Cre­ating a game often takes months or even years. But for one weekend each year, thou­sands of people from dozens of coun­tries con­dense the process into 48-​​hours.

Global Game Jam gives teams of game devel­op­ment enthu­si­asts the chance to make short, but mem­o­rable video games, board games, and card games based on a common theme. Last month, three North­eastern entities—the Playable Inno­v­a­tive Tech­nolo­gies Lab, the Center for the Arts, and the Dig­ital Media Com­mons—hosted the 2015 Boston Global Game Jam, whose theme was “What Do We Do Now?”

Event orga­nizer Casper Harteveld, an assis­tant pro­fessor of game design in the Col­lege of Arts, Media and Design, noted that 169 people par­tic­i­pated in the Boston Jam, cre­ating 33 games. World­wide, 28,872 people in 78 coun­tries cre­ated 5,426 games.

Here, North­eastern stu­dent and fac­ulty “jam­mers” dis­cuss their Global Game Jam experiences.

Every­thing is Fine

First-​​time jammer Amanda Win­field, AMD’17, ini­tially learned about Global Game Jam at Northeastern’s Game Demo Day, where stu­dents show­cased games they had made at last year’s event.

“I’m an aspiring game artist and ani­mator, so spending 48 hours making a game sounded great,” Win­field explained. “But spending 48 hours straight making a game with little sleep sounded daunting.”

Her team cre­ated Every­thing is Fine, a video game in which the player con­trols an astro­naut who has landed on the moon just as Earth is being destroyed. The astro­naut goes about his days thinking he’s the last person on Earth, and the goal of the game is to sur­vive the sup­posed predica­ment, both phys­i­cally and mentally.

“I think the most sur­prising moment of the game jam was when I real­ized I was still in the library at 4 a.m. and so was most of my group,” she said. “The most exciting moment was seeing our game come together.”

What do Wii Do Now?

Asso­ciate pro­fessor of game design Celia Pearce has served as a judge at past Global Game Jams but decided to work as a jammer this time around.

“I’ve never done it before and I wanted to have the expe­ri­ence from the par­tic­i­pants’ view­point,” explained Pearce, a world leading expert on vir­tual worlds and mul­ti­player gaming. “I also got involved with a project I really like and am hoping our team will con­tinue devel­oping it.”

Her team’s project is called What do Wii Do Now?, which Pearce said was pro­posed by Mark True­blood, AMD’16. In each level of the game, the player has to per­form a spe­cific task with the Wii remote. In one level, the user has to shake—and then open—a soda can. In another, he has to nav­i­gate a maze in order to find his fellow players.

“Game jams are always exciting, and it’s fun to see what people come up with,” Pearce said. “I also just love the process of designing games.”

We Need To Talk

Jen­nifer Tella, AMD’15, and Dan Jackson, exec­u­tive director of the NULawLab, teamed up to create a video game called We Need To Talk. In their game, the user con­trols a mar­riage coun­selor who is working with a super­hero duo that wants advice on how to end their romantic rela­tion­ship while main­taining their super­hero partnership.

“I’m not a gamer,” said Jackson, who was par­tic­i­pating in his first Global Game Jam. “But the way the jam was organized—from start to finish—allows anyone to become a con­tributing part of a team.”

Tella, who was par­tic­i­pating in her third Global Game Jam, noted that the expe­ri­ence gives gamers like her the oppor­tu­nity to try new things. “It’s like a fun sized candy bar com­pared to the daunting king size that a full game project can turn into,” she said. “You get all the best parts without having to worry as much about the long-​​term side effects.”