Teams staying up for 48 hours straight to create video games

Sometimes, you just have to pull an all-nighter to get the work done.

This weekend, a group of Calgary developers, writers and designers will be staying up for 48 hours straight to create their masterpieces — video games.

It's all part of the Global Game Jam, which brings together teams from around the world. 

Teams have two days to create a video game and then show off their product. 

The event kicked off Friday night at Mount Royal University, and over the course of the weekend, teams will push themselves to the limits for the sake of learning — and fun.

"It's really good practice for anyone that's starting out that wants to come and see what making games is like in a very condensed amount of time," Calgary organizer Craig Pfau told the Calgary Homestretch.

"And it's also great for people that are already in the game development community that are already making games, because they can kind of take a step back from the game that they've been pouring years into. And [in] only looking at one thing, [they can] make something new in a short amount of time."

The event has been running for 11 years, and Pfau has organized the Calgary event for the last six years.

Gamers met at Mount Royal on Friday night to find out this year's secret theme. Pfau said he was expecting roughly 60 participants.

It's important to keep the theme secret, he said, because of times zones around the world.

"So, like, Japan has already started," Pfau said Friday. "So the last people to start is Hawaii. So when the theme is announced here, we ask that no one share it on social media or anything until Hawaii knows because we don't want to ruin things for them."

Last year, there were more than 47,000 participants from 113 countries, all working at the same time. This year, 119 countries are participating,

Pfau said Global Game Jam is by necessity a team event with varied skill sets.

"Artists, programmers, audio people, writers, people that are interested in just designing games," Pfau said. "You basically need everyone to come together. You usually end up with a good mix of programmers, artists, musicians, all working on one single game, and then other groups form as well that do the exact same thing."

Pfau said he has seen a slight uptick in Calgary participants over the past few years and a growing interest in general.

"It's becoming easier and easier to make games. The technology is there now, where the game engines and such are more user-friendly and easier for people to get into," he said.

Pfau said the theme is always a little vague, such as the sound of a heartbeat, or what "home" means to you.

"They try to keep them pretty abstract, so you can do some interpretation, and then it's a starting block for creativity," he said. "So we've had everything from little platformer games to virtual reality games too, just puzzle solving games. It's really whatever people managed to put together in 48 hours, which isn't a lot of time. So the games are usually pretty small in scale."

The finished games are put on the Global Game Jam website. People are able to access and play those games, but Pfau said the exercise is for fun.

"It has to be fully produced by the end of the 48 hours," he said. "It doesn't have to be there. There are always, you know, a game that is too buggy to play in the end, but the majority of them, they're all good. They all play."

In the final hour, teams present their games — some are finished and ready, others don't make it to a playable state.

"There have been some commercial games created, but internationally there's definitely been some bigger games that went on to be commercial successes under this," Pfau said. "It's not a competition here. Each side is allowed to do what they want. Overall, it's not supposed to be a competition — [but] some do make it a competition."

Global Game Jam will wrap up Sunday at Mount Royal University.

With files from the Calgary Homestretch.