2022 ＂Game For Good Game Jam＂ 72-hour Game Development Carnival was Successfully Held

The second China Game for Good game jam 72-hour game development carnival was successfully held.

From August 5th to 14th, the second Game For Good game jam hosted by Project GC was sponsored by G4G, a NGO in Shanghai that focuses on promoting Games as a medium for good social cause. This Game Jam event was held for two consecutive years to allow more game developers join the cause to create social good by making games . This event was conducted online in cooperation with many domestic platforms such as Indiaclub, X academy and Vland cloud space.

This event attracted over 500 game developers to sign up, forming a total of 130 teams who spent 72 intense hours developing games surroudning the theme of the game jam - “Healing”. This topic revolves around mental health related issues, integrated public welfare and social issues. A total of 109 different healing-themed games were submitted. They focues on various topics including Self-Cognition, Interpersonal Communication and other different issues about mental health. After another intense week of playtests and judging, nine teams were awarded with 10 different category awards as well as the “Most Promising Award” and the Grand award “Game to Save the World”.

The game "Life, Music&Color" won “the most popular award”. It is a game that reflects real life. By understanding people in day after day boring life under the pressure and negative emotion, it encourages people to learn to persevere in repeating tedious life, learn to enjoy life, explore the true meaning of life, maintain a positive attitude and strive to pursue one's  interests and eventually find clarity in life.

The "Audience Favorite Award" was awarded to game "Laugh with Me”. This game shows the developers' observation that due to the pressure of work and life, we see less and less smile on people's faces. Everyone seems to be in a hurry and the sense of loneliness creeps onto everyone. As the game progresses, in the otherwise depressing rainy day, the game characters with more and more cheerful footsteps whose body color was from the beginning of the monotonous gray gradually become bright and colorful. Just like stated in the game’s introduction- "you're not alone. There're some people out there that would love to listen to your stories”.

Team Capstone's game “The Flavor of Love”  won the grand award "Game to Save the World". This is a game that focused on Alzheimer patients. Through motion sensing technology, players can personally experience the aging feeling of elderly patients with uncoordinated hands and feet and stiff limbs. The goal of the game is to call on people to go home more often to accompany their parents, and feel the happiness around family. This game also won the "Most Content Size Award" and the "Best Theme Award".

This competition had the support from many experts both from the NGO industry and game industry. Yi Dao, G4G’s academic advisor and project manager, conducted in-depth analysis on a series of topics arounding the theme "Cure". Before the Game Jam starts, Zhou WenXiu, founder of NGO He Pu Charity , and Sun Weitong, member of Beijing BoNeng Charity Foundation gave two workshops, respectively themed "Depression as Strength" And "Psychological Impact of Bullying". Those workshops all helped the game makers further understand the expertise knowledge in the field of mental health. At the Closing Ceremony, Zhang Tao, the commercial director of G4G, and Jing Yu, Vice Secretary General of G4G were invited to share theit experience of using games in the fields of medical treatment, popular science and mental health.

This year's Game For Good game jam focused on the social issues of mental health, encouraging developers to further understand the meaning of “Healing” especially under the special global and domestic circumstance. During the production process, game makers showed that the industry's young producers care about and can contribute to social issue, in their own unique ways. They carry the spirit of original Chinese Games.“Some wounds may never be healed, but we can at least start to care.” In the face of some deep wounds, only empathy can start the process ofunderstanding and thus caring. Game For Good game jam will always try to integrate the positive values into the game developers community, empower the gamemakers to use games as a medium to reflect social issues, tell chinese stories, as well as taking on more social responsibilities that could save the world.