Global Game Jam Manual
  • Introduction
  • Common Terms
  • The Basics
    • Dear first-time Site Organisers
    • Get your team together
    • The Essentials
    • Venue
      • Online Game Jam
    • Submitting a site application
    • Guide to using Slack
    • Checklist : The Basics
  • Next steps
    • Health and Saftey
    • Registering your jammers
    • Structure of the event
    • Setting up your venue
    • Jammer Guide and Communication
    • Checking in on Slack
    • Streaming your jam on Twitch
  • During the event itself
    • Check in and registration
    • Presentations : before and after
      • How to turn on subtitles
    • Keeping the theme a secret
    • Sharing the Diversifiers
    • Jammer behaviour
    • Icebreakers and team forming
    • Feeding your Jammers!
    • Creating projects and uploading games
      • Upload Instructions (digital)
      • Board Game Design & Upload
    • Making a 'Hello Video'
  • Other things to think about
    • Accessibility
    • Software and Platforms
    • Top 10 Jammer requests!
    • Applying for Financial Support
    • Gameplay Videos
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Consider working with an established jam site.
  • Size and production value are not the most important things!
  • How many people you can you and want to reach?

Was this helpful?

  1. The Basics

Dear first-time Site Organisers

Set up a reasonable goal at the beginning of your jam preparation.

PreviousCommon TermsNextGet your team together

Last updated 6 months ago

Was this helpful?

Consider working with an established jam site.

Before establishing your own jam site, it's advisable to determine if a Global Game Jam (GGJ) site has previously been organised in your city, town, school, or other local venues. If such a site existed, consider contacting the former organisers to explore the possibility of joining their team. You can review past .

Size and production value are not the most important things!

This cannot be emphasized enough, so let's get this out in the very beginning. Even before you start to look for venue, or have an expectation of what your GGJ site is going to be, we just want you know that GGJ has never turn down site applications solely because of low capacity, low budget, or venues where jammers can't stay overnight on-site. A small school classroom with 12 folks jamming together that has minimal promotion, is as legitimate as a corporate-sponsored, well-promoted 250 person site using a ballroom.

How many people you can you and want to reach?

Besides primary restrictions like the size of the venue and budget, how big of an audience can you reasonably reach either online or offline?

Maybe you are taking a game-making course at university, then your coursemates can be easily reached. Or, if you are attending a regular meetup around games, but don't have local game jam presence yet, then maybe the meetup attendees will be interested in starting a local GGJ site.

Again, we very rarely turn down applications because they are too small - as long as you are filling a space which is not yet covered by GGJ (be it geographical or cultural) and your site is open to the public, then you are in with a really good chance of getting approved.

Don't overwhelm yourself with unreasonably high expectation for your first GGJ site. Start small and grow from there.

GGJ sites by year on the official Global Game Jam website