Amateur developers gather tonight at McDonough for 2nd game jam

YOUNGSTOWN

A processions of amateur video game developers trudged through the unrelenting rain up a long flight of cement stairs, their arms wrapped tightly around blanket-bundled computer monitors and laptops, keyboards and headphones. Their destination Friday evening was the John J. McDonough Museum of Art on Youngstown State University’s campus, where they planned to spend the next 48 hours creating video game prototypes from scratch.

The event — called a game jam — was hosted by Kendra Corpier, organizer of the Youngstown Game Developers group, and will run through Sunday afternoon. By the end of the event, the participating developers — 51 in total — are expected to have a working prototype for a video game, built from scratch, ready to display for the group. Participants are given a theme to tie into their game, and are not told the theme until the start of the event. This year’s theme — appropriately reflecting today’s April Fool’s observance — is deception.

Corpier ran a similar event last year and had such positive feedback she decided to do it again. She and her co-organizer, Bill Jones, helped grow the local game development community from three people to more than 150 over the course of three years.

Read more about the event in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.