A group of Dunedin students and IT professionals is taking part in a 48-hour global computer game-making competition.
The Global Game Jam began at 5pm last night for competitors based in Dunedin and Hamilton, with start times also set at 5pm locally for 1750 participants in cities and other centres around the world.
In Dunedin, about 12 people - including University of Otago students and IT professionals - were taking part in the competition as part of a joint venture involving the University and Dunedin software company Straylight Studios.
Competitors working in teams had 48 hours to design and build a computer game from scratch, while working at identical workstations within the University's Castle St computer laboratory, Straylight chief executive Tim Nixon said.
Each team was given a set of rules, or constraints, to work within, including international rules applying across the globe and local rules that varied by region, Mr Nixon said.
However, exact details were not able to be published until after the last competitors to start, in the United States, began their efforts at 1pm today (NZ time).
It was the first time the competition had been staged in New Zealand, and the first time national "jams" had been held in parallel around the world, Mr Nixon said.
The competition was being held in several centres around the United States and in France, Turkey, Belgium, South Africa, Venezuela, Denmark, Germany, Scotland, Norway, Japan, England, Spain, Wales, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Israel, Ireland, Netherlands and Lithuania.
The games that resulted from the competition would be made available on the Global Game Jam website (http://globalgamejam.org/), Mr Nixon said.
