Calgary game jam presents programmers with wild challenge

Game developers will have 48 hours to design and build a game at Global Game Jam YYC. Kevin Fleming explains.

A group of Calgary programmers will be sitting down this weekend to create the best game they can in just 48 hours.

Global Game Jam (GGJ) YYC 2025 takes place from Jan. 24 to the 26 at Platform Calgary.

It’s described as a 48-hour brainstorming frenzy that challenges participants worldwide to create games.

The theme is a complete surprise to the participants.

The Calgary Game Developers Association (CGDA) is hosting the physical Calgary event.

Dillan Schmitz, director of community events and community manager, says the aim of GGJ is to get people together to network and build a game.

“This is actually a global game jam, literally in the name,” he said. “So ours is just the Calgary version but there’s hundreds, maybe thousands of people doing this everywhere around the world.”

Schmitz says some of the biggest studios in the world are the result of the creativity formed at game jams and some games have even been commercially successful.

“Video games are really a multidisciplinary industry,” he said. “Which means that you have people who are programmers, you have people who are musicians, you have people who are artists, you even have people who are doing marketing and promotional stuff.”

He says in 48 hours, it’s good to stick with a schedule to make sure the game is completed by the deadline.

“Design stuff on the first day, start building and prototyping the second day,” he said. “And then optimization and feedback on the third day.”

In addition to his role with the CGDA, Schmitz is a music composer and sound designer for video games.

He’s participated in more than 20 game jams and adds Edmonton and Lethbridge will be hosting their own global events.

“Calgary has not been known as a video game industry city for a long time,” he said. “What we have is a lot of passionate, extremely scrappy indie developers and indie studios that are breaking through into the industry through absolute sheer tenacity.”

Twig Nielsen is a programmer who has 26 game jams under her belt and she describes them as “a multi-disciplinary nightmare.”

“You have to learn parts of 2D art, 3D art, animation, design, project management, just to get anything done,” she said.

“With games there’s so much work to do and so many problems to solve, you’re always running into a new puzzle that you have to take the pieces you already know or that other people have already solved, put them together in order to make the picture.”

Nielsen says there’s a lot of work to be done in the 48-hour time restriction.

“Most of the time for me, that looks like about three or four hours sleeping in a chair each night on site and then the rest of it, I’m just (programming non-stop),” she said.

Nielsen says a game jam is a great way to learn new skills and how to problem solve.

“It’s really cool to see mostly people who are learning, all coming together and growing those skills to be able to hopefully propel them into industry,” said Nielsen.

“It’s so valuable for an employer to be able to see that you’ve done an event like this, it’s great, I love it, my brain is built to focus on tasks so I very much enjoy having a task to focus on for that amount of time.”

Russel Schultz is an aspiring game programmer who just moved to Calgary from Winnipeg six months ago to be part of Calgary’s rising gaming culture.

He’s focusing on the sounds in the game.

“I do the production, anything from background music, full soundtracks and sound design, sound effects, that kind of thing,” he said.

“There’s no limit to the creativity, that’s what I love about it and then especially with the compositions and everything too, it’s just it’s cool to be able to get in there and create something from the ground up and really build on that.”

He’s a relative rookie when it comes to game jams.

“I’ve only done one,” he said. “I’m actually personally pretty new to the game scene as a whole, it’s a great way to honestly just meet people and get connected in the industry and I think that for me, it’s been a great opportunity to just kind of get immersed in that and invest and see what it’s all about, because it really tests your skills.”

Learn more about Global Game Jam (GGJ) YYC 2025 here.