In the Summer of 2018, I brought together five close creative collaborators at my family cottage near Wasaga Beach, Ontario, to spend a long weekend retreat making a game. I designed the jam around the theme of mood: the goal was to create a game to evoke a particular mood which would be chosen at the event. The result was City Planning Department, a oneshot tabletop game about the wonderful disorganization of city building.
I organized the second edition of the Wasaga Beach Game Jam, with a different set of collaborators and a different mood, in the Summer of 2019. We opted not to release the game we designed at that jam, but are interested in repurposing it for another project at a later date.
This work has taught me a lot about organizing jams and game creation events, both in a practical sense – I planned meals, activities and travel to and from the jam site, among other things – and in terms of project management and scheduling.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put plans for the 2020 edition on hold, but I look forward to new opportunities to organize remote and small-scale jams in the future.
Kaelan 