Montreal Tech Watch

A group of motivated students from ETS (École de Technologie Supérieure) is organizing this weekend the Global Game Jam, challenging teams to create a full video game in just 3 days. The format, deadline, pressure, as well as the focus on new ideas and innovation remind me a lot of Blitzweekend and ulteriour startup weekend events in Montréal (@startupifier, HackMtl, Y1L etc.)

The event is part of a global movement, with many other cities and thousands of game developers & designers taking part in the event. Check out the video:

Here in Montréal, the event will start on January 28th around 6 PM, which will explain to the jammers the schedule. Around 7:15 PM all will start the collective brainstorm.

The purpose of the brainstorm is to generate a high number of strong ideas in a short period of time and allow the participants to get in touch with each other. Attendees form small groups of 5-10 people and are asked to sum up their best ideas to the crowd. At the last iteration, jammers will be asked to push the best one. After the collective brainstorm, the jammers will create teams, which will work days and nights until January 30th. Then the event will continue days and nights until January 30th. Sunday 3:30 PM, everyone will get to play the games produced during the jam with final selection by the jury by 5:30pm. The jury’s favourite game will receive the big prize!

Great to see this student initiative. If you have friends or coworkers interested in 3D, video games, UI, or game-inspired apps (akoha?), then it might be worth to participate, at least as a game or level designer!