I remember my whole leg was cramped by the time I drove halfway through University Road, I was crying with pain, but the excitement and ecstasy of winning beat the negativity and somehow, I reached home, jumping on first my dad, then my mom, surprising them. That was the story of how my team made my first game jam a most memorable and winning weekend, something that I'd never forget. Even if it's the 3rd prize, it was a city-wide position, and we beat 15 other teams to get it (total teams were 18, leaving 1st and 2nd prizes, hence 15 teams, leaving ours out). Thank you, my dear teammates, Alishba, Sunaira, Ushan, Ammad, Shameer, Hammad and Tasbeeha
How My FIRST Game Jam Turned into a Winning Memory
By Wajeeha Iftikhar
Karachi, Pakistan
Over the past decade — and especially in the last five years — Pakistan’s “game jam” scene has grown from sporadic hackathon-style events into an increasingly vibrant community-driven movement. What started with early local jams and workshops has expanded into larger competitions like the ‘Rookie Game Jam’ with hundreds of teams from across the country, university-hosted 48-hour jams, and regular “Global Game Jam” sites in cities such as Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi that bring developers together under a shared theme each January. Alongside these, indie events organized through platforms like itch.io and community hubs such as IGDA Pakistan and the ‘PakGameDev’ Discord keep the momentum alive with bi-annual and themed jams, fostering collaboration, experimentation, and networking among students, hobbyists and professionals alike — even attracting international formats like the Solana Web3 Game Jam to engage local talent.
For those who do not know, a game jam endeavors to let the participants, through teams, or solo, create a game from scratch, within a time limit and a theme revealed only hours or days before the jam starts. This not only cultivates imagination and creativity, it promotes teamwork, communication skills, as well as improves technical skills and teaches time management.
My name is Wajeeha Iftikhar, I am a solo indie game developer, living in Karachi. I started game development only five years ago and have always been solo, hence never participated in any game jam. That is, until January this year.
The Ministry of IT Pakistan, Hum TV, Ignite, NED, LUMS and a few more prominent organizations came together to bless us with CEGA - the Centre of Excellence for Gaming and Animation - in Karachi within NED premises, in November 2025. For my curiosity and since I was tired of working alone, I decided to actively participate in its events. I got registered in a training called "Pre-Production”, in which they cover all things pre-development, animation or game, like concept art, story, script, etc. It was in this Training I made new friends and ultimately the team that led me to win the Global Game Jam. Although the course had been short, our collaboration was so harmonious that we all became really close friends by the end.
In the last week of January, when we were on the final stages of our pre-production course project, we were invited to the Global Game Jam happening the weekend of January 30th at CEGA. In our team of eight, though we had very talented and skilled people, I was the only game developer. Three of my friends were very interested, and though I wasn't, their enthusiasm was contagious and I decided to go with the flow and try something that seems like the "nemesis" of a solo developer. So, five of us, myself, Alishba, Ushan, Ammad and Sunaira agreed to have some fun with something new. The event this time was to follow the Global Game Jam's rules and the theme. The Global Game Jam is not just global, it's an annual event, and has no winners. The difference with our jam would be that we had cash prizes for 3 winners and 2 runner-ups who would then proceed to the national platform in Islamabad in the Indus Game Jam in the second week of February. Hence, ours was a competition, which made it more challenging.
We waited impatiently for the theme reveal which was on 24th January, Sunday, when I was out having a family dinner. I remember everyone looking at me with surprise because my phone stays in my purse on such events - except for taking photos - and that night I was glued to the screen watching the theme-relive video. The theme was "MASK", as we all gathered on our WhatsApp group, everyone saying at the same time of being reminded of The Mask, the classic animation of Cartoon Network. Though there were still five days before the jam actually started we couldn't relax and got into discussion. After some brainstorming, Ushan left the conversation and Alishba and I continued late into the night. The idea was almost fully baked before we decided to retire for the night.
The next day, we wanted to stay back to discuss the idea further, but the plan didn't pan out. It wasn't until Wednesday that we discussed the idea again. By then Ushan was suffering from flu, but he had added a new member - Hammad, who had added his friend, Shameer, both Unity developers. My instinct told me something was wrong with adding more members, but I hadn't felt very confident being the only developer, and Ammad had been insisting we use RPG Maker instead of Unity - which I didn't like when tested - so I didn't share my concerns. Instead, both Alishba and I started talking to the new members and they gave us a few questions to consider so we could refine details.
Still too occupied with our course project, however, the conversation couldn't keep up, and it wasn't until Friday, 30th January, that we got back to it again, at the CEGA center, where I reached first, followed by Hammad and Shameer only minutes later. Alishba was better versed in telling the idea than I was, and she was late. But she was bringing Biryani - home-cooked - so we forgave her. When she joined us, we became very active with the discussion, getting seriously engrossed, and refining more and more details. As Sunaira joined us, we repeated the idea and it refined even more. Sunaira was our only member not interested in games, but I suppose our enthusiasm was contagious enough to get her interested. We were all busy talking when Ushan and Ammad arrived, the last two members of our group, and then we discussed everything once more. Our team was large and kept capturing the attention of the mentors, staff, and social media organizers. We didn't mind - we were all very clear about each of our roles, we were also confident we could finish a good playable game in the time we had.
We were then called in for an orientation session, where we were introduced to the rules, the mentors and the jury, as well as the judging criteria. We came back with yet another team member, Tasbeeha, an artist this time. We were exhausted when it was over, but we decided to quickly make up our minds about the mechanics of the game, and then distribute tasks. Alishba is a really good artist, especially with character designing, not just drawing it, but also the concepts, Sunaira and Ammad were discussing things to clarify the whole game idea, so they could work on the narrative, Ushan took up the task of UI design and game level design, Tasbeeha said she'd do the environment and insisted we did 3D, whereas Shameer, Hammad and I distributed the "systems" that were to be used in the game. By the time we finished, it was time to go - though we'd have stayed overnight if it had been allowed.
As it happened, us developers stayed up most of the night working on our tasks - all developers are not just workaholics but also night owls: coding is addictive. We had a three-hour session the next day with Sir Kamran, which would take out precious time from our game jam limit, so we had to compromise somewhere. I vaguely remember Alishba sharing some character art concepts and Tasbeeha making suggestions, but as for the rest, it's a blur because I was too engrossed in coding. The next day, we tried to reach the center early and start out but we were not just exhausted from the night, the center opens at 9AM, and our session started at 11, so we didn't have much time to do much. Tasbeeha had asked for the digital tablet, because hers wasn't working, and I had taken my dear Huion tablet, special because it was my first, but Ushan had also brought his XP-PEN display tab, so mine stayed ignored during the day. Both brands are surpassing Wacom and their prices are way more affordable than Wacom, both brands' devices have excellent performance. Tasbeeha had also insisted during the night that we do 2.5D at the very least if not 3D and I had made changes to Hammad's player controller, but then we returned to 2D and I had to amend the changes again. Sir Kamran's lecture meant the rest of the gang was also there, as well as all the other trainees for all trainings. These friends boosted our motivation more and when we scrambled back to our seats after the session, at least I was quite energetic.
By evening, the development was done. However, when you work on a project with multiple developers, the difficult thing is not completing individual tasks, but to merge the project together with all developers' work together and then make it work. For this purpose, they have what is known as "version control" and collaboration services or apps. One of these happens to be "GitHub", which is the most widely used platform for such purposes. However, GitHub comes with its drawbacks, one of which is not being able to merge the project files properly, and thus not just corrupting the project, but also ruining everyone's hard work. Even though we were all ready with our "systems", when Hammad merged our project on his system, GitHub gave an error and hence we all went into the panic mode. After trying numerous times, when invited to have some lunch, we decided to take a break and go fill ourselves. Later, when we went back and had the same error, we just sat with our heads in our hands. A couple of the mentors and CEGA managers visited our table, asking us to show them what we had done. We informed them - with brutally defeated faces - that our project had crashed and we were unable to merge. We also asked for help, and requested that the deadline be extended - from 10Am next day to a later time - even though we realized it was possible, it might do no good. However, our request was granted - not for us, but because several other teams had also had problems, and one had even lost their main scene completely, hence making them give up. After retrying infinite times, Hammad told us all to just go home and let him handle it. I hadn't realized it then, his laptop had far less advanced specs than mine, or I'd have told him to let ME handle it instead. However, what's done is done. We told him to call us anytime in the night if he needed help, and, deciding the time for next day, we all went home. Apparently, the environment or character art wasn't complete, so Tasbeeha asked if she could take my tablet home, and I agreed.
After staying up most of the night, trying to understand the ongoings of the artists, and failing to, I inquired from Hammad about the progress, and since he reassured me again, I decided to get some shuteye - it was already Fajr when I did, though, so I barely got a couple of hours. We had been told we would be free by 5pm on Sunday evening, so I decided to drive myself instead of taking the driver this time - the previous two days I had taken a break. I went as early as I could but was still late enough. Hammad was already there, and I learned he hadn't slept more than a couple of hours, and nothing had come of all the night time he had spent on the project - so he said. Shameer hadn't slept at all, I discovered. Even so, somehow, magically, our project had now come together, was working, and all we needed to do was add graphics and then test it. Also to add were the scene narratives.
At this point I should describe some details of our game. Since the theme was "MASK" but there was no rule on how to use it or how prominent it needed to be in the game, we had decided to go with a psychological theme. Our protagonist was a cyber bully, who had been pulled into a "system" which was judging him, through different prospective "bullying scenarios", whether he deserved to gain back his freedom, or if he still hadn't reformed and would have to stay in the system forever. It's a very simple, short and choice-based 2D platformer game. If the player makes the wrong choice, their mask increases; if they make the right choice, their mana increases - which is the chance to gain freedom. The scenes, questions and choices needed to be tricky enough to make the player unintentionally select the wrong choice, hence creating a good narrative wasn't easy. The name of the game is "Subject 404", 404 being the technical code of "Page not found" error and signifying the loss of identification. 404 also indicated there had been 403 subjects who went through the system before the player.
As Ammad and Sunaira worked on it, I tried to guide them and had them make some changes. The environment, UI and characters were also ready then, and we finally chose some soundtracks for the game. It was already late, even though the deadline had been extended to noon, we were still even more late. At about 240PM, we ran to the office to submit our game, satisfied with our efforts, and refuting Hammad when he said we had no chance of winning. After waiting almost endlessly for our turn, and not having the energy or desire to eat anything, a random remark from Hammad made us start working again. As I said previously, our table and team had been getting a lot of attention, of mentors, of the staff, other teams, and the social media organizers. We were asked for photographs continuously and were happy enough to comply. It happened again, then, as we started to create "masks" for ourselves, to wear to the jury when we entered the room. Ushan was quick to use the extra paper lying to create one, and I followed, copying his actions. Then everyone wanted one, and Ushan obliged, making one for each. We decorated them as we wanted - doing makeup, adding moustaches, even adding numbers.
We waited again, and our turn came suddenly. The jury was amused when they saw everyone entering the room with masks on. They asked us the concept, played the game, gave us some suggestions, and then asked us to introduce ourselves with our role in the game jam. We were all very confident about the work we had done, so we got through the questioning easily. As we went out, we heaved sighs of relief, then I set out to submit the game to the main global game jam site. They had different terminologies and we got stuck, asked for help, then got busy with some more photographs before we finally submitted them to the site. Later, we were asked to submit our social media handles, and I somehow got separated from everyone in the hubbub. When I called, Alishba asked me to come to the DMS - that is NED's cafeteria, and I was met with an empty space, when I called again, Tasbeeha said she could see me, and we returned to the center, myself, Hammad, Shameer and Tasbeeha, because the other four were already there. After nibbling on the skins of the potato samosas and some chips, we decided we still weren't full, so we left Tasbeeha, Hammad and Shameer at the center and went in search of food again. No sooner had we received our coffee - they take a long time making coffee - we were called to come back. We did.
Now came the time when our hearts started to beat faster with every second, and our nervousness increased. When we reached the center, Sir Fawad was trying to lighten up the mood - and failing, since everyone was tense and exhausted. Our judges took their time in getting to the hall, and we became increasingly nervous. Even thinking back, after more than a month has already passed, I still get goosebumps - our game was simple, it had made use of the theme cleverly, yes, and it was a unique idea, but there were other games there that were far better, some of them were 3D with better stories and implementation. We were hopeful against all odds, but we realized the reality as well. As we sat down, tired, I noticed the very odd arrangement of my teammates - Ammad was sitting behind me, Alishba and Ushan in front, and then I had Sunaira, Tasbeeha, Hammad and Shameer, on my left all in a row. Alishba's chair was to become a victim of my nervous tremors and reactions.
They started with announcing the honorable mentions first, then moved on to the runner-ups. As none of the names were ours, our disappointment started to set in as we started to become sadder. I saw from the corner of my eyes Hammad gesturing Tasbeeha that we won't make it. I think it was still the positivity of the whole team that led us to the final results. The next name they announced was the 3rd prize winner, and my heart suddenly stopped, my BP shooting to the moon, my eyes popping out - it was us!! Sunaira was first to recover among us, jumping up screaming, and after shaking myself into movement, I shook everyone else to get up and walk to the front, so we could get our "prize". I was trembling, holding in my emotions and I felt Alishba's tremors through mine. We both had tears in our eyes, and every single one of us was grinning so much our faces hurt. After returning to our seats, I did everything I could to recover from the shock, hence missing out even on who won the second and first prizes. When we got out of the crowded hall of chairs, we embraced each other, the girls, the power in our squeezes letting the other know how happy we were. I immediately called and informed my parents, left messages for my best friends and got back to photography. We also had a cake to cut and eat, and we were still overexcited as we all assembled with several members there for several photos. The last thing to do was get our goodie bags.
I remember my whole leg was cramped by the time I drove halfway through University Road, I was crying with pain, but the excitement and ecstasy of winning beat the negativity and somehow, I reached home, jumping on first my dad, then my mom, surprising them. That was the story of how my team made my first game jam a most memorable and winning weekend, something that I'd never forget. Even if it's the 3rd prize, it was a city-wide position, and we beat 15 other teams to get it (total teams were 18, leaving 1st and 2nd prizes, hence 15 teams, leaving ours out). Thank you, my dear teammates, Alishba, Sunaira, Ushan, Ammad, Shameer, Hammad and Tasbeeha.
