In school, Rachael Vella excelled at her IT classes and wanted to go into programming, just like her dad. But back then, the message she received at her all-girls school was, "girls don't code".

Now 23 and a third-year student in video game design at RMIT, she's one of a record number of women attending the Global Game Jam in Melbourne: 48 hours of brainstorming, designing, coding, caffeine, sugary snacks and sleeping on hard floors.

Rachael Vella with her team. Credit:Arsineh Houspian

Now in its fifth year, it's also the biggest Melbourne jam yet, with 200-odd coders, designers, artists and more converging at Swinburne University's Hawthorn campus to make a game in a weekend.

Twenty-five per cent of participants this year are women. Last year, that figure was 18 per cent; in previous years, more like 10 per cent.