A few weeks back we hosted one of the studio’s most anticipated events of the year: our annual Glow Jam! It was our second year running it, and it yielded even more amazing results than the first!
The Glow Jam, for the uninitiated, is a week where the studio downs tools to pick up new skills and hobbies and try our hand at making things we’ve not done before. Not exclusively new things – as we’re a studio of many hobbies and creative interests – but it often shakes out that way, which is a great challenge for everyone involved!
Following our announcement of King of Meat at Gamescom, we could only give two days to the Jam – and not the full week we had in 2023 – but it was still an absolute hive of activity from every corner of the studio. We even had some of our international remote team joining us, flying in from all over to take part – and attending our Summer Party the day after jamming wrapped! It was fantastic to see the creative energy and collaboration that went on throughout, with tips and tricks being traded across disciplines and new skills being uncovered here, there and everywhere.
“To the act of creation!“
Glowmade is, first and foremost, a studio that encourages growth, experimentation, and discovery. When describing our game and company ethos, the catchphrase has long been “joyful creativity” – and the Glow Jam so completely represents that for us.
We’re constantly pushing for creative storytelling, gameplay and design through our day-to-day development, but unleashing it in a more informal communal setting is utterly revitalising! A real “touch grass” moment, which we’ve seen reflecting back really nicely on development of the game since. King of Meat is filled to the brim with awesome ideas, but – as with literally anything meshing so much creativity and technology – sometimes there can be a real challenge to make them a reality!
We love a good challenge – adore ’em, actually – so we’re staunch believers that a change in perspective can push you over the line far easier than muscling through it. Part of what makes the Glow Jam so great is that coming together to share what we’re interested in, springboarding constantly off each other, and making things is COOL – but it also provides a lot of that much-needed perspective, purely by seeing how differently each of us approaches a concept.
For instance, Thea and Beth brought in a pack of plain playing cards for everyone to paint and create a unique deck with. The thought process, planning and paint-job for each number of each suit was totally different, and some incredible artistic flair came into play from departments you wouldn’t immediately suspect. QA, in particular, had some astonishingly good design at their fingertips – which was amazing to see!
The humour also beautifully matched up with our style. While some cards were earnestly detailed, or had deeper meanings and symbolism, some were just extremely high-effort memes and references to silly things – and we wouldn’t have it any other way! Art is meant to evoke a feeling, after all, and we love to get a good laugh out of each other. Glowmade don’t exactly need reminders of why we love working together, but it’s awesome to now have this deck of cards as a physical token of it too!
Variety’s the spice of life…
While some projects overlapped, like the cards or painting various miniatures, there was an unbelievable variety of projects on the go at all times. It was fascinating to see what people picked; including, but not limited to…
- freehand embroidery
- a giant cross-stitch of the King of Meat logo
- weapons made of plastic piping
- lino carving and prints
- massive LEGO set building
- single-player boardgame design and prototyping
- 3D modelling
- the Feedback Synthesiser – an automated feedback summary on all our Slack messages about the game
- electronic circuit-building
- experimental photography
- clay sculpting (big and small)
- mask making
- trash-bashed puppets (making sculpts out of thrown out pieces)
- Neural Radiance Fields of the office
- mesh shading in Vulkan
- creating fantasy maps in Campaign Cartographer 3
- and the invention of… Foot Jenga
And that still isn’t all!
We also had three fully playable games made, and a 7-minute short film (with original soundtrack), all in TWO DAYS!? And those projects aaaaare:
Send It!
A Papers, Please inspired game about sending packages in space. Complete with music, full art assets, branching story paths with consequences, and multiple endings! If you send a package to the wrong place, or fail to read the story-related instructions, you’re in for a bad time!
Available for all to play on itch.io.
Let Them Eat Cake
A slapstick beat-em-up couch co-op game, set in Revolutionary France. Play as Marie Antoinette and Madame de Pompadour, and defend your delicious desserts from revolting peasants!
Croc Spies 2: Electric Lamp Boogaloo
Sequel to 2023’s Glow Jam original Crocs are Spies, this game is a classic stealth and enemy evasion experience – but with balls of light! No doubt sent from outer space to hunt us, just like the crocodiles from the original game. Trust me, the lore runs deeper than you will EVER need to know…
This one also comes courtesy of an original soundtrack – we’re apparently just way too good at making silly little bops like this!
aaaaaand lastly:
Combat Experience Required
A short film about a humble game dev, looking for a job in the games industry. He finds an opening for a combat designer, but his interview is… rather more “hands on” than expected…
Complete with an original soundtrack, this sucker was perhaps the project with the most intrigue and (frankly) confusion surrounding it. Mostly, we just wanted to know why Amir was running around the office dressed like a ninja. I think it more than paid off…
