Raritan Valley Community College hosted a site for the 2024 Global Game Jam, held January 22-28. The global event drew over 35,000 participants worldwide from more than 800 virtual and in-person sites in over 100 countries. This year also marked the first time that games were created on all seven continents, thanks to the efforts of a research team stationed in Antarctica.
Twenty jammers returned to the RVCC West building for the first on-site event since 2019. The group included veteran game developers, RVCC alumni, and current game development and game art students.
In total, the RVCC jammers built six games using the event’s theme, “Make Me Laugh.” The games feature a stealthy heist of rubber chickens; medieval jesters vying for the kings favor; and a stand-up comic keeping a crowd in stitches, when the real purpose is funding the comic’s vacation.
The games may be viewed and downloaded at https://globalgamejam.org/group/599/games.
RVCC offers two degrees for students interested in game design and development: an Associate of Science in Game Art and an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Game Development.
The RVCC game lab has been upgraded to support the latest production pipelines in generating real-time computer graphics for a variety of technologies. Students in the College’s Game Art and Game Development programs work with Unity and the Unreal engine on NVIDIA RTX GPUs in Alienware desktop computers featuring eight core processors. Projects can be deployed to desktop, console, mobile devices, or a number of VR/AR headsets, including the Meta Quest 2, and Microsoft Hololens 2.
For information about the RVCC Global Game Jam or the College’s Game Development and Game Art production majors, contact William Crosbie, Associate Professor, Arts & Design, at william.crosbie@raritanval.edu.
For additional information visit https://www.raritanval.edu/academic-programs/academic-departments/arts-and-design. To learn more about the Global Game Jam, visit www.globalgamejam.org.
