{"id":370,"date":"2013-08-08T17:09:17","date_gmt":"2013-08-08T22:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/science-game-jam-at-the-field-museum\/"},"modified":"2024-12-02T13:32:17","modified_gmt":"2024-12-02T19:32:17","slug":"science-game-jam-at-the-field-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/science-game-jam-at-the-field-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Science Game Jam at the Field Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last weekend in July, the Field Museum of Natural History<\/a>\u00a0and more specifically the Biodiversity Synthesis Center<\/a>\u00a0(with a little help from me<\/a>) hosted a 48-hour game jam with a unique theme. \u00a0Each team of game developers was paired with an actual researcher in a sub-field of biology. \u00a0We called it the Science Game Jam at the Field Museum<\/a>, and it was an amazing experience. \"SmallScienceJamLogo_2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Long before any part of the event was planned, I mentioned that something of the kind might happen on the IGDA Chicago<\/a> page, and to the Indie City Games<\/a> group (the two biggest forces in Chicago’s game scene). \u00a0The amount of enthusiasm I received was overwhelming. \u00a0It was as if all the game devs in Chicago shouted YOU MUST DO THIS.<\/p>\n

The director of BioSynC, Audrey Aronowsky<\/a>, and I planned it out and put up an Eventbrite page. \u00a0Despite being nearly a month before the event, the tickets sold out within the first three days, and later dropouts were replaced quickly. \u00a0Even so, I was skeptical about the attendance of people who sign up for a free event, but when all was said and done 90% of those who signed up actually came. On the day we started, everyone arrived and immediately chowed down on Indian food. \u00a0This alone should tell you how atypical this game jam was. \u00a0Audrey insisted that the event be catered and comfortable.<\/p>\n

\"Developer<\/a>

Developer Stephen Meyer struggles to ignore a half-eaten cookie.<\/p><\/div>\n

When everyone was settled, 8 scientists took the stage in turns: Courtney Stepien<\/a>, Aaron Olsen<\/a>, Tim Sosa<\/a>, Jonathan Mitchell<\/a>, Tom Stewart<\/a>, Joanna Mandecki<\/a>, Max Winston<\/a> and Dave Clarke<\/a> . \u00a0These are early-career scientists; still passionate about their field and open to new ways to bring their science to the public. \u00a0Each had 5 minutes to describe his or her research. \u00a0The organisms studied ranged from Algae to Army Ants to Pirahna, but there were underlying questions that many of the researchers shared. \u00a0Why did this trait evolve the way they did? \u00a0How do these species interact with one another? \u00a0The game developers had a lot of questions, too. \u00a0Some were whimsical, others showed a deep interest in the scientist’s work.<\/p>\n

Then came the whirlwind process of team formation. \u00a0I asked each group of developers to come up to the front with a list of names of developers on their team, and then to request a specific scientist to join their team. \u00a0As written, this sounds like a neat and orderly process, but the reality was far from organized. \u00a0People scrambled to pull together their teams in order to claim ‘dibs’ on the scientist of their choice.<\/p>\n

For the rest of that Friday night, while the party people of Wrigleyville and Wicker Park danced and drank and forgot their phones in the bathroom, a gang of game developers gathered inside a museum to grill a scientist on the details of the Rove Beetle’s mandible structure and the eating habits of the modern-day\u00a0Raptor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Game developers and scientists worked so well together, it was as if the two disciplines were separated at birth and reunited. \u00a0In a manner of speaking, they have the same parents: systems and rules. \u00a0They spent the night learning about each other’s systems, each others rules, and found the descriptions eerily similar. \u00a0It was an inspiring night, when the game they made that weekend could still be anything, and there were no such thing as programming errors or compatibility issues.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A scientist and a game designer learning each other’s language.<\/p><\/div>\n

Some teams dove in immediately – catching only a few winks on the floor over the course of a long night. \u00a0Some went home to sleep in their beds one last time, and to reflect on their game concepts.<\/p>\n

Teams varied widely. \u00a0Some were basically a loose collection of mavericks working towards a common goal, like Rachel Ponce<\/a> and her ‘Army Ants’ team. \u00a0Some were formed around a set of people who work together often, like The Men Who Wear Many Hats<\/a>. \u00a0Some participants were hardcore veteran Game Jammers, like Dave “Jacksmack” Fulton<\/a>. \u00a0Some were new to the idea of a game jam, like artist Pui Che<\/a>. \u00a0One team decided against making a digital game entirely, instead crafting a board game. \u00a0That team had just two people,\u00a0Chris Klein<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Brian Gabor<\/a>. \u00a0Some had as many as six, not including their chosen scientist. Game developers in Chicago are not a small group of people, but we’re pretty tight-knit. \u00a0I previously knew or had met around 75% of the people who participated. \u00a0The rest, I’m glad I know now.<\/p>\n

The next day, I asked Patrick Hoover to come in and talk to each of the teams. \u00a0Patrick is an instructional designer at the Chicago Quest<\/a> middle school, and spends a lot of time assessing the educational merits of particular game designs. \u00a0I sat in on a few of his meetings. \u00a0It was fascinating to me how he made it clear which directions were most promising pedagogically without ever offering an overt suggestion. “Oh, it’s really fascinating that you chose to emphasize that,” he’d say, by way of encouragement. Good friend Andy Saia<\/a> also dropped by on Saturday to act as a troubleshooter for those who had gotten themselves in technological trouble. \u00a0I think people mostly appreciated the assistance these two experts brought, though no one would have faulted a team that wanted to be left alone for the sake of productivity.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The team behind “The Tide” had show-and-tell every few hours and literally applauded each other’s achievements. They became known as ‘the team that claps.’<\/p><\/div>\n

We closed the venue on Sunday morning at 2AM, sending a few die-hards and out-of-towners to a nearby hotel until 6AM at the earliest. \u00a0It was a refreshing mandatory break that allowed everyone to progress much faster on the third day. \u00a0Games actually started to look like games as new art and gameplay features were added. \u00a0Moods brightened. \u00a0“We’ll have something to show,” more than one game developer told me with a smile on their face.<\/p>\n

At 5PM, it was pencils down.\u00a0For the first time since the scientists gave their presentations on Friday, we gathered everyone in one place.<\/p>\n

Judges arrived. \u00a0I’m proud to have gathered an amazing group of judges to weigh in and give their opinions of the games. \u00a0The judges were Ken Angielczyk<\/a>, Curator of Paleomammology at the Field Museum, Jay Margalus<\/a>, President of Lunar Giant Studios<\/a>, Kyle Bailey<\/a>, Lead Programmer at Phosphor Games<\/a>, and Jake Elliot<\/a>, Designer at Cardboard Computer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just as the scientists each had five minutes to summarize their research, game development teams each had five minutes to summarize their games. \u00a0Five minutes in, five minutes out. \u00a0This was the first time some of the developers saw what their colleagues had been working on. \u00a0We paused for dinner, and to deal with the unavoidable technical problems that come with connecting so many machines to a projector in sequence. \u00a0When the presentations were over, there was palpable relief in the air. \u00a0The hard part was over.<\/p>\n

\"Ryan<\/a>

Ryan Wiemeyer presents for his team, “Birds Eat Everything”<\/p><\/div>\n

The judges gathered in an outlying conference room to deliberate. \u00a0There were three prizes awarded: The Jury Prize, selected by the judges, the Science Prize, selected by the consensus of participating scientists, and the People’s Choice, selected by a vote taken among the game developers. \u00a0The three prizes were awarded with a lot of applause and enthusiasm, but everyone recognized them as tokens of an achievement they all shared. \u00a0Every person who participated made a game (hard) in 48 hours (brutal) about a topic in biology (impossible). \u00a0Through a thin layer of fatigue, you could see pride on everyone’s face as we all said our goodbyes.<\/p>\n

Game Jams always feel like a bubble in reality, or an alternate dimension. \u00a0A place you can go, but you can’t stay. \u00a0It almost feels as if time stops during a game jam, and your friends and loved ones outside continue to age while you trade immortality for isolation. \u00a0But, knowing that it cannot last, the game jam can be glorious, and this one was doubly so. Thanks to Audrey Aronowsky, the Biodiversity Synthesis Center, the Field Museum, the amazing judges, the fantastic scientists and everyone who participated. \u00a0It was a weekend we can all be proud of.<\/p>\n

You can view the entire game jam on youtube here<\/a>, and 8 more polished short documentaries are being produced by the Biodiversity Synthesis Center and will be available shortly.<\/p>\n

Robert Lockhart is Creative Director (and nearly everything else) of the Educational Games Studio Important Little Games<\/a>. \u00a0You can follow him on twitter @bobbylox<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last weekend in July, the Field Museum of Natural History\u00a0and more specifically the Biodiversity Synthesis Center\u00a0(with a little help from me) hosted a 48-hour game jam with a unique theme. \u00a0Each team of game developers was paired with an actual researcher in a sub-field of biology. \u00a0We called it the Science Game Jam at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Science Game Jam at the Field Museum - Bobby Lockhart","description":"The last weekend in July, the Field Museum of Natural History \u00a0and more specifically the Biodiversity Synthesis Center \u00a0(with a little help from me ) hosted a 4"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}