Ithaca College

Last weekend, Ithaca College students participated in the 2014 Global Game Jam, an international event where designers meet at more than 450 sites around the world to make games over a 48-hour period.

Ithaca College and the IC Game Developers Club hosted an event site on the Ithaca College campus for the first time this year, attracting about a dozen students for a full weekend of fun. Participants finished on Sunday having produced two games, both of which can be downloaded and played for free on the Global Game Jam website.

 “Rorschach” (http://globalgamejam.org/2014/games/rorschach) is a mind-bending puzzle/mad lib mashup game in which the player is tasked by a mad psychiatrist to complete the missing side of his trusted Rorschach inkblot tests. This game was developed by Alex Wolf, Bill Rufkahr, Jon Pierre Héroux, Jordan Kolb, Kate Wareham, and Will Gelder. Excitingly, “Rorschach” garnered additional media attention and was featured on the indie game website Indie Statik (www.indiestatik.com) in a list of favorite games from this year’s Jam.

 “Family Game Night” (http://globalgamejam.org/2014/games/family-game-night) is a puzzle-based spin on a matching game where players build families based on the changing views of modern American families. The game was developed by Kirk “Nort” Norton, Brennan Banta, James Smith, Jordan Riley, and Jon Chung.

 Both teams worked incredibly hard and produced fun, engaging, and polished games by the end of the Game Jam event. Based on these two exciting outcomes, Nathan Prestopnik, faculty advisor for the IC Game developers Club hopes to turn the IC event site into an annual tradition.

The Global Game Jam is designed around a theme that every design team aspires to incorporate into their game in some fashion. The 2014 theme was “We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” Each year, the theme is revealed at the start of the Game Jam and helps design teams tap into their creativity and produce amazing games.