DACC students experience Global Game Jam

For two straight days, the game lab at Doña Ana Community College transformed into part classroom and part creative bunker. On Jan. 30-31, students gathered around glowing screens, bouncing ideas back and forth, and grinding through the Global Game Jam, a 48-hour challenge where teams would handcraft design and build brand-new games.  

DACC hosted its first official jam site this year, joining more than 800 others worldwide. It’s a huge win for the college’s growing game development program, as well as the students looking to get hands-on the real-world tools within the field. 

“The more people that know about the awesome stuff we do here, the better,” said Dr. Michael Brown, who teaches in the game development and animation program and even helped organize the event. “It gives students a chance to get involved in something global.”  

The jam is not just about building a finished product. It’s about quick ideas, collaboration, and community. Matthew Byrnes, department chair for the arts at DACC, says this is what makes it worth it.  

“It gives us a chance to try to bring the game community together,” Byrnes said. “We’re trying to do a little bit more, and this facility has already started to help with that.”  

Students were in the lab all day Friday and Saturday, working as teams, testing ideas, and figuring it out as it went on. 

“They were basically just spending all day kind of playing,” Byrnes said. “It’s not really about developing a fully polished game. It’s really for building the community and having fun.”  

They also had access to professional tools and software, such as Unity and Unreal Engine, both installed at every workstation. DACC also has official development kits for well-known consoles. 

“We’ve plugged in the Xbox and PlayStation,” Byrnes said. “It plays really well on the big screen. And everyone’s justlike blown away.”  

Beyond the fun, there is a real future behind all this. Byrnes mentioned that the design principles utilized in game development carry over into all types of fields. This includes film, app development, engineering, and even military simulation.  

“If students learn the game design technology, that opens up this whole world,” he said, “user interface design, level design, human factors, and engineering. It’s all relative, so it just opens the door.”  

Byrnes said the industry itself is constantly evolving, and events like this are a chance to help students see how they fit into something bigger.  

“Connecting students to the game community matters,” Byrnes said. “Because when they graduate and start developing their own games or working for companies, they’re going to be part of that community. So, understanding that is important.  

DACC’s game jam site, including the student-submitted projects, is listed on their official Global Game Jam website at globalgamejam.org 

While not every student walked away with a playable or finished product, Byrnes said that’s not the point.  

“If the idea is good, maybe it sparks a game that gets developed later,” he said. “That’s kind of the point of it.”