Design Processes in Game Jams: Studies of Rapid Design Processes

With the rise of game jams, game creation has been opened up to a diverse community of game developers, be they professionals or hobbyists. However, despite game jams' increasing importance for aspiring game developers, and their utilization in education and professional game development, game jams as a design process are not thoroughly researched, empirically or theoretically. I draw on interaction design and game design theory to study how design processes in game jams unfold; for example, how the format impacts the creative process, how participants cope with the specific challenges and opportunities in this process, and how they qualify design choices under the pressure of a game jam setting. In presenting my research and future plans for my PhD project, I discuss how game jams can be studied from a researchthrough-design approach to develop knowledge on how people work creatively in game jams.