On January 26, 27, and 28, another edition of the Global Game Jam took place at Técnico, organized by Laboratório de Jogos at the Taguspark campus. The Global Game Jam is a global initiative that challenges participants from around the world to develop a game in 48 hours based on a theme revealed at the beginning.

The participation from attendees exceeded expectations, with 28 students from various fields such as computer engineering, arts, and cybersecurity, highlighting one of the main goals of the initiative: allowing the development of knowledge without requiring any prior experience.

The theme for this edition, “Make Me Laugh,” aimed to stimulate the creativity of participants who presented various perspectives and different approaches. “This edition was marked by the theme. It’s usually something very vague, and I thought this theme was more restrictive and challenging for a game designer because we never know for sure the emotions that will be triggered in the player,” explains Carolina Brás, coordinator of the IST Laboratório de Jogos.

In addition to providing participants with practical experience in game development, the initiative allowed them to interact with industry professionals, including members of the GameDev Técnico core, professors, and game developers from companies.

Many participants were taking part for the first time, such as João, a graduate in Computer Engineering and Computers, whose goal was to gain experience in game development: “I hope to learn new things and build a portfolio (…) I would like to pursue a career in games, so I am trying to develop some skills in this area.”

This edition thus allowed the development and stimulation of creativity while simultaneously providing networking opportunities with the game industry. The event was sponsored by Funcom and also featured the promotion of internships to encourage potential enthusiasts to venture into the business world related to games.