What is a game jam?

A game jam brings together all types of game developers, amateurs, professionals and students to innovate new games in a single weekend or a similar short time span. Typically participants work in small teams, racing to produce as complete a game as possible with limited time and resources, but unlimited creativity.

Global Game Jam

Global Game Jam is a worldwide event, world’s largest game jam event in which several game jams are organized all over the world at the same time. The event lasts 48 hours, and is arranged on last weekend of January, starting on Friday at 17:00 GMT+13 (06:00 EST) in New Zealand and then at 17:00 local time in each time zone. All Global Game Jam sites have the same theme, which is revealed just before the jamming begins.

The first GGJ was held in 2009 with 1650 participants in 23 countries, producing 370 games. The event has grown each year, and in 2013 the number of participants had increased to 16,705 in 63 countries with 3248 games.

GGJ is a volunteer run organization, created in collaboration between Susan Gold, Gorm Lai and Ian Schrieber. Visit the GGJ website to find more information about the GGJ and browse and download any of the games from the previous game jams.

Finnish Game Jam

Finnish Game Jam (FGJ) is a collaboration between several Finnish jamming sites taking part in the Global Game Jam. In 2010, Finland took part in the Global Game Jam for the first time with three locations and has grown each year since then. In 2013 there were 12 locations all over in Finland from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. A registered association Finnish Game Jam ry was founded in 2013.