The Video Game Guild, Indie Asylum, Affordance Studio and Vanier College announce the second DINGO Game Week (design, interactive, narrative). The goal of the event is to promote game design to high school and college students in Quebec in order to ensure the next generation of game designers, as well as to foster the pleasure of creating! All activities will be offered free of charge to participants from January 9 to 15, 2023.
"I have attended many game jams in my life and I've always been struck by the level of collaboration, creativity and hard work of the participants," says Avery Rueb, a teacher at Vanier College and game designer at Affordance Studio. "So we held the first one last year and it was a big success. As a teacher for over twenty years, this has to be the richest educational experience I've ever been to in my career."
Specifically, during the weekend of January 14-15, 2023, students are invited to participate in a game jam in person at Vanier College in Montreal, an intensive session to create a tabletop or video game in less than two days.
In game jamIn the game, participants get together, form teams and try to create a prototype of a game with a given theme in a limited time.
For the game jam DINGO, beginners in game design with or without programming knowledge are welcome.
Online Workshops
To help attendees learn more about game design, employees from the video game industry will be present at the game jam as mentors in art, design, storytelling and project management. In addition, these same mentors will lead online workshops during the week of January 9-13 to teach pixel art, programming a Pacman game in less than an hour, writing a story in which you are the hero and more.
"The Quebec video game industry supports DINGO Game Week," said Jean-Jacques Hermans, Executive Director of the Quebec Video Game Guild, which represents more than 300 video game companies and studios with over 14,500 employees. "It's a great opportunity to encourage the next generation of high school and college students to develop important skills for their future careers in the industry in a fun social setting.
To make these game-based learning experiences more accessible, the organizers have enlisted the support of many partners. Thanks to them, all activities are free during the week and lunches and dinners will also be offered during the two days of the game jam.
Game organizations and studios have already confirmed their participation in this year's event: Affordance Studio, Manavoid Entertainment, Chasing Rats Games, Lowbirth Games, Purple is Royal, Trébuchet and Fusion Jeunesse.
Go to the DINGO Game Week website to register for the online workshops and the game jam in person at Vanier College.