Um por todos e todos por um: um estudo exploratório sobre os aspectos que facilitam a colaboração em game jams

Abstract

Game jams are events where people form teams with the purpose of developing functional game prototypes in a collaborative way and under thematic and time constraints. Although such events have grown in popularity, there is still little evidence in the scientific literature on how collaboration occurs in this type of event, and especially, what are the factors that facilitate such collaboration. This study aims to understand how facilitating aspects supports collaboration in game development through jams. To this aim, a study was conducted during the Global Game Jam 2018 and 2019. Our findings describe the main practices during the event and what strategies are used by teams in order to facilitate the collaboration. In addition, mentors and experienced jammers are recognized as the main coordinators of these tasks, acting as mediators between those teams. This work also contributes to understanding and characterizing the collaborative work in jams. With collected and validated evidences from experts, we suggests a catalog of practices that support the interaction between teams in this type of event. These techniques may be applied in similar contexts to facilitate collaboration between teams.