With just 48 hours, Singapore developers made video games about social anxiety

SINGAPORE – “Have you ever been to a party? No you haven’t, because you’re here at this event,” joked Ms Wren Kuah, 25, one of the game developers at Global Game Jam Singapore.

The more than 100 mostly Gen Zers and millennials in attendance laughed, their tables a mess of bubble tea, Mamee noodle snack wrappers and computers.

Gathered on the fifth floor of lifestyle hub *Scape on the evening of Feb 1, they were watching Ms Kuah and her team of nine present “i need more friends in my stupid baka life”, one of the

50 games made by developers

in under 48 hours. Online, over 100 participants tuned in through live-streaming platform Twitch.

The theme for 2026’s game jam? Mask.

For Ms Kuah’s team, that meant creating a game about being at a house party where you do not know anyone. Players experience a series of mini-games such as trying to find the right time to interrupt a conversation or figuring out if someone is trying to give you a fist bump or a handshake.

When one presses pause, the game depicts the protagonist hiding in a toilet. Exiting the game has the protagonist climbing through it to flee the party.

Its project manager Sarah Mak, 24, said the game is about “social masking”, with a cringe meter in place of a health bar.

“I think we all relate to being socially awkward when interacting with other people,” she added.

The developers opted for a “cursed meme” art style, with shaky lines meant to resemble stressed scribbles in a journal, said Ms Kuah.

Global Game Jam is an annual event that held its first edition in 2009 across the globe, and its Singapore iteration is organised by a group of local developers.

It is about “adorable nerds coming together, becoming friends and making a game together”, said organiser Sham Sri Haran R. Raja, a 29-year-old education technologist at Duke-NUS Medical School.

Developers sharing their creations at the event’s closing ceremony recounted sleepless nights, panicked debugging sessions and missed opportunities.

Another game jam highlight was Faceoff, a stealth game where players step into the shoes of an alien infiltrator trying to fit in using a comical collection of assorted body parts that keep falling off.

This year’s mask theme also meant that many local creations focused on mental health, often infused with recognisably local corporate and school-day anxieties. In Fake It To Make It, players must put on the right mask to please colleagues and avoid getting fired.

Other developers came up with visual novels investigating a murder at a hotpot restaurant, masquerade dress-up games, and platformer games where players access different powers by putting on different masks.

The inaugural local edition of Global Game Jam was hosted by Republic Polytechnic in 2010, and the event was organised by different groups after that. In 2021, the then organisers did not announce another edition.

Some of Ms Foo Jing Ting’s best memories as a student were of taking part in Global Game Jam with friends. The 28-year-old technical lead at local game developer Kopiforge said: “When I found out there was no longer a jam site for Singapore, I knew it was time for me to step up.”

She and a team of friends and volunteers have been organising Global Game Jam Singapore since 2022.

Mr Sham said: “Our game development students here in Singapore don’t get many chances to showcase their creativity and their work.

“Global Game Jam has always been a great way for them to build portfolios and present what they’re capable of doing.”