Creativity - Curiosity - Collaboration
The 49er Game Jam is a semesterly open collaboration event hosted by us, Game Developers at UNC Charlotte much similar to a relaxed "hackathon" environment. Our mission it to challenge students to create a game based on a one or two-word theme picked randomly in a total of 49 hours in a diverse, inclusive, creative, and enjoyable learning environment. Our next game jam (Fall 2025) is from October 31st to November 2nd.
The game jam structure composes of students and peer mentors across many different disciplines such as future artists, psychologists, game designers, programmers, storytellers, writers, musicians, researchers, architects. Alumni are welcome to join our event and typically bring in a lot of insight to students who are just starting.
The structure of our game jam starts with introductions of everyone participating, creating teams, and making sure no one is left behind without a collaborative experience in the beginning of our creative journey.
With a growing amount of interdisciplinary collaboration in our student organization in the past couple years at 49er Game Jams, we've seen amazing things created made in Godot, Unity, Game Maker, Unreal Engine, and custom built engines: from simple games that make you laugh to innovative games for education & social good, as well as physical games with IoT devices, lasers, nerf darts, and board games.
Best of all, all the prototype games from our Game Jams are available to play and for you to give feedback on!
Previous 49er Game Jams: