From DJ HAMSTARZ to the Sails of Valhalla — Pegjam 2017

A flying hamster DJ trying to make it big faces an army of robots, sent by the evil DJ Gerbillionaire, who only believes in crushing rodent remix dreams.

This is the game that one team at PegJam 2017 created in one weekend.

PegJam is a Winnipeg event that gives local developers a chance to race the clock and work together to complete original, brand new games over a weekend.

With a combination of speakers, panels, and a lot of time to collaborate, PegJam produces a lot of games.

100’s of games.

And those developers sometimes go on to make even more games that end up on Steam, Xbox Live, and Itch.io, helping them make a living.

Each game jam has a theme, that speakers and developers use as a springboard for what they create over the weekend.

The theme for PegJam 2017 is “Nothing Is As It Seems”.

The developers of DJ HAMSTARZ teamed up because only each person’s unique skills could help their concept of a “music based top down bullet-hell shooter” happen.

Combining the musical talents, 3D art and modelling, game design and engine design, the team kept adding on members over the course of the jam as people realized how they could contribute to the project.

One of the things that makes PegJam special is the way participants can contribute to multiple projects, helping out where their skills can be most helpful.

Musicians creating musical tracks for games that only have programmers, or 3D modellers getting help from programmers as they use new game engines.

Only know how to draw?

Maybe your art becomes every image and asset in a virtual reality game.

The options for teaming up are endless.

What I witnessed this weekend was an amazing amount of camaraderie, helpful advice, and collaboration between teams.

Many of the people who helped each other out came into the weekend with barely a clue of what they were going to make, and who they were going to work with.

By the end, they’d put together games that were not only playable, but fun, with interesting mechanics, art, and emotion.

Want to check out the games that were made this weekend and at previous PegJams?

Here is an entire collection of them at http://pegjam.com/curator.

We’ll have more video features up during the week, with interviews and links to some of the amazing games made this weekend.

Now, enjoy this quick highlight video :D