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!
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!
This two-day game jam will be taking place in Galway, a city along the Atlantic coast of Ireland, during the growing wintery darkness of November. It’s okay, we have hot beverages and donuts to keep you warm and cozy as you create weird and wonderful games!
News: We may have a student film crew at the event making an observational documentary of the game jam. We have not had anything like this before at a gamejam, so before the event we will send out more information regarding this collaboration (e.g. release forms). See our discord server for further discussion and to express any concerns you may have about this so that we can address them.
Everyone is required to agree to our Code of Conduct in order to participate or attend the jam in any capacity.
Attempt to make a game or prototype in a super short timeframe.
This game making even aims to be a creative, collaborative and
welcoming event. We are open to people of all levels of experience and
welcome different types of games; video games, board games, card games,
table top games etc.
Organisers will assist team formation on the first day.
Games made at the event will be played by everyone at the end of the
event, so people can see what everyone has been working on and get a
chance to play each others games. We may assist people wishing to order
food as a group at the end.
When: Day 1 – Sat 21th – 10:00 am – 6:00 pm Day 2 – Sun 22th – 10:00 am – 6:00 pm (4pm submission time.)
We will announce the theme on Saturday morning that will serve as a focus or design pillar for your game. Themes and limitations are great for your creativity – they remove the problem of having a “blank page” of infinite possibility. Feel free to interpret the theme is your own way. Use this as a core part of your game, or at the very least a starting point for your game idea. Hopefully, this focus will serve to channel your creativity and experimentation.
Check our facebook event page and our discord server on the lead up to the Galway Game Jam 14 for updates!
We will not be providing food; please arrange food and snacks for
yourself. Our venue is located in the city centre, so there are plenty
of options for you to get a bite to eat. There are also the Saturday
markets and Sunday markets if you are up for a short walk!
There are some kitchen facilities available. You are permitted to eat
& drink at the gamejam and are responsible for cleaning up after
yourself – thank you!
Organisers and volunteers, identified by “STAFF” badges and during
announcements, will be around during the event. Feel free to ask them
any questions and bring any issues to their attention.
You and your team attempt to make a game or prototype in a super short timeframe. Open to all levels of experience from total beginner to gamedev pro. Organisers will assist team formation on the first day.
A theme will be announced that will serve as a focus for the gamejam. The idea is to interpret the theme and use that as a core part of your game (or at least as a starting point for your game idea!). Hopefully, having this as a focus will fuel your creativity and experimentation with core gameplay. Themes and limitations are great for your creativity – they remove the problem of having a ‘blank page’ of infinite possibility. A possibility space that has boundaries is easier for us to think about and play with, helping us to generate ideas and solutions. A theme also gives all the games from the jam a shared connection (or jam flavour!), though the games might all be different in many ways.
Some details yet to be determined. Check our facebook event page and our discord server on the lead up to the Galway Game Jam 13 for updates!
Food will not be provided, please arrange food and snacks for yourself and try to keep it healthy! The venue is centrally located, so there are plenty of options available (there is also the Saturday markets and Sunday markets!). There are some kitchen facilities available. You are permitted to eat & drink at the gamejam and are responsible for cleaning up after yourself – thank you!
Organisers
and volunteers, identified by “STAFF” badges and during announcements,
will be around during the event. Feel free to ask them any questions, or
bring any issues to their attention.
Awesome T-Shirts!
Our new, limited run, Galway Game Jam t-shirt will feature a design by pro illustrator and animator Tia Freidel made especially for Galway Game Jam 13.Why? Well, enough people have been asking about it! It is clearly past time to show your creative past-time game jam alter-ego to the world!
If you are interested in ordering a t-shirt please get in touch with us at info@galwaygamejam.com to avoid disappointment.
You must agree to our Code of Conduct (see our website) in order to participate in the jam.
Thanks to the wonderful Kinley Raftery for making this delightful poster for us!
We approached Kinley to make the poster because she was the natural choice.
We love the sense of friendliness and coziness that comes through Kinley’s personal style, and want our gamejam to feel just as friendly and welcoming!
Kinley is an illustrator and has taken part in a our previous Galway Game Jams making 2d art assets for games. Her art features in these games made at 1-day long Galway Game Jams:
Fair enough! Just in case you don’t know of GameMaker Studio, or that quote somehow didn’t do it for you, Kevin Lynch sums it up nicely:
For anyone who is interested in game development, but hasn’t quite started yet there’s a Humble Bundle on at the moment with keys for GameMaker Studio Pro, and modules for exporting games to the web and mobile devices. The bundle also includes the source code for a number of games that have been released on Steam and mobile devices. It’s well worth checking out, especially since you can get everything for the small sum of $15!
We’ve plans for another game jam in place. Our last one wasn’t so hot on numbers so this time we’re getting a little hype train going. Before we get started on the hype train we need to build the tracks.
