BUFFALO, N.Y.-- More than 40,000 game designers.
109 countries.
Hundreds of thousands of brand new video games.
Buffalo Game Space joins one of the largest worldwide groups of video game designers Friday night for the 10th Annual Global Game Jam, a 48-hour long competition of designing video games from scratch.
The prompt is announced at 5:00 Friday.
Games are submitted online by 5:00 Sunday.
And that's all anyone knows for now.
The event has represented one of the most accessible opportunities for local game creators to come together, merge and compare their skills, and network with fellow game designers from around the world.
One of this year's designers, TJ Cordes-- who also runs his own online comic book called Beezerker-- said his first Global Game Jam in 2016 helped restore his creative energies after he'd lost track on several projects.
"Just getting back into that motion of making things and remembering 'Hey I like doing this,'" Cordes said of why he loves this event. "I like starting things, I'm not as good at finishing things, and just being at a game jam where the idea is start something and also finish it within 48 hours, it's a crazy thing to ask."
Crazy or not, Cordes has assumed several leadership roles at Buffalo Game Space since the 2016 event, including his work helping local students develop games during the AT&T Queen City High School Game Jam in October.
He will jump back in with fellow game designers Friday night for the largest competition of his kind, and everyone will enjoy Sunday evening at 5:01 when the deadline comes.
Then, Cordes said, everyone gets to kick back, relax, and sample games others created at the same time,
Thousands, and thousands, and thousands of games.