Rethinking Strategies of Hackathons to Increase Team’s Creativity: Findings of a Qualitative Research

Game Jams as Valuable Tools for the Development of 21st-Century Skills

“…At the end of the game jam, participants present the developed games to the audience, and each project is discussed in order to reach the conclusions of the event, offer remarks and announce the winners of the event. Tenório et al [48] suggest that in activities such as hackathons (similar to game jams) active working times should be reduced by proposing short challenges. This prevents negative emotions such as fatigue, discouragement, or fear, from arising.…”

“…This prevents negative emotions such as fatigue, discouragement, or fear, from arising. Therefore, they recommend events no longer than 48 h. Though some events can last as little as 2 h [9,10,48,49], the authors of this work opted for an intermediate duration of 6 h (as in [10]), during which students developed different video game concepts and playable prototypes in groups. During the game jams, participants would work in teams together with other students that they already knew since, due to time constraints, it seemed to be a suitable solution that could render optimal results.…”

“…In some cases, open-access software is recommended [10], but these development tools are not always widely extended in the market, and participants may not have experience with them. After studying the experiences described in other research works [9][10][11][12]48,49], the authors decided to use pre-event surveys to detect and classify the skills of jammers. It was not deemed suitable to conduct workshops so that participants would learn to use the software before the event, as reported in other studies [10,49], as this implies an additional effort from the organization and does not ensure that a basic knowledge of the software would be attained.…”

“…Participants positively value this additional help, and, thus, the organization also invited game designers. (3) The duration of the event does not necessarily have to be 48 h. Concerning this topic, previous experiences [9,10,48,49] and participant surveys revealed that 48 h are not strictly necessary in these events and that, instead of being helpful, this can hinder problem-based learning [12]. If game jams have a duration of fewer than 6 h, as some authors suggest [48,49], the authors of this work consider that a quality collaborative and creative process cannot take place, as it is necessary for teams to transit through the first four phases of game development so that they can transform the ideas into tangible and playable products.…”

“…(3) The duration of the event does not necessarily have to be 48 h. Concerning this topic, previous experiences [9,10,48,49] and participant surveys revealed that 48 h are not strictly necessary in these events and that, instead of being helpful, this can hinder problem-based learning [12]. If game jams have a duration of fewer than 6 h, as some authors suggest [48,49], the authors of this work consider that a quality collaborative and creative process cannot take place, as it is necessary for teams to transit through the first four phases of game development so that they can transform the ideas into tangible and playable products. Participants in these events highlighted that the short duration was experienced as part of the challenge and that, while it affects the type of prototype development, it does not limit it, and, as Meriläinen et al [12] mention, time constraints improve creative thinking.…”