Behind the Scenes of a Company Game Jam

The Spark of an Idea 

It all started with one of those moments when an idea pops into your head, and at first glance, it seems completely simple and straightforward. We are a company full of developers. Many of us spend our free time playing games. So, why not bring everyone together and organize a company Game Jam? 

For anyone who hasn't come across the term before: a Game Jam is an event where participants have to create a video game from scratch based on a specific theme within a tight timeframe. Think of it as a hackathon, but instead of building a food delivery app or an attendance tracking system, you are making games. 

I thought to myself: how hard can it actually be? I’ll just announce the theme, set a deadline, people will sign up, and two weeks later they’ll show up with completed games. Done. 

Well… it's not quite that simple. 

Getting the Timing Right 

When you mention a Game Jam, most people picture the traditional format, which usually runs for 24 to 48 hours. Participants gather, get the theme, and then basically code and brainstorm non-stop. In the end, they submit whatever they managed to cobble together, collapse from pure exhaustion, and wake up the next day feeling like they’ve either created something brilliant or a total disaster. Or honestly, a bit of both, which is part of the beauty. This format holds a special charm for a lot of people because it makes for great stories to look back on. 

However, for a corporate setting, I felt it was completely impractical for several reasons: 

1. Our colleagues have lives outside of work. They have families, commitments, and hobbies, and nobody wants their weekend to feel like an extended shift. 

2. Participation needs to be accessible to everyone. I wanted absolutely anyone to be able to join in. Not just those with prior game development experience, but also colleagues who would be figuring out how games are actually made for the very first time. For a complete beginner, 48 hours might not even be enough time to figure out how to get a character moving on screen, let alone finish a whole game. 

Because of this, I decided to go with a 14-day window. Two weeks can easily be spread out across evenings after work, weekend sessions, or short blocks of time throughout the day whenever someone has the time and energy. This format felt like the biggest departure from traditional Game Jams. 

Finding the Right Theme 

The theme is the absolute heart of any Game Jam. Pick a bad theme, and you can ruin the event before it even starts. A theme that is too specific leads to every game looking and feeling identical. A theme that is too vague leaves people uninspired and unsure of where to even begin.  

The perfect theme is one that points every team in a certain direction but lets them choose their own path to get there. 

Over a few days, I put together a list of about 20 potential themes, aiming for as much variety as possible. Then came a simple but crucial question: how do we pick one? 

We could have run a poll, but that would ruin the element of surprise. I could have chosen it myself, but that would give me an unfair advantage since I’d know the theme ahead of time (and yes, I was not just the organizer, but a participant too!). 

In the end, I went on a different route. I must credit a colleague who originally came up with a bit of an overkill idea that actually turned out to be the perfect choice. He built a small application inside the GameMaker engine that randomly drew the theme. 

To put it another way: we picked our Game Jam theme using a program built in a game development tool. Was it completely unnecessary? Yes. Could we have just used a standard random number generator? Of course. But those options felt a bit boring... What better way to pick a theme than with an app born right inside a game engine? 

And the theme we drew? The Enemy as a Weapon. 

When I saw it, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was abstract enough for every team to bring their own unique interpretation, yet specific enough to provide a clear gameplay framework and push developers to think outside the box. 

Setting the Boundaries 

Another thing I had to sort out before kickoff was setting the technical rules. Would I put restrictions on the tech teams could use? A mandatory engine, like a lot of game jams do? A mandatory programming language? A specific platform? 

Ultimately, I decided to scale the rules back to the absolute bare minimum. The only requirement was that the final game had to be an executable file for Windows. I wanted every team to focus entirely on their creativity rather than worrying about what tools they were allowed to use. 

Out of the six teams, not a single one chose Unity or Unreal Engine—by far the two biggest heavyweights in the industry. Instead, we saw Godot (an open-source engine that has skyrocketed in popularity over recent years), GameMaker (a classic for 2D games that birthed hits like Undertale and Hotline Miami), and perhaps the most unconventional choice, Python Arcade, a library for building games using Python. 

Two Weeks of Hustle 

We ended up with six teams of two to three people, each named according to their own style. We had names like Edge Case Entertainment, Alt + F4 Studios, and Out of the Box Pictures. 

What went on behind closed doors during those two weeks is something I only watched from the sidelines. I intentionally stayed out of each team's development process. I wanted the final presentations to be a genuine surprise—both for the audience and for myself. 

Meanwhile, as the organizer, I was busy dealing with the less glamorous but essential logistics needed to make the event a success. Things like booking the room, setting up the projector and sound system, planning the presentation format, deciding how long each team should speak, the running order, and how the voting would work. And, of course, the prizes. I opted for smaller, video-game-themed gifts. For the grand prize winners, I also had custom medals made. 

When it came to voting for the winners, I didn't want a closed panel of judges like you see at some jams. I wanted the whole room involved. Anyone in attendance could simply scan a QR code to cast their vote. I wanted the outcome to be as fair as possible, giving everyone in the room a real say in the results. And just like that, one week flew by, then the second, and suddenly the deadline was upon us. 

D-Day: The Grand Finale 

Naturally, plenty of participants couldn't escape a bit of procrastination and were still wrestling with build errors on the very day of the finale. In the end, though, every single team managed to submit a working game right on time. 

Then, the presentations kicked off. 

The Samurai 

The first team completely caught me off guard by stepping onto the stage in full samurai attire. Their game was, naturally, set in feudal Japan. They even gave us a brief lecture on Japanese culture and traditions. At that moment, I realized that a Game Jam isn't just about the game itself—it's about the whole story behind it and how well you can pitch it. And even though *spoiler alert* this team didn't take home the trophy, theirs is the presentation that stuck with me the most. 

Room-Wide Cheering 

The second unforgettable moment happened when one team booted up their game and the presenter reached the final, toughest boss. The room erupted into cheers and chants. The atmosphere felt less like a corporate presentation and more like a high-stakes esports tournament. The boss was brutal, and our colleague had to try several times to beat it. The tension in the room was palpable. When he finally struck the winning blow, the audience burst into massive applause.  

It was a beautiful, spontaneous moment driven entirely by the energy in the room. This was exactly why I wanted live presentations instead of just pre-recorded videos. 

The Crowd-Pleaser 

One team brought a game that was... let's just say a bit edgier in terms of content, but absolutely hilarious because of it. I’ll leave the specific details to the reader's imagination. The crowd's reaction spoke for itself—non-stop laughter and entertainment. It was proof that humor can be an incredibly powerful tool in game design. 

And the Winner Is... An Apple? 

The ultimate winners were a team whose game followed the story of an apple trying to escape from a kitchen. The game actually featured short, fully-voiced cutscenes to tell its story. You could really tell the team had poured an immense amount of care and polish into the project. 

The voting results made it clear that the audience didn't just vote for the most technically advanced game. They voted for the one that entertained them the most, hit the brief perfectly, and showcased what a Game Jam is truly all about.  

Which is exactly what I had hoped for. 

My Takeaways as an Organizer 

Putting together a company Game Jam isn't overly complicated, but it does require a lot more upfront thinking than you might expect. Every decision you make during the planning phase directly shapes the vibe of the event. 

• The duration determines who is actually able to join. 

• The theme determines just how creative the final results will be. 

• The constraints determine whether people will experiment or just take the path of least resistance. 

• The format of the final evening determines whether the event wraps up with a quiet file upload or a shared, collective experience. 

If I could give just one piece of advice to anyone thinking about hosting a corporate Game Jam, it would be this: give people as much freedom as possible and keep the mandatory rules to an absolute minimum. The surprises that come out of that freedom are exactly what make all the preparation worthwhile. 

A company Game Jam isn't about who builds the most technically flawless piece of software. It’s about what happens when developers are given the space to create without product requirements, without clients, and without a backlog looming over them. 

Everyone had a blast, and everyone is already looking forward to next year. As for me, I’m already taking notes on which themes lost out this time around, what we can smooth out in the organization, and how we can make the next theme-drawing process even more thematic.