Case Studies and Practices in Local Game Jam Software Development Organization: A Software Engineering Perspective1

This paper provides an overview and analysis of local computer game jams as game making organizations that identify important problems relevant to game developer students who know and interact with each other within a physically local community of practice. Different kinds of game creation organizational forms are identified, followed by five field studies of different game development organizational forms that are described and examined. Attention is directed to problems in team-based software development projects as found in game making, such as teamwork processes for computer game software engineering (CGSE), game software requirements engineering, game software design, game making tools, game software reuse, and global CGSE. From these studies and results, it becomes possible to identify and outline eight observations, lessons learned, or learnable lessons for future computer game jam research opportunities that may be appropriate for consideration by game jam organizers, game development scholars and students.