SPLASH Jam 2016

Last week I came home from a game jam in Norway called SPLASH. The special thing about it is that it takes place on a boat. More specifically, it took place on Hurtigruten. In total, 100 people from 21 different countries attended the event. The event itself started on the 19th of February in Tromsö, where we had a mingling party at a place called Flow. During this event we got to know each other, formed groups and roughly decided on what we wanted to do for the game jam. And got our own rubber ducks and some delicious slush!

Around midnight we started walking towards MS Finnmarken, the ferry that we were going to travel with for this event. However as it was getting late and I was really tiered I went directly to my cabin when I got on board and I went to bed immediately. When I woke up however...

Good morning beautiful Harstad!

...the boat was now in Harstad, and it sure was a beautiful thing to behold. Seeing all of the snowy mountains in the winter while it wasn't too cold was a really great experience. If it weren't for the fact that I was here for a game jam, I would probably spend a majority of my time outside; at least when there was daylight.

The ferry also had quite a bit to offer. First out jacuzzis. On the outside of the ferry was two jacuzzis. I did bath in them once and it was really nice, especially with the cold air. There was also a pool but something related to the pool broke so it was empty of water for most of the trip.

Some people was even lucky enough to experience this (Source)

Northern lights while jacuzzing 

There ship also had a day-saloon just over the bridge of the ship. Here you could get a good view of the nature around you if you did not want to stay outdoor all the time. And also pretend that you were working on the bridge.

The staff on board MS Finnmarken was really great. I want to give an extra credits to Aydin, who worked as a bartender in the bar near our conference rooms. He was really nice to talk to.

After having breakfast and looking around the ship, it was time to start attending the game jam proper. The game jam took place in two conference rooms. I was working together with three people from Norway called Øivind, Jonas and Kristin. And despite me being the only Swede in the group, we could communicate with each other in our own languages most of the time and still understand each other.

You never went hungry after breakfasts like these

The theme from the game jam was "beginnings" and our group decided to try to make a game where you took care about a flower from the beginning of it's life cycle, where you had to ensure that it would get enough water and sun, but not too much or too little of either. However, our group created two different prototypes based on the same concept (it just happen to become that way). I developed one in Unity while Jonas created one in JavaScript. Øivind and Kristin created assets for the game.

In general, I got the feeling that people was taking this event as a time to have fun and get to know new people rather than making the best game possible. And this was for the better. People did not spend all their time at their computers, they talked to each other, went outside to see the beautiful nature of Norway or doing other activities as well. And there was no competition of which group made the best game, which in mind opinion made for a much better game jam. 

The game jam went on for two days (20th-21st of February). On the 22nd we arrived in Trondheim, in which we walked of the boat and started walking towards a bar called Work-Work. At Work-Work we showed of our games and said our goodbyes to each other. Some of the games that was developed for this game jam can be found at this itch.io page.

Two games made during the event where my favorite ones. One is called "The Saga of Anders Bluebeard", in which you call the developers of the game to get help with how you actually play the game. My cabin partner (although we almost never talked inside our cabin) Praveen recorded the voice and sound-effects for this game.

The second game is called "Funding Plea$e" (not on the itch.io page as of writing this). The best way I can describe this game is that it is a combination of DoPitch and Papers Please. It is similar to Papers Please in the sense that you are a game publisher and you have to accept or reject funding for games that people pitch to you. The pitches are however random, which is why I also mention that it is similar to DoPitch.

A couple of other images from my trip, as well as those in this blog post is availible here