The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world’s largest game jam event (game creation) taking place around the world at physical locations. Think of it as a hackathon focused on game development.
The weekend allows you to explore the process of development, be it programming, iterative design, narrative exploration or artistic expression. It is all condensed into a 48 hour development cycle. The GGJ encourages people with all kinds of backgrounds to participate and contribute to this global spread of game development and creativity.
The structure of a jam is usually that everyone gathers on Friday late afternoon, watches a short video keynote with advice from leading game developers, and then a secret theme is announced. All sites worldwide are then challenged to make games based on that same theme, with games to be completed by Sunday afternoon.
In January 2014, they had 488 location in 72 countries create over 4000 games in one weekend!
GGJ 2015 is January 23-25. This year four locations are listed for the Ireland – Pulse College Galway, IT Carlow, Griffith College Dublin and LIT Thurles. See the website and then contact the individual venues.