{"id":88659,"date":"2018-02-16T01:16:25","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T06:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=88659"},"modified":"2018-02-14T21:21:30","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T02:21:30","slug":"alums-dreams-become-reality-at-morrisville-during-global-game-jam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=88659","title":{"rendered":"Alum\u2019s dreams become reality at Morrisville\u00a0during Global Game Jam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Morrisville State College alumnus Taylor McDowell (right) and Hamilton resident Kyle Hill work together on ideas for their card game during Global Game Jam.\u00a0Photo by\u00a0Franci Valenzano, Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alum\u2019s dreams become reality at Morrisville\u00a0<\/strong>during Global Game Jam<\/strong><\/p>\n

MORRISVILLE\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 During one weekend each year, a special event brings alumnus Taylor McDowell back to Morrisville State College to follow a passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cGame programming is a dream of mine,\u201d said McDowell, who graduated from Morrisville in 2015 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in information technology: application software development. \u201cI get to live that out through this.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDowell is referring to\u00a0Global Game Jam,\u00a0the world\u2019s largest on-site game creation event\u00a0which gives teams of artists, hobbyists, programmers and gamers throughout the world a chance to brainstorm, innovate, collaborate and develop new ideas for game design over the course of 48 hours.<\/p>\n

GGJ, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, took place on campus Jan. 26-28. It is the ninth year Morrisville has served as a host site for the fast-paced\u00a0international event.<\/p>\n

McDowell has now participated in seven GGJ events at Morrisville. With every return, he seeks to learn something new that he can utilize in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to try to do something completely different each year,\u201d said McDowell, a web developer at PAR Technology Corporation in New Hartford. \u201cThis forces me to think outside of the box and be creative, and I can bring (what I learn here) to my job and apply it there.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year was no different. After the unveiling of this year\u2019s theme, \u201cTransmission,\u201d McDowell and two fellow jammers partnered on-site to create a role-playing card game. It was McDowell\u2019s first venture into the genre, which helped him focus on artwork and game design.<\/p>\n

The event also bonds him and community members who share his passions, such as teammate Kyle Hill, a Hamilton resident participating in his third game jam.<\/p>\n

Fueled by pizza, snacks and soft drinks, the team worked on its attack-and-defend card game\u2014the objective: outlive other survivors during a zombie apocalypse by sending out a transmission for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou learn the importance of teamwork,\u201d Hill said of the event. \u201cWe all have to help each other out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associate\u00a0professor Richard Marcoux, Ph.D., who helped Morrisville become a host site and has been involved with each event since, noted that a benefit of holding the event at Morrisville is that it allows alumni to stay connected with the college, no matter their current location.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlobal Game Jam is an event that connects Morrisville State College with the world,\u201d Marcoux said. \u201cDuring our second Global Game Jam, one of our alumni \u2013 and a veteran of our first game jam \u2013 skyped from Peru and reconnected with some of his fellow alumni, demonstrating that we truly live in a global village.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral of our alumni have also returned each year during Global Game Jam to share with our present students their experiences with earlier game jams, connecting the past with the present,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

GGJ has grown exponentially since its debut in 2009. The event saw 53 host sites across 23 countries with 1,650 participants then, before nearly doubling each of those totals in 2010, Morrisville\u2019s first as a host. Last year, the event reached 701 host sites, 95 countries and 36,401 jammers.<\/p>\n

Morrisville is excited to continue its participation in the worldwide event.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re planning on making our 10th anniversary next year the best one yet,\u201d Marcoux said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alum\u2019s dreams become reality at Morrisville\u00a0during Global Game Jam MORRISVILLE\u00a0\u2014 During one weekend each year, a special event brings alumnus Taylor McDowell back to Morrisville State College to follow a passion. \u201cGame programming is a dream of mine,\u201d said McDowell, who graduated from Morrisville in 2015 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in information technology: application software […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23813,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-n3Z","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Global-Game-Jam.jpg?fit=576%2C415&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/88660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}