress it into a couple of days. He saw it work wonders though, especially regarding time management. “We had team members working across multiple time zones and I was able to prioritise our tasks, so members knew exactly what they were doing when they came in first thing in the morning.”
Learning the game development process
If you’re totally new to games, or if you’re already a game developer, game jams are a great place to learn more about what other disciplines do and how they all work together.
A big part of game jams is sharing your own experience with others to help them develop new skills and vice versa.
“ I used my pre-existing skills to help advance the project and help people see the vision and then I branched out into areas I don’t normally do”
In this case, he started out creating concept paintings and Figma stuff as that's his bread and butter before trying his hand at level design for the rest of the game jam.
Network, make new friends, and build working relationships
photo of Joe and Matt discussing ideas.
Game jams are a great way to meet other developers or people interested in games. It's a great collaborative environment, and if you do a local game jam it's a perfect place to network. At a studio like Auroch, which is remote-first, it can be a chance to work with people in other areas of the studio you’ve not worked with before.
Auroch Digital is a fully remote company and Tee, Junior UI/UX Artist has just finished her first year working with us. She joined the game jam because she wanted the opportunity to work with more people outside of her team.
On the other hand, Toby Feszczur-Hatchett, Designer, explained that one benefit of working within a pre-existing team is: “You already know each other's strengths and weaknesses so you’re able to dynamically work together without a lot of communication.”
Have fun!
Game jams are a lot of fun! They're a great, low-pressure space to be creative and challenge yourself to see what you can do within the time limits.
Some of the Auroch teams’ highlights are:
Stephen Paice, Programmer: “The time pressure makes it fun. No overthinking, no comparing multiple options, you’ve just got to do it.”
Toby Feszczur-Hatchett, Designer: “We’re used to working together in a rigid structure, whereas taking part in the game jam lets us be a bit more creative and act on random ideas that we have.”
Rose Russell, Lead Games Programmer: “It’s always a nice way to go back to something with no prior work and no expectations or restrictions. It’s just: get in do your job and get out - which is refreshing and a nice change of pace.”
How to Host a Game Jam
This event was the very first Auroch Digital game jam, and Jem shares why it was important for the Auroch team to get together and get creating: "Working remotely doesn’t give us many opportunities for inter-team collaborations, so this jam was a great opportunity to get developers from different teams working together and getting to know one another.”
Below is the inside scoop into our jam including dates, themes and the process:
Dates: 4th – 6th December 2024
We chose these days as it is a quieter time of year for us, so it doesn’t impact on our day-to-day work as much.
Theme: Regeneration
Number of teams: 11 teams, including the journalist team
Team sizes: 2 solo teams,1 team of 2, 1 team of 3, other teams a variety from 5 – 7
Some of the teams only had a 2-day game jam, and some did a 3-day one, so this partly informed who was on which team.
Rules:
Needs to be in Unreal Engine.
We use both Unity and Unreal at Auroch Digital, but we had some developers we wanted to get more experience on Unreal. Making our whole game jam in Unreal was a great opportunity for our developers to practice in the engine with our other developers able to support them too - learning a new engine is always much easier when using it instead of just trying to follow tutorials.
No overtime on the Jam
It is a low pressure, fun experience with the main aim learning and collaboration
At the end of the jam, you must have a presentation about your game and a video to show of what your team has made
This ensures everyone has something to show at the end of the jam
Method: Teams spend 2 or 3 days working together to create a game. This can be in person or remote.
Shout out! One of the most important things for having a game jam is someone to organise it and make it happen. All the teams involved wanted to give a special shoutout and thank you to our tech director Stefan Richings as he put a lot of work into making this Game jam happen, setting up software and guides for people and this helped teams get straight into making the games as fast as possible. Thank you, Stefan!
How to prepare for a Game Jam
One of the best things about Game jams is you don’t need to be experienced in something to do it in a game jam, this is the perfect place to try out something you've not done before.
Georgina Minns is normally an Animator but worked on audio for the Auroch Digital game jam even though she’s never done audio before. She recorded and mixed the assets herself and put it together using her iPad, GarageBand, and a pair of tights wrapped around the mic.
Photo of Archie working on his game jam project
There are lots of guides and software which can help you if you’re a beginner, also there will be people in your team on hand to help you out and you can help them in turn. Archie Nicholls, Associate Programmer, tried out doing art and audio during the jam, but he was still on hand to help with code. “I was able to help someone with their coding as it was new to them, and then I also got help with art from a member of my team. It was great to experience something new and give something else a go whilst also helping someone else do the same”
You can also adapt your game idea to fit the skills you have within your team already. Rose Russell’s team went in a slightly magical-realism direction, which came about because they had an Environment Artist, so they played to their strengths. This meant in their team’s game the characters you’re talking to are as likely to be a wheelie bin as they are to be a human.
Ultimately, Game Jams are about having a go, regardless of your skill level. Making games never goes 100% to plan, so game jams are a great place to practice tackling challenges we face every day.
“You’re never going to be able to do what you set out to do – you always bite off more than you can chew. But it’s good practice to take those grand ideas and bring them down and think on your feet to retain as close to your original vision as you can”
What are the different roles in a Game Jam?
There are many different roles you can do to take part in a game jam, and a lot of the time you’ll take on multiple roles during a game jam. It's a team effort, if it needs doing, people pitch in.
The most common roles people take on in Game jams include:
Code
Art
Animation
Narrative
Audio
UI
Design
However, there are other roles you can do too, including:
Production
Given the short turnaround in game jams, it can be difficult to effectively communicate, which is where production could come in. Having a team member who can set milestone targets, allocate priorities to different tasks and generally organise the team can help to relieve the stress of these tasks from other team members.
QA
Having someone to test different elements of the game and report back to the team is always useful and can help focus the team on what to improve or develop further.
Marketing
A lot of game jams (Auroch’s included) require a presentation of your game at the end, and an elevator pitch of the game. Highlighting how to play a game and what makes it great is very much a marketing activity.
“If you’re not sure about trying one of the more typical game dev disciplines then a supporting role such as marketing or production are great options. There are a lot of transferrable skills from outside of games which will serve you well here: being organised, managing workloads, communication, running meetings. These are great disciplines to try for your first game jam”
One of our teams was made up of three designers, who are already used to being quite agile when it comes to their normal roles.
For any skill gaps in your team there will be lots of solutions so you can focus on the areas you are more excited about:
“For the game jam we’re relying quite heavily on downloading random sets for free to cover art, vfx and audio, but this lets us be dedicate more time to the design portion of the game”
What kind of games do people make in a game jam?
Photo of joseph, technical artist, working on his game jam project.
It’s always surprising the variety of games people will make during a jam. Game jams usually have a theme and in Auroch’s case that theme was “regeneration”, but it’s interesting to see how differently this theme can be interpreted.
Our game jam teams made a retro shooter, a platformer, a strategy game, a survivor-like, puzzle games, simulation games, and more! Each game is vastly different in concept and idea.
There were also a wide range of art styles from PS1-inspired graphics, to cosy low-poly, and magical realism.
Top tips for taking part
It can seem daunting to get involved in a game jam, especially if you work remotely and don't often collaborate with people outside of your team. Ellie, Marketing Manager, spoke to the teams and got some top tips on how to get involved, drop the nerves and test your skills:
“Don’t assume you can’t do anything just because you’re not familiar with the specific software and roles. There are lots of entry level skills that you can learn quickly, and most people are happy to teach you.”- Aaron Hicks, 3D Artist
“Don’t overthink things. By design game jams are a bit chaotic and you aren’t always going to make something that’s a 10/10 fun experience. Trust the process! Don’t treat it like work.” Jack Chapman, Principal Level Designer
“At the end of every meeting during the game jam, try to get a clear list of what everyone needs to do, task management is vital! Make sure to give everyone a chance to speak up with their ideas or say if they’re confused and speak up yourself if you have concerns.” Jordan Holden, QA Tester
“Let it not be perfect. It’s easy to strive for perfection for every tiny piece you put in, but that time could be better spent elsewhere. Game jams are not for perfection.” Callum Philpott, QA Tester
“At the end of the day, a game jam is an opportunity to have fun and network with other developers. Don’t let the stress get in the way of your enjoyment.” - Ellie Pattinson, Marketing Manager
How can I get involved in a game jam?
Find a game jam and enter! If you’re feeling nervous you can always buddy up with someone else and enter together.
Here are some game jams you can join:
Game jam subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/gamejams/
Check your local game dev scene in case there is a nearby in person gam jam happening, e.g. London Game Jams
Make sure to do your own research as well, there are so many different types of game jams going on all the time, there will be one out there that suits what you want to do.
Jemima and Ellie decided to be journalists as they wanted to join in the game jam but felt they didn’t have the right skills. After researching this article and interviewing the developers they’ve realised there’s lots of ways they can join in and are definitely going to join the next Auroch Digital game jam to have a go at making a game!