What is the DIA Game Jam?

A new experiment towards consistently making more games.

Hello, there!

Hello, friends! So glad you could make it.

Wait, what is all this?

Good question. You're probably wondering about who we are and what we're trying to do. I'll give you a quick run-down to get started.

What is the DIA Game Club?

The DIA Game Club is a place where we geek out over games! We encourage making them but members are free to do other things like analyze their favorite games or draw fan art.

What is a game jam?

A game jam is basically a little party where you make games with other people. It can be in-person, like the 0th Indie Game Jam. Usually there's constraints such as a particular theme, such as "cyberpunk baking", or deadlines such as finishing a game within one weekend. These rules ensure that creators come up with strange and wonderful ideas and that nobody spends too long on any given part of the making process.

What is the DIA Game Jam?

Our club's jam format is a modified version of the Game A Week Jam. At the moment, we meet weekly for 1 hour coworking sessions. Our version organizes jams into month-long periods, where the 1st 3 weeks' sessions are dedicated towards practicing the tool we want to learn for the month (Practice Sessions) and the 4th week's session is reserved for making a game using said tool (Making Sessions).

What might happen in a jam?

During Practice Sessions, participants state what they'll do for the hour and afterwards give an update on their progress. During Making Sessions, the jam facilitator will reveal the theme word for the month and everyone will have an hour to finish their game in the agreed-upon tool. For more in-depth details read the post-mortem for the first game-jam we did back in January.

What does one get out of joining DIA's game jam?

The biggest benefit for participating in our jams is developing design skills through an approachable medium while practicing in a supportive environment. Some of the possible gains one might achieve include:

• Quickly gaining experience in game making.
• Forming a habit of creating interactive prototypes.
• Learning to rapidly prototype concepts.
• Understanding how to develop a concept into implementation.
• And more...

Want to make games with us?

If you're a DIA apprentice or mentor, then come join us! See the server's information section for more details. And if you're not part of DIA... Don't fret! Membership is currently paused, but stay tuned by subscribing to our newsletter and following DIA's LinkedIn for updates!