LIT Thurles was the focus of the 5th anniversary celebrations of Global Game Jam last weekend. Global Game Jam is a weekend-long digital game creation marathon which takes place in major cities around the world. The event took place across 321 sites in 63 countries from Auckland to Madrid to San Francisco, with thousands working on games around the same theme, that of a beating heart.

The eyes of the world descended on LIT's Thurles campus via its live YouTube video feed allowing viewers to interact with ‘jammers’ while they designed and developed games. Game developers worked on a common theme building fun games that were based on 'Heartbeat'.

The most popular game 'Human after all' was produced by Games Design and Development Thurles students Joseph Bentley, Christopher Carroll, David Morton and Creative Multimedia student Mark Luna from LIT's Clonmel campus.

The game’s protagonist is a Robot; searching for a heart much like Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. The Robot must harvest other robots while navigating a complex maze using a physics based 'jumping' mechanic. Players that complete the increasingly complex levels eventually find a heart for their Robot, but are left pondering is the Robot human after all.

Nine other games were produced at LIT Thurles during Global Game Jam and all games will be exhibited at LIT Tipperary’s upcoming Games Fleadh in March, an annual event that takes place at LIT’s Thurles campus and is a major event on the Irish games circuit.
Details of the Games Fleadh events are available via http://www.gamesfleadh.ie