We have trains. We have developers.
How are you doing?
We're at the gates of the Argentina Train Jam.
For the first time, 40 Argentine developers
will develop games during the 18 hours
of the trip between CABA and Córdoba.
This was organized by FUNDAV,
supported by Trenes Argentinos and Image Campus.
This is Blas Ingiulla, one of the Train Jam's masterminds.
-How is it going? -Very well. I'm amazed.
We're going to arrive around 1 PM, and we're attending EVA Córdoba.
We were invited by the staff of ADVA.
How did you come up with it and made it possible?
Inspiration obviously came from the Train Jam.
I don't know why we haven't done it before in Argentina.
We have trains. We have developers.
I think everything was just there. No one was picking it up.
I asked for help, and the help was there. And it was pretty much self-organized.
We're at the dining car. We've just had dinner.
We're about to have some coffee.
The teams are still working. It's going to be a long night.
I have no idea where we are. It's too dark outside.
We found Alejandro Iparraguirre,
one of the people responsible for this railway madness.
Tell us how this came about.
The proposal emerged from the community.
We arranged it along with Argentina's FUNDAV.
Blas, a member of the community, came up with the idea.
He thought that we could make an event in Argentina
that was our own take on the USA Train Jam.
The first thing I told him was: "This is going be very hard."
But I like crazy things and I've supported many events.
Undertaking challenges is always interesting, and so we did.
We sent a request through the Trenes Argentinos website,
and they called me immediately.
A call went out, as I've just told you.
In 4 days, we tripled the amount of people who could be here.
We could have filled three cars.
It beat all expectations.
I knew it would go well, but I was worried about time.
Preparing an event like this in 3 weeks…
And we like doing things well, as good as we can make them be.
We came across "Jonah Hill". What's up?
Not much. I'm learning to speak Spanish,
-I'm a bit hopeless. -You quit acting to make games?
Dumbass.
-What's your game? -We're making a beat-em-up
where you control an ovenbird,
which is indigenous to Córdoba, and also to our country.
And you fight wild boars.
How many members are there in your group?
We are 3 people working on graphics and programming.
Many people may think of developers, game designers.
But what can a voice actress add?
Because I work in video games, people assume I'm a programmer.
There are many things that complement video games.
Voice acting is one of them:
to give voices and sound effects to the characters.
Those things season games and make them standard and cool.
What do you think about the challenge of making
a game in 18 hours?
They were only given some guidelines
that I'd like you to try to reproduce.
Time is usually short. Sometimes they have just a weekend.
Sometimes they have to adapt to it.
I don't think that time is the biggest problem here.
There are two major issues. One is internet.
We are working with 3G or 4G, and no Wi-Fi.
I don't like the word "issue." They are more like "terms."
The other term is that we can plug only 7 laptops out of 40
to charge them at the same time.
So that makes it really hard to work properly.
Until the Jam, you are not told about its subject matter.
Why did we anticipate that part of production?
So that the teams had some resources and assets preset.
They could make some progress at home.
We didn't want them to bring a finished game, but the assets.
Do you think you will finish in about 18 hours?
I think so.
Now things have cooled down; there was a lot of noise before.
Now that everybody is working, I think we will have a prototype
ready for EVA Córdoba.
There's no way they're going to sleep.
Let's walk around them, watch them work.
We'll ask them some questions.
How many are you in the team?
We're a team of three.
Will you be able to get some sleep?
No, I don't think so.
How many are you in the team?
Now it's Martin, the artist and me, programming. We're two.
It looks like Ale will help us with the music.
We might be three then.
Working alone?
Yes, exactly. Quite the jackass, aren't I?
Working alone in a Jam.
The thing is...
I work with a lot of people every day.
-You're fed up with people. - Every day is like this for me.
Right now, I prefer to relax, to work at my own pace.
What's your game about?
My game has a "train" theme.
I wanted to make an explosive, tough-to-handle game.
I'm creating a train filled with weapons.
That way, anything you press can fire something.
Despite being alone, do you get feedback?
Do you ask around? Everyone here has experience.
Yes, definitely. That's something to enjoy here.
We're all in the same spot, we all have experience.
We want to know, in your own words,
what guideline did the guys get before coming here?
The founders and I chose it.
I gathered them all and said "let's do this."
I'll try to get it right.
-Something like that. -You rock.
That's an approximation. I did my best.
Ale was like… His face was so…
Something like...
The guideline is a train sound like…
How was the sound supposed to be?
It's already 2 am. We've made the mandatory stop in Rosario.
Many people, like him, got off the train to smoke.
We came to talk to him because
he is outside of the video game developing car. He didn't know.
I really had no idea.
But I liked what you did with the music at the first stop.
You've been locked up for seven hours already.
How goes it?
It's actually pretty crazy.
We were able to start preparing the project's pre-production
before getting on the train, thank God.
It's been seven hours, eleven more to go.
How are you doing?
We're holding up pretty well considering it's been 7 hours.
Creating the group was fantastic, impeccable.
The initial prototypes, the brainstorming,
the development, and the joint work, everything's going great.
I'm quite surprised at how smart our rotations were.
We have to consider that this Jam has an electric limitation.
It's interesting to see how programmers, artists, animators
musicians, all rotate to keep the batteries charged.
We're developing a runner.
It has a pretty cute premise.
A kid is travelling by train, watching the landscape outside.
He's pretending to jump up and down with his fingers
on the houses he can see outside.
We make the train go faster and slower.
All while he "jumps" with his fingers
as if he were the character.
Developing a videogame inside a train must be amazing.
People's abilities surprise me.
People from Buenos Aires being able to do this...
I like it. It's a great idea.
We've been working with a recurring theme.
It's a sound. An audio track.
Recreating the sound will be difficult.
-Come one, recreate it. -Well, it's something like…
Something like that, a little odd.
Excellent.
It's 7:22.
People are still working.
We slept here, our microphone against the window.
Some guys have been playing Magos y Tabernas,
a board game, for two hours and a half.
They're not working, so we'll goof around with them.
This is easily the longest game of Magos y Tabernas ever.
We started at 5 am.
Are you playing properly?
Good question.
So, what about the game you're making?
We have to go, dude!
I was going to win.
They screwed me so I couldn't do my thing.
Have you been watching the whole time?
No. I come here, get angry, leave for a while, come back.
I came to fetch them to continue working on the game, but...
-That's your team for...? -That's my team.
They won't let them go.
We are at Villa María.
We will reach Córdoba in approximately four hours.
We barely slept.
Some teams have finished their games.
So they went to sleep.
We'll show you all the games the teams are making.
We'll be testing games. Some are already playable.
Here is Facu Mounes, President of FUNDAV,
the main organizers of the Train Jam.
-How are you? -Fine, a little tired by now.
But I'm cheerful because we've finished a game.
Why did you decide to participate?
I help to organize the Global Game Jam.
Though it is a difficult task to organize this event,
I have time to make a little game.
It's a great way to relax
if you have spent many years working on a single game.
It's exciting to be able to do something different for once.
I make the most of all these people.
I wouldn't want to miss the art, the music, parts of what make
great games, just like the ones here.
Here's Seba Gioseffi, programmer of Okhlos,
an Argentinian game launched on Steam in August 2016.
It's hard to believe that his first Jam is on a train.
How was the experience?
It's something completely different.
I have a newfound respect for Jam game developers.
Anyone can make a good game in four years.
It's not so easy to make one on a train in 18 hours.
The game isn't finished, my team is working on it.
I stayed up late because we were designing dilemmas for the game.
Our game is more of an exercise than some run-of-the-mill game.
We are looking at another game that's almost finished.
It's like a Noah's Train. Is that right?
Yes, it's Noah's Train.
Noah rides his train and rescues the animals.
Meanwhile, he is being chased by a giant wave.
He has to keep accelerating not to be caught in the wave.
And he has to pay attention to the animals that appear.
I was thinking about a cliché from the movies.
A woman that runs behind the train
that takes away his lover, who, of course, is leaving forever.
At first, I thought of changing the character into a dog.
Then, I decided to make it more dramatic.
I turned it into a scene from a movie.
The more dramatic you are, the more the game rewards you.
The programmer must be adding the graphics.
And I was taking a nice nap.
That's how bosses work.
Their minions work while they sleep.
And that's very good.
What are your thoughts on this twenty-hour trip?
I'm very surprised that they could finish so many games.
This Train Jam was inspired by the one in the USA.
That Jam is 52 hours long.
And that is a much more generous period of time to make a game.
Especially if you are used to the 48 hour Global Game Jam.
These games made in 18 hours show the skill of the teams.
Could you tell me the guidelines for the project?
-It's a sound that... -What's it like?
Like that.
-I don't know. -Great.
Great.
A round of applause for Blas.
Care to say a few words?
I thank you, FUNDAV, every organization that supported us,
Image Campus, everyone that could lend a hand,
Trenes Argentinos.
And I thank you for coming all the way to Córdoba.
I thank everyone for participating.
This is the first of many to come.
The first Argentina Train Jam has ended.
It was organized by FUNDAV, Trenes Argentinos, Image Campus.
It was awesome. We had a great time and slept little.
Many games were made.
We are going to the EVA.
The teams will show their games and prototypes.
We will be there with them.
But that's all for the first Argentina Train Jam.
We hope it is the first of many.
Thank you for joining us, we love you. See you next time.
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