Global Game Jam 2020 at Code Chrysalis – What Happened?

Hi! CJ and Niklas here with a (late) post-mortem on the Tokyo Roppongi Code Chrysalis Global Game Jam site for Global Game Jam 2020.

First off, a huge thank you to all of the participants who came to our game jam site 🙏 We had 33 participants who made 7 games, and it was a delight to see each and every one of them. We were also ranked in the top 5 sites in Japan, and the number 2 site in Tokyo in terms of participation.

We couldn’t have done that without you!

Happy faces after the final presentations!

We wrote this post-mortem to share some of our thoughts and learnings from the game jam.

Having fun! 🎉

I’ve (CJ) been participating in Global Game Jam as a designer since 2013 and I’ve never felt so inspired as I was organizing this game jam. With all the free-to-learn game engines in the world today, I’ve seen an explosion of games from diverse viewpoints and experiences. Watching artists, musicians, programmers, 3D modelers, designers, writers and jack of all trades alike be creative and make a game together gave me hope for the future of indie games.

We had a lot of comments that the overall jam was very fun, and people learned not just game development but a variety of languages as well, as our participants were very international.

Less procrastination + more rest = better work ✌️

This was a point of discussion as typically jam sites are open 24/7, giving participants more time to work on their games. I’ve been to a lot of jams. I’ve burned the midnight oil. Having set opening and closing times for the jam helped us in a few of ways:

• Cut down on procrastination and scope creep in games
• Cuts down on social pressure for a team member to stay up with their teammates
• Provides a brain break for both participants and organizers to refresh
• (Is easier for the organizers, too!)

In other words, less procrastination, less pressure and more rest equals better teamwork and better quality work. We had comments that participants liked the hours we set, so we’ll be continuing with that!

We’ll be keeping opening and closing times, but would like to improve to make the experience better for everyone. The things we’d like to improve on:

• Having a locked, secured space for people to leave their equipment.
• Having a list of cheap accommodation or ネットカフェ for people to stay who came from far away

This way, we’ll make things more convenient for participants and give them some time to rest should they choose.

Day 2 going strong 💪

Let’s do better team building!

Something we’d like to improve on for our participants was the team-building part of the jam. We experimented with a cute “build your own profile” exercise and put them up as an art gallery — but with 33 participants it was quite cramped. Teams were made, but we think it was in spite of the exercise rather than because of it. We thought it would be important through the exercise to be able to share what you know (your “superpowers”), and what you want to learn from your teammates.

We want to deconstruct this more and are looking for good team building exercises, so if you know of some, let us know!

Gotta have those donuts — and more 🍩

It’s funny, we didn’t think too much about having donuts on Sunday, but it was consistently something that stood out to people as a nice touch on the last day to help people push through the Saturday night fog. We like ending things on a high note, so we thought having some sort of Secret Sparkling Sunday Snack (™) to excite the palate on the last day.

Thanks, Mister Donut!

We also had a fun nijikai with pizza afterwards — and we realized after the fact that to be more inclusive, we want to figure out various options for that Secret Sparkling Sunday Snack and for the nijikai so folks of all dietary types can participate. We’re looking to expand our snack repertoire to include vegan + gluten free options (and a better way to let us know if you have any dietary restrictions ahead of time!)

Who knows what the Secret Sparkling Sunday Snack is for next time…?

Overall, we had a lot of fun with you, and we’re looking forward to NEXT YEAR! In the meantime, Y’ALL GET OUT THERE AND MAKE GAMES!! 🎮

Check out all the games the teams made on GGJ website.

All our best,
Niklas (Twitter) and CJ (Twitter)

P.S. If you’re planning on hosting a jam and want to bounce off ideas, send us a tweet!