Alt Ctrl Game Jam 2014 (Sep. 12th – 22nd)

As the boss of KnapNok games (Spin The Bottle, Affordable Space Adventures), I develop, play and exhibit diverse games, but games with alternative controls (“alt ctrl”) have a dear spot in my heart. Making games that go beyond using common controls (keyboard, mouse, gamepad, joystick) is not only producing original game experiences, but also giving us a new perspective of how we interact with games and each other when playing them. I am an active member of Copenhagen Game Collective, a network of game developers that has common interest in discussing and developing alt ctrl game projects. Examples of Copenhagen Game Collective projects are Magnetizeme, Aaaargh!, Virtual Internet Hacker VR, Dark Room Sex Game, Mitt Rowdy, and others.

There have been jams and events celebrating alt ctrl games, especially I want to mention the fantastic alt.ctrl.gdc exhibition that John Polson organized earlier this year during GDC in San Francisco.

Alt Ctrl Game Jam 

John and I share a passion in supporting creation and innovation in alt ctrl games, which is why we joined Kristijan Trajkovski and Martin Pupkov, co-founders of the Macedonian indie studio Dark-1 Games, in organizing the Alt Ctrl Game Jam. 

Alt Ctrl Game Jam is an online game jam about experimenting with game controls. It is a 10 day jam, happening from Sep. 12th – 22nd, with a goal to inspire the use of alternative controls in games.

So take out the duct tape, soldering iron, some spare parts, a development board (like the arduino), old controller shells you have laying around, and make the ultimate controller for your game.
If you don’t feel like you’re too good with gluing things together, soldering etc, you can get creative with the things you already have: Kinect, PS move, Wii Remotes, brain scanners, Oculus Rift etc.

The jam is online and everyone can participate, but we have also worked on setting up a few physical locations for jammers. We have three confirmed locations: Skopje in Macedonia and Aarhus in Denmark, Melbourne in Australia. 

Submissions and Judging

The jam will be happening from 12-22 September 2014 and the submissions will be open until 22 September, 23:59 GMT. The submission for this jam is your game(s) and a video explaining and demonstrating the controller within the deadline. The reviewing and judging of the games will be done by the jammers themselves. The jammers must vote on other jammers' creations for their own submission to go up on the voting list.

Awards

It makes me happy to say that we have managed to gather some cool awards for the best 3 alt ctrl games:

#1 place wins a MakeyMakey kit, a copy of UNIDUINO PRO and a one year subscription of Unity Pro. The game that gets the 1st place also wins a unique opportunity to exhibit their creations at Game Science Center in Berlin. 

#2 place wins a MakeyMakey kit and a free copy of UNIDUINO PRO.

#3 place wins a free copy of UNIDUINO PRO plugin for Unity.

Words from the organizers

To wrap up this blog post here are some inspirational thoughts from the other co-organizers regarding why Alt Ctrl game jam is good and necessary for the game development scene:

John Polson (Indie-Fund.com game scout, alt.ctrl.GDC co-creator, GDC Vault asst, Media Indie Exchange co-founder):

I've seen several people intimidated not by what's on screen, but by the complex controllers handed to them. With these devices remaining unchanged or even gaining more forms of input, this has, I believe, been more alienating than inviting. 

Thanks to things like Nintendo’s WiiMote, a huge audience of new gamers had emerged with a return of old. Other inventions like the GamePad, Kinect, and Move have been less fortunate, but it is through successes and failures that we learn what new ways to play can work.

As we enter this new era of Virtual and Augmented Reality, I think we’ll start to see more alt.ctrls pop up to help us interact with games in new ways, too. I can't wait to see what games are created and who comes to play when developers re-think how we can play. 

Martin Pupkov (Artists @Dark1_games):

Coming from a heavy FPS and RTS background, I have mostly been playing games using the standard combo of a keyboard and a mouse. Experiencing the Kinect and the Oculus Rift showed me that there is a whole new way of interacting with games, making them far more immersible and enjoyable. Can’t wait to see what else we can do with everything that we have and not using it!

Kristijan Trajkovski (Programmer @Dark1_games)

Game controls have been unchanged for a very long time. It’s time to change that!