Jam-packed!

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This article was published 25/11/2024 (597 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Indie game developers need a space to jam, just like musicians.

This seems to be the philosophy behind the Winnipeg Game Collective, a loose association of programmers, designers, artists and musicians best known for their boisterous game jams or “PegJams,” which happen a few times a year.

The events, which take place both online and in-person, bring together hundreds of creatives to make video games from scratch over a 24- to 72-hour period. Jams have themes such as “Extra Life,” “Limited Space,” and “Every Ten Seconds” — directives for the sort of game structures that designers must follow — and many of the final works are playable through itch.io.

It’s not just fun and games: the jams are a vital hub of the local indie gaming industry, one associated with a growing list of international hits such as Night in the Woods and (potentially) Balatro.

But the jams’ atmospheres are friendly, laid-back and prioritize mentorship. They attract newbs, pros and everyone in between. This is charmingly apparent in the final products, ranging from loose prototypes to fully realized concepts, throwbacks to early side-scrollers to more modern fare.

“If you have a paper and you have a pencil, you can make a video game,” says Daniel Voth, who with June Pagé runs the Winnipeg Game Collective, founded in 2014 by Dylan Fries.

Voth’s remark isn’t just a nice message of inclusivity; it also relates to the division of labour on which developing games depends.

“A song is a collection of so many different components, and not just the people who play the music. There’s a correlation with a game jam. Instead of, like, a drummer and a guitarist, you might have a 2D artist or 3D artists,” says Voth.

In comparing game designers to musicians, Voth is already saying something a little controversial. While no one denies music’s status as an artform, for years people have doubted and sneered at video games’ claim to serious artistic integrity.

The title of a 2012 article by late movie critic Roger Ebert says it all: “Video games can never be art.”

Since then, video games have made leaps and strides in narrative complexity and visual beauty, and Ebert’s article would probably persuade fewer today.

Definitional turf wars aside, the game-development community often seems to exist in a world unto itself, even in Winnipeg. Local game developers tap unique government funding bodies, such as New Media Manitoba.

Government arts councils, which exist at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, sometimes fund video games — Winnipegger AO Roberts’ 2024 open-worlder Plants Properties Equipment is an example — but lean more towards traditional media.

While musicians, visual artists and filmmakers mingle and network in university programs tailored uniquely for their disciplines, there are fewer direct offerings at the post-secondary level for emerging game developers in the province. (No universities in Winnipeg offer degrees in game development, while Red River College offers a two-year diploma in the subject.)

This is perhaps why, as Voth says, the game jams attract “self-directed” types who come from all kinds of professional backgrounds.

He mentions a number of examples, including Rebecca Harrison, a dental hygienist by training who started coming to game jams a few years ago and now leads a successful studio called Flighty Felon Games, and Alec Holowka, one of Canada’s most famous indie game developers.

In 2010, Holowka (who died in 2019), ran a collaborative group called BitCollective — a precursor to the Winnipeg Game Collective — before leaving the city to develop the massive hit Night in the Woods, backed by $200,000 in crowdfunding.

DIY, plucky and operating somewhat below the radar are all descriptors that come to mind when talking about Winnipeg’s indie gaming community.

In this spirit, there’s also the mysterious case of Balatro — an experimental poker video game released in September that sold more than one million copies within the first month — with its ambiguous Winnipeg connection.

LocalThunk, Balatro’s anonymous one-person developer, has confirmed via Discord message boards that he “spend(s) quite a bit of time here” and would like to attend a Winnipeg game-development event.

But a plucky, DIY spirit probably won’t stop most local indie game professionals from working with the big guns — such as major publishers and triple-AAA studios — where and when they can.

While Voth compares game developers and musicians, in other ways video games share more in common with film — both digital media industries whose generally more capital-intensive nature makes them more prone to gatekeeping.

Voth wants the game collective to help indies navigate the challenges of breaking into the gaming industry. To this end, he’s been talking to Ubisoft Winnipeg — the video game publishing empire’s local wing, employing more than 100 people — about different ways “that we would be able to support one another and collaborate and open a dialogue.”

Things are in the early phase, but he’s optimistic about the direction: “Ubisoft is great. They’ve been supportive of the community.”

Community, collaboration and dialogue: the terms all sound unusually grassrootsy against the backdrop of an interactive digital media sector in Manitoba that, according to New Media Manitoba, generated $186.9 million in GDP in 2016, up from $39 million in 2012.

No doubt, these figures have much to do with foreign corporations attracted to Manitoba by tax incentives, comparatively cheap labour markets and other factors. Corporations whose biggest creative players and decision-makers tend to reside elsewhere.

But the stories surrounding the Winnipeg Gaming Collective and its friends remind us that if Manitoba’s game development scene is going to have a truly creative, pioneering future it depends on the right homegrown stuff, too — things as simple as passionate hobbyists and skilled mentors hanging out and jamming.

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca