The Game Jam

What happens when musicians, composers, game designers and players meet without fixed rules or scores?

Jamming, originally a collective musical activity where musicians meet to play music spontaneously, has over the last years become a major fixture of the game design scene. In game jams, game designers, programmers and artists meet to create new games in shifting team constellations, in a very short amount of time.

For the PLAYSONIC GAME JAM from Jan 5-7 2018, all members of the focus teams met up with Ensemble Modern, members of the International Ensemble Modern Academy, students of Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main and further participants for three days of playtesting, discussion and iteration. Next to the work of the focus teams, we formed jam teams that tested out ideas for the extended festival program.

After a collective intro and team formation, jam teams could chose from different design challenges. Everyone then worked in parallel on their projects, and met regularly during the jam for shared playtesting sessions for careful observation, feedback, advice and joy.