Building a Game in Just Two Days!?

Why There’s Nothing Quite Like a Game Jam

We’ve just wrapped up our latest internal game jam, which was dedicated to one of our newest apps. Which app was it? That’s a secret, for now. However, seeing as Outfit7 has a long history of game jams in various forms, I’d like to show you how we host our game jams, and share some insights and stories from some of their participants. So, let’s go! 

The process of making a game can vary a lot and become really messy and crazy, yet for game jams that’s normal. Finding and assembling a team, generating a bunch of ideas, narrowing them down to just one per team, and then implementing it in a very short space of time can get pretty intense. So, it’s important to be surrounded by the right people. Luckily, at Outfit7 that’s pretty much everyone! 

“It truly felt like controlled chaos,” says Daria Akulova, 3D Artist at Outfit7 (Ekipa2 subsidiary)

Have you ever thought about what it takes to organize a game jam? Where do you start? What’s the theme going to be? How are you going to make it happen? Over to Marko Spasojević, Senior Game Designer at Outfit7 (Ekipa2 subsidiary) who is the go-to-guy for Outfit7 game jams, to guide us through this process. 

“The first question you need to ask yourself is, what are you trying to achieve with this particular game jam? Is there a team that could benefit from some new ideas or gameplay mechanics? Or do you just want people to have fun, connect with each other, and do something unusual? In the former case, you consult closely with other game designers and product teams to see what they would like to get ideas for. Otherwise, you just let people unleash their creativity!

“What makes game jams so special to me is that they allow people to express their creativity beyond their everyday duties and responsibilities. A developer can become an artist, a UI Artist can become an animator, an animator can become a game designer, and they’re all working together to create something fun.”

The announcement of a new game jam begins the countdown to all the fun. Teams start assembling and imaginations start generating ideas. You might think that in order to make a game in a limited amount of time, you need to be really good at what you’re doing. Well, Jure Vukoja, a member of the winning team of our latest game jam, spills the beans on how this experience was for them.

“We took this as an opportunity to do something that we usually do not do, hence the name - Level 1, indicating that the majority of us were new to our roles. Quality engineers were writing code, developers creating sounds, UI artists making concept art, and so on. So basically the condition to join was that you had to be willing to do something you are not the most comfortable with.”

“When you have only two days to implement the game, nothing goes according to plan. Time pressure is very tight and we had to make the most of what we had. One of our team members having to get emergency surgery halfway through the game jam definitely was not in the plan, but you have to adjust quickly. We had to reshuffle responsibilities a bit and used a bit of modern technology, namely AI, to speed up the process. In a game jam the only rule is you have to deliver a game by the final call, so you have to use every resource you have to the absolute max.”

“We assembled a better team than The Avengers,” says Tomaž Rojc Software Engineer at Outfit7 (Ekipa2 subsidiary)

“We had so many ideas during brainstorming that we ran out of sticky notes to write them down on,” says Stefan Ivašković, Senior Animator at Outfit7 (Ekipa2 subsidiary). “Since the topic was Different Perspective, we were trying to come up with the most weird ideas that we could imagine. It took us about three hours just to select one idea that everyone would love to work on. And as soon as we started development, we realized that we did not know how to implement some of the core gameplay, and that we did not have time to learn how to do it, so we needed to think outside the box. A core element of the gameplay was different shaped 2D characters on surfaces inside of a 3D cube. Nobody was familiar with 2D animation, so we had to invent a whole pipeline to have our characters animated and looking good while still delivering on time.”

Mikhail Pomakhin, Senior Software Engineer at Outfit7 (Ekipa2 subsidiary) says that the biggest challenge in a game jam is the time limit. “You have only 24 hours in one day and two days in total to make it, so you have to work as a true team. There were challenges that we unfortunately did not have time to solve properly, one of which was a tutorial. We did not have time to implement a proper tutorial that would explain all the game mechanics and controls thoroughly, so we had to make an image that would appear before the game starts and explain everything, just like you’d often get in older games. This did not work out well, as people were often just closing the pop-up, yet we were not disappointed as we knew that in the end we achieved our main goal - we made an amazing game in such a short time!”

If game jam participants had to choose one thing that they both love and hate about game jams, that would be… time. If only there were a bit more time, one more day - everybody had these thoughts, yet the tight time limit is exactly what makes game jams so special.

So, the final second has passed and all the teams take their hands off their keyboards, drawing tablets, and phones. It’s time to reveal all those amazing games, and let the people of Outfit7 decide which one will be named the best this time. Of course, it’s not really about winning, but a bit of recognition is a nice bonus on top of the amazing journey that you and your teammates have been on. 

The games are then evaluated across multiple topic categories, and on our latest game jam, there were four of these: Out of the Box, Most Engaging, Prettiest Design, Winner Winner. A game is a game, and no matter the skill, age, or personal preferences, it must be fun to play for everyone — that's the ultimate criterion!

Our aim is to get as many people to try out the games as possible. On the latest game jam there were eight final games and all of them were really good! But as I said already, it’s not about winning. The main thing is that everyone who participated had an amazing time and created something truly unique.

Game jams are a mirror of Outfit7’s culture. It’s not just about making games, it’s about creating memorable experiences! And not just for our players, but also for the people behind the games. 

Our next game jam is coming up soon! If you want to be a part of it, then check out our careers page for open positions. Maybe next time, you’ll be on the winning team!