This morning when I woke up I realized that I had been in the midst of a dream about a presentation some college students were giving me. It had been quite an interesting presentation.
They had put up a big chart on the wall, structured like a set of comic book panels. The panels progressed, step by step, through an idea for a kind of weekend game jam.
Except this was a game jam with a twist. The plan was that each of the participating students would enlist their mom to implement their game for them.
It was an interesting constraint: What sort of game could your team make in a weekend game jam, if all of the actual game creation would be done by your moms?
At the top of the chart, in big letters, there was a name for their proposal: “Mom Jam”. I distinctly remember thinking, just before I woke up, that I thought this might be a brilliant idea.
Now that I’m awake, I’m not sure I’ve changed my mind.
And for an even tighter constraint make it a Dad Jam?!
I know quite a few moms of college-agreed kids who could kill that assignment 🙂
Yes, so do I!
I’m sure you do, which is why I was surprised that you referred to it as an interesting constraint. Is there something about moms implementing it that makes it different than handing off an implementation task to some other group? I know you well enough to know that you would never intend to disparage moms (or women). So what did you mean?
Interesting in the sense that the students get a chance to see that their moms are good game designers, something they might not get a chance to see otherwise.
🙂