Galway Game Jam is incredibly excited to announce we are hosting a site for Global Game Jam 2026 in Galway, for the first time at the CREW Digital Hub.
Click the link below to view the Galway section of the Global Game Jam website and register as a jammer. Registration for Global Game Jam 2026 opens on the 1st of December 2025.
To register, create a new user account on the globalgamejam.org website. globalgamejam.org have their own policies for privacy, data and code of conduct which you agree to when registering. Please send any game jam related queries to info@galwaygamejam.com.
Galway Game Jam will have the venue available for participants between 6p.m. and 9p.m. Friday 30th, 10a.m. and 6p.m. Saturday 31st of January, and 10a.m. and 6p.m. Sunday 1st of February.
Galway Game Jam has it’s own Code of Conduct, which participants agree to by attending one of our events, and can be read here :
As always, our jam event is open to any person aged 18 years and older. We try to provide an environment that is about creativity, collaboration and experimentation. We will assist in team formation if you are uncertain about what you would like to be doing for the event.
Our site is focused on being an in-person event, to foster collaboration and teamwork, as well as to meet others in the community. Online participation is possible, but attention will be prioritised towards people attending the event.
Thank you to the CREW Digital Hub for hosting us once again at their venue.
We look forward to seeing many new and returning faces, and good luck for Global Game Jam 2026!
Our jam event is open to any person aged 18 years and older. We try to provide an environment that is encourages creativity, collaboration and experimentation. Our team of volunteers will assist in team formation on if you are uncertain about how to participate.
Our site is focused on being an in-person event, to foster collaboration and teamwork, as well as to meet others in the community. Online participation is possible, but attention will be prioritised towards people attending the event.
A link to join our Discord server can be found at the bottom of the page. Only persons aged 18 or older can join the Galway Game Jam Discord server, and server members are subject to our Code of Conduct and Privacy Policy.
Galway Game Jam is grateful to Ardán for their generous support helping us to facilitate this event.
We look forward to seeing many new and returning faces for Galway Game Jam’s third event of 2025!
Hello everyone! The team at Galway Game Jam is delighted to announce another game jam in Galway, this time hosted for the first time at the CREW Digital Hub.
Galway Game Jam will have the venue available for participants between 10a.m. and 6p.m. Saturday 3rd, and 10a.m. and 6p.m. Sunday 4th of May.
The Galway Game Jam Volunteer Team will have a theme decided upon for the event, which will be revealed during the event.
You can join the Galway Game Jam Itch page to follow updates and have a place to upload your games once the event has finished.
As always, our jam event is open to any person aged 18 years and older. We try to provide an environment that is about creativity, collaboration and experimentation. We will assist in team formation if you are uncertain about what you would like to be doing for the event.
Our site is focused on being an in-person event, to foster collaboration and teamwork, as well as to meet others in the community. Online participation is available, but attention will be prioritised towards people attending the event.
A link to join our Discord server can be found at the bottom of the page. Only persons aged 18 or older can join the Galway Game Jam Discord server, and server members are subject to our Code of Conduct and Privacy Policy.
Important announcement from Galway Game Jam: There is a Red Weather Warning in place for Friday due to storm Éowyn. While it should have calmed by 6pm, volunteers and attendees may have difficulty making it safely to the PorterShed. So we are moving the Friday session online to our Discord.
Hello everyone! Galway Game Jam is back once again to host a site for Global Game Jam. Originally Pulse College Galway began hosting sites between 2015-2017, and from 2018 onwards, Galway Game Jam has been delighted to host a site with support from Portershed a Dó for this exciting event.
To register, create a new user account on the globalgamejam.org website. globalgamejam.org have their own policies for privacy, data and code of conduct which you agree to when registering. Please send any game jam related queries to info@galwaygamejam.com.
Galway Game Jam will have the venue available for participants between 6p.m. and 9p.m. Friday 24th, 10a.m. and 6p.m. Saturday 25th, and 10a.m. and 6p.m. Sunday 26th of January.
Galway Game Jam has it’s own Code of Conduct, which participants agree to by attending one of our events, and can be read here :
As always, our jam event is open to any person aged 18 years and older. We try to provide an environment that is about creativity, collaboration and experimentation. We will assist in team formation if you are uncertain about what you would like to be doing for the event.
Our site is also a hybrid event, meaning participants can join in person or online. Online participation is done through our Discord, a link to join can be found at the bottom of the page. Only persons aged 18 or older can join the Galway Game Jam Discord server, and server members are subject to our Code of Conduct and Privacy Policy.
Our sponsor for this year is once again Ardán, and we’re happy to have them back supporting the talent and hard work of game developers in Galway City.
A bunch of our experienced organisers and volunteers are delivering game development workshops, game jams and “meet the gamer” sessions in libraries across Wexford this June 2024 as part of Cruinniú na nÓg!
We are, each of us, delighted for the opportunity to share our experience and passion for game making with everyone.
Hey folks! Galway Game Jam is hosting a site in Galway City for those who wish to take part in Global Game Jam 2024. Our jam site will be located at Portershed a Dó, 15 Market Street, Galway, as well as having online participation for those who can’t make it in person.
Make some fun!
Click the link below to view the Galway section of the Global Game Jam website and register as a jammer.
To register, create a new user account on the globalgamejam.org website. Globalgamejam.org have their own policies for privacy, data and code of conduct which you agree to when registering. Please send any game jam related queries to info@galwaygamejam.com.
As always, our jam events is open to any person aged 18 years and older. We try to provide an environment that is about creativity, collaboration and experimentation. We will assist in team formation if you are uncertain about what you would like to be doing for the event.
We have secured a venue and sponsors for event insurance and will provide a meal, and tea / coffee for the event.
Ardán (https://ardan.ie/) are providing us with legendary levels of support. You can also reach out at info@ardan.ie with any questions you may have. Ardán also have a presence on our Discord server, so you can feel free to ask questions there.
To register, create a new user account on the itch.io website. Itch.io have their own policies for privacy, data and code of conduct which you agree to when registering. Please send any game jam related queries to info@galwaygamejam.com.
As always, our game jam event is open to all. It is about creativity, collaboration and experimentation. We will assist in team formation if you are uncertain about what you would like to be doing for the event.
We have secured a venue and sponsors for event insurance and will provide a meal, and tea / coffee for the event.
Thanks
Ardán will be supporting our food and drinks for the event, in addition to providing equipment on loan. Ardán are providing us with legendary levels of support in the form of the Wild Galway Games Initiative. More information will be available about this launch-pad initiative at the game jam. You can also reach out to Eoin at info@ardan.ie with any questions you may have. Ardán also have a presence on our Discord server, so you can feel free to ask questions there.
Great news for us jammers and organisers! Our upcoming game jam is supported even more by Ardán, our local game industry support organisation! Ardán were already helping the jam to cover event insurance, but in addition to that, they will sponsor food and drink for the event and provide a few high performance laptops on loan during the game jam.
I’m sure that the jammers will appreciate the bite to eat during the free event, and the reduced build times, I know I will!
Galway Game Jam organisers and jammers alike are thrilled to be receiving this fantastic level of support. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Ardán for future jams, and exploring how we can continue improving our community events.
An email landed in the Galway Game Jam inbox today with some fun stats. Ha, well I know I lost some folks with the words “fun” and “stats” together, but if I haven’t lost you yet, that means you are geeky/nerdy enough to be somewhat intrigued by the results.
These live streams occur over the course of our hybrid and virtual jams. So in a way it is a record of our commitment to providing an interesting event for our remote-jammers. Having this reminder is a nice way to share how much work goes into these events.
Broadcasts:
13
Hours Watched:
124
Days Watched:
5
Highest concurrent viewers:
22
Total Followers:
76
Channel Points:
6.9k
Chat Messages:
305
Top Categories:
Science & Technology
Galway Game Jam Twitch recap 2022
Now we have some data, let’s look at what’s behind it.
Generally we have two people hosting a livestream at any moment. Both are either engaging with the stream or one person will be monitoring the stream, Twitch chat and our Discord server for questions and comments from our remote jammers and viewers.
The hours watched seems to be total of all viewers time spent viewing the livestream. We operated a live stream for parts of the game jams. As we had 2x 16 hour jams and 1x 24 hour jam we can estimate total of 40~48 hours of livestream. As we generally have two people involved in the stream, we can get the estimated human labor cost of the stream itself as 2x 40~48, or 80~96 hours of human labour. Not an insignificant amount!
In addition, while these live-streams are operating, the management of the jam itself is spread to yet another volunteer/organiser. So, if we multiply the base watched hours by 3, we get the human labour of running the watched-hours of livestream while also running the jam.
That’s approximately greater than 120 hours of voluntary effort, to share knowledge and encourage the local/national game development community.
Now to consider all of the effort the jammers went into making games while we where livestreaming. Well, that would take a bit more granular research! Total jammers per jam changes, and people contribute differently to projects – sometimes there are hours when people are not working directly on a game, and sometimes people wake up in the middle of the night with a game idea. So it’s more difficult to track. Suffice to say, we’ve had 22 game projects submitted this year, and these games are from teams of 1-5 people. Not everyone would watch the streams, though their work would be shared at various points if they are happy to. I wouldn’t be shocked if total hours of game making effort at Galway Game Jam events over 2022 was over 1200, for 2×16 hour jams and 1×48 hour jam. I’ll leave you to do more math if you want and please feel free to leave a comment to put my numbers straight.
Given this brief moment of napkin-math analysis to consider how these numbers add up, we would like to put in another brief moment to extend a heartfelt gratitude to all!
Thanks
Thanks to our mentors
A huge thanks to our mentors for taking part in the live streams, for sharing their passion, curiosity, interests, advice, tips, wisdom and personal journey in game dev on the stream, and for showing us all how we can build better games together. Here’s a list of mentors to date – not just over 2022 – we don’t really have many places to thank them so I thought I’d give everyone a shoutout at once (some have come back more than once):
Carlo Azzari
Leela Collins
Paul Conway
Sophia Impetus
Jean Finley
Jamie Galvin
Alanna Kelly
Jupiter Hadley
Basil Lim
Alastair Low
Saoirse Lynch
Helen Lynch
Nik Kemski
Angelo Nicolaou
Dave McCabe
Sam Redfern
Denman Rooke
David Ryley
(I think I may have missed one or two people so please get in touch if you don’t see your name here!)
Thanks to our volunteers
And to our very own volunteers and organisers and moderators who keep incrementally improving upon the live-stream experience and dedicate their personal time to providing the world not only with a game jam, but also with a window into our humble game jam that showcases the creativity and welcoming nature of our community. 2022 Volunteers/organisers:
Darren Kearney
Alanna Kelly
Brian O’Brien
Special Thanks
And a special thanks to Gabe Mullarkey, Eoin Butler Thornton, Alan Duggan, all the folks at Ardán, Galway City Council Tourism dept, Anthony Shaughnessy, Aoife Cheung, Trevor Murray and Mary Rodgers from the Portershed and Sheila, Sarah, Brian and Noreen from Galway Technology Centre for helping to make this year a success, and for supporting the local game dev community.
Thanks to you!
Over 2022’s game jams from Galway Game Jam and our Global Game Jam event, our community has created:
Galway Game Jam 20 “Propinquity”: 7 games
Galway Game Jam 19 “Wild” / “Wild Galway”: 8 games
To register, create a new user account on the globalgamejam.org website. Global Game Jam have their own policies for privacy, data and code of conduct which you agree to when registering and attending a Global Game Jam event. Please send any game jam related queries to darren.ggj@mindcauldron.com.
We are currently looking for mentors and volunteers. Get in touch with us on Discord!
You can also learn more about what Global Game Jam from their site, and ask questions on the Galway Game Jam community discord server, or indeed the Global Game Jam community discord server.
We have secured a venue and sponsors for event insurance, and are looking at getting some snacks sponsored also.
P.S. Fun fact, Galway’s jam-site has been described by Global Game Jam Regional Organiser Thom as one of the “usual suspects” for Ireland, along with IT Carlow / SETU Carlow. This is quite a nice compliment! All the more so because we are a humble grassroots game jam community that stepped up to keep the Global Game Jam tradition going, which was first established by Pulse College staff and students in 2015 while Pulse College operated a Galway campus. Mission successful in my book, and long may it continue!
—
Update Jan 26
Ardán will be supporting our food and drinks for the event, in addition to providing equipment on loan. Huge shoutout to Ardán for the support!
Hi folks, it’s jam time again! We are going to run yet another hybrid game-making event after the success of our previous hybrid jam.
Thanks to support from Ardán and GTC for helping us put together another venue-based jam.
[Update for Day 2] Super thanks to GameCraft (supported by Coding Grace) for sponsoring our post-jam drinks and food. This is a delightful way to wrap up the jam, giving people a chance to catch up, exchange stories and connect. This would not have be possible without the generous support from our geeky event friends at Coding Grace and GameCraft.
For our on-premises jammers, we will be using The Cube co-working space in the Galway Technology Centre located in Mervue Business and Technology Park, Wellpark Road, Galway. Big thanks to Galway Technology Centre for supporting the jam!
Here we will have access to a well equipped space which contains desks, office chairs, power and internet and meeting booths. So, please bring your own computer/laptop and cables.
As we did in our previous hybrid jam, we will be streaming from the venue to our Twitch channel during the event, and a large screen will showcase our virtual jammers and stream right in the space, bringing everyone together in the end. How nice!
Facilities:
Kitchen area with tea/coffee making facility
Accessible unisex toilets and gendered toilets.
Open plan event area with natural light, internet and power (please bring your own laptop/computer + cables)
Large screen (used for presentation/showcase and live-stream)
Individual sound insulated meeting booths (talk with your remote team members more easily)
Located near convenience stores (Apple Green on Tuam Road, Londis on Dublin Road).
Free car parking at venue.
Bus stop on route 405 nearby, with service every 20 mins.
Covid / illness restrictions: In-person jammers, please take an Covid-19 antigen test on the morning of the jam. If your test result is positive, do not attend the venue. If you are feeling ill, do not attend the venue. You are very much welcome to participate remotely, (but take care of yourself!) see links above for remote jamming details and links.
Contact: We will provide stickers to attendees to indicate the level of contact they are happy. We are using a traffic-light system: Red = no contact. Yellow = Hand contact is okay. Green = Full contact is okay. If you are unsure, please ask! (And people can change their mind!)
Photography: If you wish to be excluded from photography please wear the black sticker provided. There will be some photography at the event for promotional use on social media and website by Galway Game Jam.
Hi folks, it’s nearly jam time again! We are going to run a hybrid event: both virtual and venue based participation. We can’t wait to bring you our first in-person compatible jam since 2020! This event will also be part of the Wild Galway Games Initiative from Ardán and Galway City Council, look out for their theme on the day!
Theme and Diversifiers: [to be announced on the day]
When
Carve these dates out of your calendar:
Day 1: Saturday 16th July
Day 2: Saturday 23rd July
Where
Jam in person: Portershed Bowling Green campus, Galway (near St. Nicholas’ church).
We will be using the Portershed’s latest facility at Bowling Green, located in the heart of Galway city.
Here we will have access to an event space which contains desks, chairs, power and internet. So, please bring your own computer/laptop and cables. There are a few small booths available for use, including a sound treated streaming booth (a dream for you audio folks who like to record bespoke sounds and Voice Overs on the day!).
We will be streaming from the venue to our Twitch channel during the event, and a large screen will showcase our virtual jammers and stream right in the space. Hopefully we can collide the seperate worlds of the hybrid jam together even more for this one.
Facilities:
Kitchen area with tea/coffee making facility
Accessible unisex toilets
Open plan event area with natural light, internet and power (please bring your own laptop/computer + cables)
Large screen in event area (used for presentation/showcase and live-stream)
Whiteboards
Individual meeting booths (talk with your remote team members)
Sound-treated streaming booth (to host Galway Game Jam live-stream, but we can vacate during breaks to facilitate game audio recordings)
Centrally located near restaurants, cafés and convenience stores.
Car Parking available beside venue (pay-by-hour, no guarantee of free spaces)
Covid restrictions: In-person jammers, please take an Covid-19 antigen test on the morning of the jam. If your test result is positive, do not attend the venue. You are very much welcome to participate remotely, see links above for details and links.
Contact: We will provide stickers to attendees to indicate the level of contact they are happy with in a traffic-light system. Red = no contact. Yellow = Hand contact is okay. Green = Full contact is okay. If you are unsure, please ask!
Photography: If you wish to be excluded from photography please wear the no-photo badge/sticker provided. There will be some photography at the event for internal use by Ardán, as well as some photography for promotional use on social media and website by Galway Game Jam.
With support from
Ardán
Comhairle Cathrach na Gallimhe | Galway City Council
Jammers (you!) will be working together in teams, or solo, to create a game inspired by a theme. Each year the theme is revealed along with a Keynote speach and discussion around game jams, game development, with tips on how to approach the challenge in a healthy way.
This year the theme has been announced by Global Game Jam in their official theme reveal stream, available here:
This years Diversifiers can be used to add extra challange/spice to your game jam effort. Global Game Jam games can be searched and filtered by the Diversifiers applied to them too, so it can help people discover your game after the jam:
We have decided to stick to the original 48 hour format for this year.
Beginning 5pm Friday 28th of January, and ending 5pm Sunday 30th January.
The community in Galway has been running these events for the last 6 years, including online-only jams during lockdown. We will continue the tradition, and evolve as needs be!
Make a game throughout the month of November! On the last Saturday of the month (27th) we will run a showcase livestream on our Galway Game Jam discord server where we will play everyones jam creations.
Discuss the jam in our #galwaygamejam18 channel and feel free to use the voice channels to organise a team.
Are Galway Game Jam going to run a venue-based jam? We are still uncertain about running a physical Galway Game Jam event. We would love to hear any ideas about how you would like this to be done on our discord, and if you have any suggestions for fun things to do for the game jam that is currently underway, we would love to have them!
We are hosting a virtual gamejam event on split over two weekends in June.
Assistance will be provided to ensure everyone can get up an running for the event. If you have any technical questions please reach out and we will do our best to help you get set up for the jam!
Theme announcement will happen on our Discord server at 10:00am Saturday June 12th.
We are hosting a virtual gamejam event on split over two weekends in December.
Assistance will be provided to ensure everyone can get up an running for the event. If you have any technical questions please reach out and we will do our best to help you get set up for the jam!
Theme announcement will happen on our Discord server at 10:00am Saturday December 12th.
