Last winter semester 2024/25, 116 students created a total of seven video games over the course of one weekend in our course "Project management in the computer and video game industry".
Throughout the semester, workshops led by the members of the organisation were offered to prepare students for the game jam at the end of the semester as part of the seminar.
In the 2D workshop, students were taught various aspects of digital art and conceptualisation. These included aspects such as concept art, user interfaces and animations. Collaboration with other departments, such as the 3D Department, Audio Department and Game Design, also played an important role in preparing for the game jam.
The 3D workshop dealt with the creation of 3D objects in the 3D modelling software Blender, the animation of these objects, the export of the objects to the Unity engine and also the preparation of cross-departmental work. The participants also visited the DMRC's StudentLab3D to learn about 3D printing.
The audio workshop was about creating sound effects, voice-overs and background music for games and its workflow in FMOD Studio and subsequent integration into the Unity engine. The participants also visited the sound studio at Paderborn University, which was also available to them at the game jam.
The coding workshop this semester comprised a basic workshop and an advanced workshop. In the workshops, the students were taught important aspects of the Unity engine and Visual Studio. This included, for example, the creation of 2D and 3D environments, the integration of various control options for the players, and the integration of animations and sounds, supported by FMOD, of game objects.
In the game design workshop, students were taught various basics of designing game ideas, game worlds and mechanics. This included not only the creation of worlds themselves, but also the conceptualisation of interaction possibilities with them in order to enable good gameplay. The workshop also focussed on story and narrative design in order to create actions in the game. To support this, the participants were also made aware of the differences between the various departments and were given "internship" dates, i.e. dates on which they were to attend other workshops.
After all this preparation, the participants were ready to apply the knowledge they had gained and design their own video games during the GameJam weekend.
The GameJam comprised three days of self-organised work over a weekend in group work in small teams of just over 10 participants. Students had the election between different project proposals that they had written themselves in surveys, which were then evaluated by the organising team and adapted to an appropriate amount of work. The prescribed topic of the proposals was "energy", but with the additional requirement not to include "electricity and lasers". From the more than 70 proposals, 9 selectable game projects emerged.
During the weekend, the teams were spread across several rooms at Paderborn University, supported by the Gameslab hardware and facilities such as the Paderborn University sound studio. Work on the projects was creative and the atmosphere was relaxed.
Departments were able to realise their tasks well and worked imaginatively in their fields of work. Game designers, for example, quickly created prototypes of the game world out of cardboard, and participants from the audio department recorded various sound effects in corridors and the car park instead of just using the sound studio. Artists from the teams also created posters for their games, which will soon be printed out and hung up in the GamesLab. With the help of the organisation team, it was possible to keep up a good working pace.
A few days later, the finished games were presented in a plenary session with the presence of Professor Dr Fuchs. The game prototypes were presented and played in short 15-minute presentations.
The games created from the students' suggestions on the topic of "Energy (without electricity and lasers)" are
Grow Your Own Wisp, Abraca Boom, Checkpoint Soul 2D, Checkpoint Soul 3D,
Beaver's Beauty Palace, Harebringer of Souls, Dungeon Munchster
Closing words
As the organising team, we are very proud of our participants from this semester. The resulting projects are products of well-applied skills that were developed by the students with a lot of self-involvement in theoretical and practical applications. As a result, much of the content from the workshops could be applied and realised in the short time frame of the Gamejam weekend.
Survey results also show that the students had a lot of fun at the workshops and the game jam this semester and were positively surprised at how many elements they were able to implement during a game jam weekend. The cooperation between the teams should also be mentioned, without which the games created would not have been possible.
