From the Press Release
The Irish game jam, GameCraft, is going global with events happening in Northern Ireland, London and New York City, lending the Irish indie developer scene some additional weight on the world stage.
“GameCraft has always been about getting game developers in front of each other and working together. We’re really excited to take this mentality with us as we bring the event to other parts of the world. We really hope people will use it as an excuse to travel overseas and get to know their non-Irish counterparts” says co-founder Andrea Magnorsky of game development studio BatCat Games.
GameCraft is a day-long event that brings together companies and individual game developers and gives them somewhere between eight-and-twelve hours to build a game from scratch – ideas, art, code – everything. Considering that most games spend in the region of two to three years in production, why would anyone even try to accomplish building one in a day?
Co-founder Vicky Lee tells us that “it’s not really about building the games; in fact many people don’t even get a game made on the day. Game developers are a really dedicated bunch, with many working long days and nights in isolation. GameCraft is about bringing them together to discuss – and make – what they love. It’s a great, care-free way to break the ice with companies and each other”.
“From past events we’ve seen people get internships and jobs. We’ve seen companies come up with new IPs, try out new technologies and showcase new ideas. We’ve even seen new companies formed there! With these kinds of cool outcomes, it’s exciting to think about what could come out of the events run overseas” says Dave McCabe, the event’s lead judge.
In the past the event has run in Dublin, Belfast and the Games Fleadh in Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT). On September 14th it will be running in 2013’s City of Culture, Derry, with further Irish and international events in the pipeline. You can find out more about GameCraft, the organisers, dates for upcoming events and check out photos and more from previous events at http://globalgamecraft.com.