A club at Texas State challenged students to design, code and create their original video games, all in 72 hours.
From Dec. 13-16, The Game Developers Society (GDS) at Texas State University hosted an online ‘game jam’ where participants had a limited amount of time to develop a game from scratch. Game jams are a way for developers to strengthen their skills or improve their portfolio, but some games, such as the critically acclaimed Celeste, can eventually become full releases.
This is the first game jam GDS has hosted. Athene Yowell, computer science junior and GDS President, said that as a host, there’s a lot to balance in the event.
“I know it’s pretty common for people to be in groups and then pull shifts, where they crack open a can of Monster and stay up all night coding and drawing the art,” Yowell said. “Part of why I’m hosting this now is I’m taking a look at the time limit and trying to see how people adapt to it, but I’m going to keep an eye on how this turns out and make sure people take care of themselves.”
Many game jams have a theme which participants must base their games on. This time, students were given the theme ‘chill’ and encouraged to make either icy or relaxing games. Ryan Bieker, computer science senior, said the theme reminded him of his childhood in Colorado and inspired his group to make a horror game.
“It’s that time when the fog rolls in,” Bieker said. “If you’re alone at night and you’re in the woods, it feels like you’re more alone than you would be if there wasn’t all that fog and all that snow everywhere.”
Bieker’s game Bleak Contact is free on the GDS itch.io page, along with the three other games from the event. For most of the participants, this was the first game they’ve ever made.
“It was great,” Jack Lewis, computer science junior, said. “I’ve never actually made a fully-fledged product that has a beginning and an end, so this showed me that it’s possible to do it. My game was about ice fishing, and I don’t have any particular interest in ice fishing, but we rolled the dice on the idea and said, ‘hey, let’s just make it and see what happens,’ and I’m definitely glad we did.”
The Game Developers Society plans to host more game jams in the future and offers game design workshops and resources for students of all majors.
For more information, check out GDS on BlueSky at @gdsattxst.bsky.social, or visit the club’s itch.io page to play students’ games.
