BUFFALO, NY – The Canisius University Digital Media Arts (DMA) Program, in collaboration with Buffalo Game Space, will host Global Game Jam (GGJ) from 7:00 p.m. Friday, January 23 through 7:00 p.m. Sunday, January 25. The 48-hour event will take place at Science Hall, located on Main Street between Jefferson and Delavan avenues. The event is free and open to the public.
Global Game Jam is the world’s largest game creation and development event. Participants gather at various locations around the world on Friday afternoon, at which time they watch a short keynote address that includes advice from leading game developers. Also at that time, a secret theme is announced. Afterwards, all GGJ sites are challenged to create and develop games based on that same theme, with games to be completed by Sunday afternoon. The GGJ stimulates collaboration and is not a competition.
Last year’s international event included 488 GGJ site locations in 72 countries. More than 4,000 games were created over the course of the weekend.
In addition to the jam, the Canisius site will also host an interactive exhibition of games. From 2:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 24, participant games will be showcased, as will classic video games and consoles from the collection of videogame historian Michael Thomasson. Thomasson is an adjunct professor of digital media arts at Canisius University and holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for the world’s largest video game collection.
Registration for Global Game Jam at Canisius University begins on Friday at 3:00 p.m. in Science Hall however artists and developers interested in participating are encouraged to register in advance at Buffalo Game Space.
For more information on this event, contact the Public Relations Office at Canisius University at 716-888-2790.
Canisius is one of 28 Jesuit universities in the nation and the premier private university in Western New York.
