Portland organization connects indie game-builder community

Carrying a bowl of ice cubes and various cups, Trevor Dodd settled into his recording studio — consisting of a folding table, keyboard, and a computer in the corner of his bedroom — for an afternoon of recording sound effects.

“Let’s try this first,” Dodd said while clinking ice cubes together, pouring water and drinking it, creating exaggerated sounds for an audio recording.

Dodd is the composer and sound designer for Punch Card, a digital card game that he and his teammates created as a part of Portland’s Summer Slow Jams event. Video game “jams” are events where participants make video games from scratch in a relatively short period of time. They usually have a quick, 48-hour deadline, but these “slow jams” in Portland give participants a few weeks to build their games.

Summer Slow Jams are hosted by the Portland Indie Game Squad, also called PIGSquad, a nonprofit organization that hosts workshops and events for game developers in the Portland area.

This is the group’s eighth year hosting the Summer Slow Jams. It holds three slow jams over the course of the summer: one in July, August and September.

“We call them ‘Summer Slow Jams’ because you can take your time with them: they’re usually around two weeks or even longer,” PIGSquad officer Marlowe Dobb said. “And the goal of that is just to be able to sustain doing one every summer month and it being something that’s fun and enjoyable.”