Global Game Jam
My Own Experience
It certainly was a surprise to find out on my first years of animation studies that my school was responsible for organizing the Global Game Jam in my country (Portugal). It was the perfect fun event to gain some experience in a more diverse professional team as an animator along with other amazing designers, programmers, game devs, etc.
On my first Global Game jam (2019) i participated in a small team of 5 people. The theme of the event that year was "Family".
Me and my team decided to make a simple pixerl arcade looking game called "Homee", as we were all unexperienced working along with others in different areas, we knew it would be the best options since it was a simple idea and easy for everyone to work with.
The idea of the game was letting the player control all family members in the game at the same time, managing to make them do their daily taks before it was dinner time and without making a big mess, as it shows in the map of the game below, it was somethign super simple. My job was simple, be responsible for the final design of the characters and animate them and their taks.
The event itself only lasts a full weekend, it was a small time but it made me get a better knowledge and experience on how t cooperate with a team, safe to say it was fun working along with such good people.
Right on next year i didnt lose my chance to joing another Global Game Jam (2020), get een more experience and use what i learned on the year before with a new team.
One year apart from each event wasnt enough to make me a more experienced animator. but on this year i was the only one in my team that had experience on how to create a game, so everyone made the decision to let me be the team leader.
The big theme of that year was "Repair" and me and my team came up with a fun game made out of a famous icon/brand back then, and we created
"Flex Tape: The Game".
We tried to challenge ourself to make a fun themed game based on the comerical of the product "Flex tape" a super strong waterproof tape that could fix "anything" presented by Phil Swift. The idea of the game letting the player control Phil Swift himself jump into a giant aquarium to fix the glass holes before all the fish die, challeging the player to not die by the sharks or ran out of oxygen.
Once again i was responsible for the animations of the game and character design, but as a team leader, i had a huge role to help everyone on their taks, and even learning from them as well.
And once againg, it was fun to spend a great weekend with amazing people creating another good work experience. It was lthe last Global Game Jam i participated so far, and i just know whenever i get the chance, i´ll gladly join another one.
