Eight hours to make a game? It will happen many times at Game Craft at DIT tomorrow. Andrea Magnorsky of BatCat Games talks to JOE GRIFFIN

Describe the day to the uninitiatedThis is a game jam. It lasts eight hours and the idea is that you create a game as a team or on your own. To be eligible for prizes, the games have to conform to a theme that we’ll pick randomly in front of everyone just before 9am. You then have until 5pm to make a game.

How many people have signed up so far?We have over 170 applicants so far, but hopefully on the day we’ll have about 200 people.

Are there still some spaces left?For now. We are really excited with the numbers, we heard that we are probably going to be the biggest game jam in Ireland, but we’ll have to wait and see on the day. Try to bring your own 3G – with so many people accessing wi-fi at the same time, it might get congested. There are spaces for now, but we might need to cap it if we think it will affect the quality of the game jam or the judging.

Will it work as a purely spectator event?Come by and have a look if you’re interested in making games. The main goal is to learn and connect with like- minded people. If you’re coming by to watch, maybe come by after 6pm. If you are coming with a can-do attitude and are willing to help, definitely come along from the beginning. It’s also a good networking opportunity.

How much technical expertise is necessary to take part?It depends on what you want to get out of the day. If you’re coming hell-bent on making the best game possible in eight hours, you should know your chosen game-development discipline pretty damn well. If you’re coming to have fun, meet like-minded people and get some free food, you can be a little more relaxed about your expertise. We really want people of all levels with an interest in game development to come along.

Tell me about the judges and prizes.We have Joseph Kehoe, a lecturer in IT Carlow, Adam from Silicon Republic, and Dave McCabe, a film director. Two more judges from the Gaming Liberty have just joined. And the prizes are provided by our sponsors. Some are software licenses that are quite expensive, two Xboxes and some other small prizes. There’ll also be muffins for breakfast and some lunch. This seems to excite people for some reason!

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