IGJ1 was the first Indie Game Jam where I actually made a game. I worked on the engine for IGJ0, but I wasn't able to attend the actual jam for reasons I don't actually remember (Granny work for GDC, maybe?)

The theme for this jam was "games you play with your shadow". After having left Origin, Zach Simpson had developed a piece of art installation software called Shadow Garden. People who wanted to interact with the software would stand between a projector, which was projecting the currently running art piece, and the screen on which it was being projected. This created shadows of the people on the screen, which the Shadow Garden software could detect using a USB or FireWire camera. Since Zach was a jammer in IGJ0, it was a natural choice to use this as the engine for IGJ1, and Zach graciously agreed to donate it.

As with IGJ0, the jam took place at the original Indie Game Barn, courtesy of Chris Hecker and Sean Barrett. We had two Shadow Garden systems set up for testing, and would take turns using them to periodically test our games (which otherwise we could only test on the simulator).

Overall I think this was probably the most fun of any of the jams I've attended, just because the atmosphere in the barn was so great, and the technology we were using was so unusual.

Links: http://indiegamejam.com/igj1/index.html

For IGJ1, my game allowed the player to soar around like a bird using their arms as wings. It was really cool to play - I love it. You could do tricks like in Tony Hawk, things like catching jumping fish or completing the slalom course. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge there was never permission to release binaries of the engine (or something similar), so I do not have a redistributable. Just movies.

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