Game Jam 2 produces Zombie Fight or Flight

It’s been just over two months since CoRe Jolts’ second Game Jam took place in Tsawwassen, and it’s well past time to report on the exciting developments coming out the event!

Sludge (#WorkingTitle)

We had a fantastic group of mediators, lawyers, and students (including both experienced and inexperienced gamers) assembled for three days of creativity! Like Game Jam 1, the group arrived with many different ideas and objectives: the one common theme was that we all wanted to develop a collaborative game.  Over the course of the weekend, two different games emerged – a very complex game which we called “Sludge (#WorkingTitle)” and a fast-moving card game called “Zombie Fight or Flight”.  Both games had fans within our group, but “Zombie Fight or Flight” fit nicely with plans two of us had to develop training tools and so received a bit more attention over the course of the weekend.  As a result, Zombie Fight or Flight will be the first game created in a CoRe Jolts Game Jam to be developed for sale!

Zombie Fight or Flight cardback: Art by Tuna.

Zombie Fight or Flight

The zombie theme arose because Emily Martin and I were thinking ahead to specific training applications, notably a CLEBC course we are preparing for October 31st – Negotiation Skills for the Zombie Apocalypse. Even as the game developed though, it was apparent that the basic mechanics could be adapted easily to other scenarios: Pirate Fight or Flight, Space Aliens Fight or Flight, or even Forest Animals Fight or Flight.  In fact, we also tested a wide range of variations intended to make the game more or less challenging depending on age, gaming experience, etc. and began preliminary work on an expansion pack to keep the game interesting over multiple plays.  Those of us who stayed overnight also took the opportunity on the Saturday night to create alternative drinking game rules: Drunken Zombie Fight or Flight.

Sunday afternoon was spent in a discussion of how to carry the game forward, and resulted in the formation of “Pig & Potato Games” as the entity that will market the game.  In the last two months, we hired an artist (Rachel Petrovicz) who has just completed designing the cards; identified a printer and will be printing prototype decks in the next few weeks; and sketched out plans for a Kickstarter to launch the game.  All of these tasks have been learning tasks for our team, and have resulted in a continuation of the creative energy of the Game Jam – we are all still stimulating new thoughts and ideas as we advance the plan to fully realize the game!

We are on track to launch our Kickstarter in late October – in time for Halloween – so watch for news about the game and opportunities to play it. We’re planning several game nights for collaborative professionals as we explore the options the game offers for collaborative training, and even for possible use in specific types of mediations.

Interested in joining us next year?

After two incredibly fun and successful Game Jams, we know we want to have another one! The creative energy stimulated within the event, and flowing afterwards, is an amazing boost for any project -whether or not it leads to development of a fully formed game. The fact that Zombie Fight or Flight has emerged from this past game jam, and that we are learning new skills and gaining knowledge about game development, only makes the idea more exciting!  We are trying to find a date for the next Game Jam that will accommodate as many of our returning Game Jammers as possible, while also welcoming new folks to bring new ideas! We anticipate holding Game Jam 3 in Tsawwassen in spring 2017. Let us know if you hope to attend: we’ll send out periodic notices as we plan, and will canvass everyone on the mailing list for availability as we choose dates.  To be added to the mailing list, email a request to zombieforf@gmail.com.

 

 

 

2nd Collaborative Game Jam – June 17-19, 2016!

CoRe Jolts is excited to be hosting the second Bi-Annual Collaborative Game Jam  aimed at the creation of collaborative tabletop games on June 17th-19th, 2016 in Tsawwassen!

We are gathering a group of individuals interested in getting together to form teams and create collaborative games! We will form teams based on shared objectives for the games.  One group might choose to create a short game that can be played during a mediation to refocus participants on problem solving approaches.  Another group might choose to develop a game that allows all members of a family – no matter what age – to participate equally in group decision-making. Or perhaps a few individuals will choose to create a game that requires different forms of communication for a group to successfully manage a task.  The possibilities are only limited by the imaginations of the participants!

At our first Game Jam, participants came from a wide variety of professional backgrounds and interests in collaboration: mediators (in commercial, child protection, labour, family and civil practices), tax lawyers, teachers, university administrators, and students in fine arts, digital games, engineering and law.   The broad range of backgrounds (and game experience) led to fascinating discussions about what sorts of games we’d like to create and why.

In the end, we produced two very different games:  Eruption and Soul Jumpers/Hotel California/Macabre Mansion (name yet to be finalized).

The Eruption team developed a complex negotiation game that required individuals to develop multiple alliances to manage an entire society. The Eruption team seemed to have a great deal of fun with the entire concept, but perhaps this short excerpt of the team explaining the rules about “breeding” amongst families captures the spirit of their game.

The Soul Jumpers group focused on creating a game that could not give rise to the dreaded “Alpha Player”! By limiting the exchange of information, no one player was able to dominate decision-making by asserting greater gaming knowledge.  In the following video clip, Bob Wilson shares the background story for Soul Jumpers.

 

Ben Ziegler was a member of the Soul Jumpers creation team and he provided a great description of the event on his blog, Collaborative Journeys.

If you’d like to try out some commercially available collaborative games in advance of the Game Jam, check out the list Emily Martin and I collected for a CoRe Speaker Series event last fall.

You don’t need to be some combination of mediator/gamer/designer to join us.  If you think it would be fun to develop a game like this, and you can commit the time to work with your team, then you are welcome. There is no fee to attend, but we will collect $50 from each participant to contribute to the costs of refreshments, lunches on Saturday and Sunday, and game materials.

If you’d like to join us, check out additional details at https://corejolts.wordpress.com/game-jam/ or email us at coreclinic1@gmail.com. Register here.

You can read more of my observations about collaborative games here!  And check out Emily’s and my presentation for CoRe here.