New event challenges Thunder Bay developers to build a video game in 12 hours
CBC
A new event taking place next month in Thunder Bay aims to not only give the city’s game developers a chance to show their stuff, but also build a developer community.
Giant Jam 1.0 is scheduled for March 14 at Lakehead University’s Chancellor Paterson Library.
It’s a game jam, and participants will have a limited amount of time to build a video game from scratch.
“We're looking to do a fun, condensed game jam into one 12-hour period, where people of all skill levels can come together and try to make the best game that they can within the secret theme that we're looking to reveal at 9 a.m. on the day of the event,” said Jey Garcia, one of the organizers.
“Anyone can register and join,” said Jeremy Braun, who’s also organizing the event. “We’ll also be going around the room and offering a kind of mentorship, helping people out with any questions they have.”
“Both of us have experience in games, so we’ll be available to help them if they need it.”
Braun has done other game jams, and is currently building a game and working to start a development studio in Thunder Bay.
“I thought it would be really nice to have a community around this,” he said. “I want to meet more game developers. I want to be in the room, feel the energy of the room as games are being made, as opposed to just working on games alone.”
Garcia, too, has experience with game jams.
“I come from Toronto,” he said. “Every June there is Toronto games weekend, there's a Hand Eye Society (a not-for-profit that showcases games made for creative expression), and there's all these different great collectives.”
“I just want to see that kind of happening up here,” he said. “I think there's a lot of really talented voices here that can make some really unique projects.”
Participants will need to bring their own equipment - a PC, monitor, keyboard - but there aren’t any restrictions in terms of things like game engines.
“We're trying to encourage that just not only can anyone make a game, but at any budget as well,” Garcia said. “So we're going to be providing resources for free models, free 2D assets, free engines like Construct 3, Unity.”
Giant Jam 1.0 will run from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on March 14. To register, visit the event’s website.
Scientists are seeing tropical fish in Nova Scotia with more frequency, and their arrival is prompting concerns about what their presence could mean for local species down the road.
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says health care won’t be exempt from her efforts to cut spending — even though her health minister says big spending increases will be unavoidable in coming years.
Pierre Ny St-Amand, the man who drove a bus into a Laval daycare in 2023, killing two young children and injuring six others, has been declared a high-risk accused.
A former CTV and CBC reporter hired to serve as Manitoba’s trade envoy to the United States is taking home more than $480,000 Cdn a year in consulting fees, according to his contract with the province.
The teen who lit her classmate on fire at a Saskatoon high school returns to court on Monday to learn the judge's decision on her sentence.
On a July morning in 2024, Dwayne Cardinal was packing up his tent outside the Bissell Centre when a police cruiser pulled up and two officers got out.
The City of Revelstoke and the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District have passed motions formalizing their intention to push the provincial government to protect an old-growth forest.
The province will once again decide who will hold Niagara’s top municipal post after the sudden resignation last week of Bob Gale, but exactly when the next regional chair will be announced isn’t clear just yet.
A wind warning is in place for Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton on Monday with gusts as high as 90 km/h possible, according to Environment Canada.
Just a year after the Alberta government made a big splash unveiling its new border security team to the public with an announced $29-million investment, its latest budget shows the province only spent a third of the total it earmarked for the work over its first year.
Following several fatal collisions in northern Ontario this winter, a Sudbury, Ont., resident has created a website to track incidents across the region.
A Cambridge endometriosis advocate’s petition calling for change in how the disease is treated and recognized in Canada has received sponsorship by a member of Parliament.
While it may be expected to see crowded bars on a Friday or Saturday night, one Charlottetown pub is drawing in customers at a different time of day.