This event holds a special place in my heart (especially since it was my first game jam). I may have even scored a job out of it, and if not, at least I will have a game published on the App Store and something I can enjoy on my own iPad.
Also, I was just content to be given a pet name by the people in the Los Angeles chat room. I will always remember the time I was Sleeping Bag Guy. Thanks to anyone on GB that watched us on the live stream and contributed to the awesome environment at the jam. You made the long hours bearable.
Yes, @patrickklepek, that was a fantastic event. The streams were fascinating to watch (and I followed 3-4 or of them throughout most of the weekend), and the games were hilarious. On similar silly and awesome game jams, there was Glorious Trainwreck's "Pirate Kart V" game jam last month, http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/2097, where the goal was just to create as many games as possible to jam into a virtual "2012-in-1" pirate cart for GDC - which I absolutely recommend checking out as well.
Kudos to all involved in the organization and creation at all the locations, it was a ton of fun to watch on the stream. Beeramid will live on in my heart.
This shows the incredible love and sense of community present in the industry and media of video games. Thank you Patrick and Giant Bomb for helping make this happen, and also Molyneux and Molydeux as well.
Recently I've read about stores closing, THQ on the brink of collapse, and the ridiculous amounts of vitriol and ill will generated by the reactions to ME3's ending. Now here comes this story about how a string of silly jokes, at the personal expense of a game designer no less, can bring together thousands of people to contribute their time and energy to crank out hundreds of games. We needed this. The community and the industry are so much more and so much better than what we've been seeing and reading about here recently and there is no better way to have proven that. Thanks again guys.
I was, sadly, fully booked this weekend so I couldn't catch much of this. But it sounds like a lot of fun so I will surely enjoy it in retrospect as much as I can.
Great job, Patrick, organizing stuff is a scary business. I recently watched a Penny-Arcade TV episode about Pax 2011 and it doesn't sound like it gets any easier. Jerry and Mike seemed genuinely nervous even if they've done it for years now.
But I'll bet you feel like a king when the dust settles.
Thank you so much for revealing Bill Music's true identity! I only popped into the stream occasionally, but just happened to catch him...unfortunately, searching "Bill Music" on Google, at least at the time, got me nowhere.
That aside, I'm so glad this happened, and congratulations on an exciting weekend!
Thanks Patrick, I had fun at the Seattle MolyJam. It was a unique experience and I would do it again next year. If you get a chance, check out "Pathology". I think it might be a good game for "Breaking Brad", just saying.
LOVE that you came out to a game jam! The whole scene has been blowing up in the last few years, with Ludum Dare and the Global Game Jam growing explosively, and now a new Jam out of no where being bigger than either of those were only two years ago!
The industry is better for these types of events, and I agree that games journalism (and I think you are one of the few games journalists out there) would be made better by attending more of these too.
Thank you Klepek, both for writing this piece, and for being a part of the events inception. :D
Congrats man, sounds pretty incredible. A huge testament to yourself, those developers that took part and also the games industry that has energy to burn. People truly love games and making them, Games are awesome.
Congrats to @patrickklepek, Anna and all involved.
I was in the livestream for most of the event, and it was fun all around. I'm glad everyone had a good time, and for an event that was organized in such short time everything went great. Of course, there were a few technical difficulties here and there but nothing that interrupted the activity. I would love to see another Molyjam next year. Also, I encourage everyone to check out the games, amazing little games that were created in such short time and deserve more attention from us.
Love the article. Love that you stuck with it and pulled it off even more.
Well done, Patrick. Definitely impressed those of us who're as far from the game design perspective as a preschooler is from a medical degree. I wholeheartedly look forward to whatever this grows into.
Patrick's too busy talking about himself to worry about that shit.
There are some great stories about what happened surrounding the event at Kotaku and Joystiq. I was too busy organizing to worry too much about that, but given I was there the whole time, I already have some cool ideas.
It was the greatest weekend ever! So stoked to meet everyone. I felt like a kid in a candy shop, only there were video games instead of candy, and instead of being a kid, I was more like Skeletor.
You know, I'm sure it was a ton of fun, but I was expecting it to be teams around the world networking to make one single title that might actually be of XBLA or PSN-level quality, something that would get published a ways down the road. I look at the list and instead I see dozens of games of "early 2000s Flash toy" level quality, most of which have only the tiniest resemblance to the concepts they were supposed to be based on.
I'm genuinely impressed that Patrick was able to get the ball rolling on something so big, and that people all over the world were able to bring it together so quickly, but the fact that the "games" are all just tiny, amusing novelties that don't really matter outside the idea of 'we made this in 48 hours' is really disappointing to me.
Thanks for the article, Patrick, and I think you've really struck on something. You really do need to try creating something before you can fully critique it. From 1998-2006 I was a young academic, and one of the first people studying video games from a critical media studies perspective. As a gamer and a fan, I found much of the other academic work myopic and out-of-touch with both how games are made and how they are played. I swore that, as a player myself, my research would be truer to life. It wasn't until I left academia and became a game developer that I realized I still hadn't known that much about the realities of creating games. If I'd been brave enough to try a game jam in the late nineties my life may have taken a different trajectory.
Anyway, enough of that. I also wanted to publicly thank @shinyidol for organizing the Seattle MolyJam. We had an amazing time creating UNBEARABLE (yes, a different Unbearable than the one listed above... fools seldom differ), and getting to know our fellow participants.
Last, I've got some time as I fly to PAX East, so I'd love feedback from anyone here. We're planning to port UNBEARABLE to iPad and Xbox LIVE Indy Games if there's enough interest. Check it out, see if you can find the two hidden achievements and four endings, then let me know what you think!
Ha, I wonder if you're following the killer bear protagonist of our game. On Twitter, he is "Peter Maulingyou" - and yes, he does have an imitator named "Maulingdeux"... check them out if you're a Twitter user.
@RagingLion: There were coincidentally two games called Unbearable. Which one are you having trouble with, the one listed above? If so, I can't help. I can help with this one though... http://www.whatwouldmolydeux.com/display.php?GameID=193
Thanks Patrick, I had fun at the Seattle MolyJam. It was a unique experience and I would do it again next year. If you get a chance, check out "Pathology". I think it might be a good game for "Breaking Brad", just saying.
Pathology is REALLY cool, and if I my own game concept hadn't been chosen for a team I would have jumped on that team in a heartbeat. Way to go guys, I loved it. Also, the bullets falling to the ground were a brilliant touch.
It was the greatest weekend ever! So stoked to meet everyone. I felt like a kid in a candy shop, only there were video games instead of candy, and instead of being a kid, I was more like Skeletor.
@Brackynews: Heh, thanks. Your brain comes up with the worst puns after 36 hours without sleep. Try out the game and let me know what you think! PS: Hidden achievements and endings.
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