Second Keynote Announcement: Itch.io's Leaf Corcoran

We are delighted to announce ICGJ 2019 Afternoon Keynote: Leaf Corcoran from itch.io!

In less than six years, indie game website itch.io has become the place for game jams and jam games. Founder of itch.io, Leaf Corcoran, will share the insights of the indie game platform at ICGJ 2019.

Title: Game Jams & itch.io
Speaker: Leaf Corcoran, founder, itch.io
"itch.io has become a prominent place for hosting game jams on the internet over the past few years, currently hosting over 45k game jam submissions. Learn about the origins of our game jam functionality, about the kinds of game jams & submissions that have been uploaded since, the future of game jams on itch.io, and more."

Godot Engine to Keynote ICGJ 2019!

ICGJ 2019 is proud to announce our Morning Keynote: Rémi Verschelde from Godot Engine!

Godot is a cross-platform compatible open source game engine that has gained a lot of interest within jamming communities around the globe. Rémi Verschelde, a project manager from Godot Engine, will present the story of the engine for the participants of ICGJ 2019.

Title: Why Game Jammers Are Falling in Love with Godot
Speaker: Rémi Verschelde, Project Manager, Godot Engine
"Simplicity, power and small footprint combined make Godot the fastest growing game engine among game jams. Learn what this new, free and open source game engine brings to game jams and game development."

Pre-Conference Program: (Academic) Paper Jam

Our Saturday Pre-Conference Program is now ready to be announced in more details: we are running the world’s first research paper jam the day before the ICGJ 2019 conference! The pre-conference program of Paper Jam takes place at GitHub headquarters in San Francisco. Participation to the Paper Jam is free, but the seats are limited and you need to register (choose Pre-Conference Program (Saturday) ticket).

The purpose of the Paper Jam is to facilitate collaboration between scholars interested in studying various issues in game jams, hackathons and game creation events. In the spirit of game jams, we will take a relatively short time to explore and produce (abstract length) papers on the topic of jams and hackathons and present the “findings” at the end of the jam as they would be final papers. The participants can work alone or in small groups and on multiple papers, we will help everyone to find partners to collaborate with! The Paper Jam papers will be presented as lightning talks as part of the ICGJ 2019 conference program and we are hoping that these works will find their ways to the future conference and journal publications as full-fledged research.

We know that the format works! For the purpose of ICGJ 2019 Paper Jam, we run a sample workshop at the Aalto University in Finland at the end of the 2018. Already in half the time planned for the official Paper Jam and with a very small group, we were able to come up with unique and interesting ideas and drafts for future research on game jams! We are super excited to see how the world's first Paper Jam will turn out to be!

Tentative schedule:
10:00 Registration opens, coffee
10:30 Opening words
11:00 Brainstorming and team forming
12:00 Lunch Break
13:00-18:00 Writing
18:00-19:00 Dinner
19:00-20:00 Presentations and discussion

Ps. This is NOT a game jam – at this jam we write academic articles. However, it is possible that some spontaneous game jamming might happen depending on what the academic teams want to explore in their mock-up research. Industry representatives are also encouraged to participate if you are interested in research collaboration with academic partners.

ICGJ 2019 Showcase

The ICGJ 2019 conference will feature a showcase of games and playful projects made at various game jams.

The finalists of the ICGJ 2019 Showcase will be revealed on Sunday 17th March at the conference! (Get your tickets here).

The games were chosen based on the applications and all the applicants have been notified by email.

Tiny Extension! New Late-breaking deadline is 6th February

Due to multiple requests, we have decided to extend the submission deadline for late-breaking full papers, short papers and event reports to 6th of February 2019.

It is only couple of days, but can make such a big difference within the busy schedules of all jam scholars and event organizers. If you already submitted your work, feel free to go through it once more and submit a new version. :)

The paper and report submissions are done through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icgj2019

Good luck with your submissions!

ICGJ 2019 Showcase!

Did you create something amazing and playful at a jam or a hackathon?

ICGJ 2019 Showcase invites you to submit jam games and playful projects created at game creation events. We are interested to see the variety of creative works that game jams and other events can give birth to.

Only selected projects will be showcased. These projects will get one free ticket to the conference ICGJ 2019 held at GitHub San Francisco including lunch and swag.

Eligible projects:
- The project was created on a jam or hackathon
- The project was created between 1st January 2018 and 3rd February 2019
- The project is a game or other playful application

The submission deadline is 4th February 2019. All applicants will be notified by email on 12th February 2019.

The submission form is open at https://goo.gl/forms/hYhHM16JmXM2DBDL2.

Submission Deadline Extended

Due to multiple requests, our submission deadline has now been extended with one week. The new deadline is 19th December 2018.

If you are unsure whether to submit your paper as an event report or regular paper (full paper/short paper), read our post on Event reports.

If you are unsure whether you should submit now or postpone to the late-breaking deadline, read our post on the difference of those two.

We are looking forward to your submissions. Good luck with writing!