Global Game Jam is an international event in which game developers create games within 48 hours. Due to space constraints this year, the Perth site was invitation only. It will also be the last game jam run by Different Methods. We’d like to thank Simon for running these events over the last few years (we know how much work it is to run events!), and we’ll try to keep them going.

This year, the theme was “extinction” and teams at the Perth site produced six games. Please check them out and leave some comments:

• Go Go Robot
• It’s lonely being alive (video, play online)
• Laggy Dash
• Plenty of Fish (play online)
• The Worm Turns (video)
• Troncraft

You can see these games and more at the Global Game Jam 2011 projects page.

Congratulations to all participants! We’ve been so inspired that we will be running monthly challenges to encourage local game developers to practice and hone their game-making skills. Actually, we’ve been planning that for a while and… well, more on that soon.

If you haven’t heard about Global Game Jam, the 2011 keynote provides some insight into the event:

Update: Just realised that a picture is missing from the montage. Fixing it now! Fixed!

The second ever Global Game Jam is on this weekend and everyone here at Let’s Make Games would like to wish all participants the very best of luck.

For those of you who don’t know about the phenomenon that is Global Game Jam, here’s a quick summary: 48 hours of unadulterated creative energy poured into collective game development at breakneck speeds by teams all over the world!

Here in Perth, the local site is being hosted at the Joondalup Business Centre. Setup begins at 5pm tonight and submissions must be in by 3pm on Sunday (the event officially ends at 6pm on Sunday – leaving some time to actually play the games!).

Thanks to the efforts of Simon Wittber (aka. Different Methods), Perth is very well represented as a regional centre for game jamming. Perth was the only Australian location for the first Global Game Jam (at which point Simon had already organised two previous local game jams). This year, the Perth site is also being supported by local game developers Rockethands and Subversive Games.

For more information, see: the Global Gam Jam website; the list of participants for the Perth site; the local event schedule; and the official website for the Perth site.

The Perth Game Jam blog recently posted news that registrations for the next Global Game Jam (January 29-31, 2010) are now open. Check-out the blog post for instructions on how to sign-up to participate in Perth. There’s also a page where you can see all the currently registered Jammers.

Game Jams are short-term collaborative game making events. They are great opportunities to meet other (practising or aspiring) game developers with different skill sets (programming, art, music), and to experiment with novel gameplay concepts. The Global Game Jam is a 48-hour event run simultaneously at numerous locations worldwide.

This will be the second Global Game Jam and the fifth Game Jam run in Perth. Simon Wittber is the organiser and driving force behind these local events. This makes him a beacon for the respect and admiration of local game developers.

Here at Let’s Make Games, we would like to commend Simon for his commitment to bringing Game Jams to Perth!