STG News
In New Zealand, we have a term for your companions with whom you share your lockdown – they are your “bubble”.
JaffaJam believes games have the potential to make the world a slightly better place and support people at a time when they really need help. That’s why we’re asking you to #JoinOurBubble, a non-profit initiative to offer free games at a time they need them the most.
This is a good time to be playing games – for relaxation and maybe even to learn a few things on the way. That’s why we at JaffaJam have decided to shift our focus to making games that alleviate stress and anxiety or help educate and inform.
Good news – at JaffaJam we have also made our last four games completely free and you can find out how to access them at our Official site, along with a bunch of other games from like-minded game developers. And keep an eye open for more games coming to #JoinOurBubble as more teams get on board.
JaffaJam wish the best for you and your family in these crazy times and hope we can do our bit to make everyone’s life a bit less stressful. Happy gaming.
For developers
There are three main ways to get involved:
- Offer some free games for a period of time: JaffaJam have removed all forms of monetisation from our last four games which are all pretty chilled and friendly for all ages. We know how generous many of have been in the last few weeks and they applaud any team that has been able to give away or de-monetise any titles to help the billion plus people around the world currently in lockdown. JaffaJam also appreciate this is not the time to threaten revenues – the last thing anyone needs is a company risking jobs – but if there are older titles or games that can be de-monetised simply and without damaging your team, then let them know – they will add them to the list at joinourbubble.org and can switch them out when the free period is over.
- Make new games that help: They’ve switched over our resources for the time being to make games that either help relieve stress or anxiety, or assist home teaching for kids whose education has been disrupted massively overnight. If you can, please join. If you can spare the time to prototype or develop a game that fits these two purposes, JaffaJam want to help and will promote them via joinourbubble.org.
- Use our technology – if that helps you: At JaffaJam, we developed a Unity framework called “BubbleGum” (funnily enough it was called that long before the idea of lockdown “bubbles”) to help prototype rapidly and produce highly polished games in a short time. BubbleGum is a flexible modular system for integrating common and complex functionality for in-game systems such as procedural-generation, music mixers, localization, character selection, and achievements. If this would help you make games that either help relieve stress or anxiety, or assist home teaching for kids, then JaffaJam will share these tools for free and offer support in their use. You can also use our Cloud Services platform to help game management, inventory, leaderboards, achievements and so on.
Games that have joined our bubble so far: From JaffaJam: Mountain Madness, Bouncing Buddies, Slam Dunk Santa and Samsara; from Cerebral Fix: Down the line, Attack of the Cones, Piñata Panic and Lockdown Logistics; from MorePork: Garden Wars.
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