Rockstar Jam 2015

Took me til the new year, but whatever... I'll keep this outline going til I got it all out.

SOOoooo how cool was it that I got to host my own game jam. Honestly there was nothing to it, all I did was establish a start time for "everyone" to begin their game and set up an Jam on Game Jolt to curate the entries. I've been in so many game jams and I've always had a great experience. However my last couple of events just felt so big, corporate, sponsored. What I love about knowing how to make games is the "garage game indie make it because I can" attitude, and I want to bring that to my peers in Atlanta. So imagine a house party... but everyone making games instead of dancing lol.

I was super excited about this thing for months, and people bailed on the last minute but I guess that's my fault. I decided to do it for my birthday because I didn't feel like throwing another party. So I announced I was throwing it in my apartment, and I had this awesome speech planned to say and everything. Thanks goodness I didn't need to say it. I only had one participant show and make a game with me. That bummed me out at first, but it ended up being my best game jam experience ever. When he showed we used the entry fee to order food and alcohol for the weekend. We got back into to START at 5pm and not need to go to gatherings and make teams and all that. The Rockstar Jam is a game jam where you entry by yourself and make a game in 48hr. I announced the theme earlier that week, so we was all good to go. We got a chance to use the whole 48hrs to create and code... no demos, no teams, and alcohol lol

The idea behind this was to get out of our own way to create a concept, network if we want help, and not have a lot of distracting rules and objectives that some jams have. It was just us, and the game we wanted to make. I'm glad my friend did show that weekend because we created some dopeness. I had the idea of making a game out of the SIEGE logo. It's a tower defense where you shoot invaders, asteroids, pacman ghosts, and other old school game characters while they blast old school hip hop. Can you guess that the theme was old school??? Well it was definitely an event I will host again in the future, maybe more than one a year, who knows. Joy in creation like that needs to be felt often for motivation and a growing portfolio. I can't wait!! Here's a link to own game jam page on Game Jolt.

Here's my game SIEGE Tower