The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is a yearly hackathon where people around the world participates to make videogames based on a theme.

Ever since 2018, Noisebridge has been hosting a local site for the Global Game Jam.

Main website of the Global Game Jam: https://globalgamejam.org/

NEXT EVENT: Global Game Jam 2026 Jan 25-Feb 1 Hybrid Noisebridge @272 Capp St. & on Discord.

From the website https://globalgamejam.org/about

Innovation - Experimentation - Collaboration

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. It is the growth of an idea that in today’s heavily connected world, we could come together, be creative, share experiences and express ourselves in a multitude of ways using video games – it is very universal. The weekend stirs a global creative buzz in games, while at the same time exploring 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 2018, we had 803 locations in 108 countries create 8,606 games in one weekend! GGJ 2019 is January 25-27 at a location near you… if not you can make one of your own. The jam is known for helping foster new friendships, increase confidence and opportunities within the community. The jam is always an intellectual challenge. People are invited to explore new technology tools, trying on new roles in development and testing their skills to do something that requires them to design, develop create, test and make a new game in the time span of 48 hours.

The GGJ stimulates collaboration and is not a competition.

GGJ Team

GGJ is run by a small international team of volunteers banded together in the "Executive Committee" (EC) of Global Game Jam, Inc. The team is led by Executive Producer Jo Summers.

Links to games made during GGJ @ Noisebridge 2018-present:

Pop the bubbles up top to drop items on tiles below. Used them to fight your way to the next stage....

Play as a witchy soda pop bartender living life in the modern world. Listen to your customer's ails and craft a special bubbly brew for them. ...

Swipe to move the water, make the biggest bubble, and guide it to the surface. It's a perfect score if you get them all to the surface as one bub...

A game where you shoot little beady guys at a bubble and match like colors of them to prevent the bubble from getting too large and bursting!...

GGJ 2024 @ Noisebridge organized by nizhanxi

You are a driverless car that has achieved sentience. Take sweet revenge on those who enslaved you, the people of San Francisco! Your batteries may be...

Those awkward moments......

You are an AI driverless car that has achieved sentience. Take sweet revenge on those who enslaved you, the people of San Francisco! Your battery may ...

Community Garden Simulator: Community Garden Simulator is a relaxing journey into a community generated greenhouse. Wander through the greenhouse and see assets uploaded by other community members, or navigate to the dashboard...

R.O.O.T.S. Defense By Aaron & Nat: Defend your base from sinister little crawlies.

Roots Gasping Thumleweed: open world root- plant simulate game

Take Root: A card strategy game where the goal is to create the largest connected root system!

The Tonightest Show Starring James Fallow ft. The Rooots: Versus game where one player plays a typing game as they try to read text from a teleprompter, and the other player plays a rhythm game. Controls: Typing Game - Keyboard Rhythm Game - Controller...

2 beings but 1 exit: Sci fi alien concept where we can play with that dual perspective. A human trapped in a museum where something feels off and you keep trying to leave but somehow you can't? As a the alien as...

Black-White: Stop the stars on their path by placing towers. Maximum of 4 towers, try to win with only 3!

Duel Mean-ing: A simple fighting game that switches between PvP and PvE combat. CONTROLS: Player 1: A and D Move, Spacebar to start attack, S to cancel attack during telegraph phase Player 2: Left Right...

HimAndHer: It's a fairy tale about duality... :D -Move移动: WASD -Mouse Click鼠标左键: Shoot Boomerang

In Virtuo: Playing with virtual cats and real people in a virtual world

lostrpg: A duality game about helping a sad kid escape a very normal forest, but once you hold his hand you see its not so normal after all.

Sun Rain: Grow a beautiful flower by controlling the weather. You can make it sunny by pressing the left arrow key. Pressing the right arrow key will make it rainy. The flower needs sun and rain to live. Too...

Yer Out: Play as a baseball umpire were your only two options are to call it as you see it! It was a dozy to create a sport's sim over the last week, but one of my first jobs was an umpire. Good luck...

Arrow Knight of Ull'r: The Kingdom has been lost. Many have fallen trying to find their way amidst the insurmountable darkness of The Vord. So long as the Hex King has the soul of the land in his grasp, no peace shall be...

Art Doesn't Steal It's Self: Art Doesn't Steal It's Self - by lil PDF

Bag Of Wonder: You're a merchant tasked with saving a fantasy world, however you only have access to the Universal Lost and Found using your Grab Bag of Holding. Fight the monsters using whatever you can get...

Eva: A game about losing someone. Made this solo. In a game where you can only go left or right, you lost someone. Now you have to find that person. How hard can it be?

Fluffy Dollop's Lost and Found: Race against your rivals to explore the temple ruins. Discover wondrous items to help you on your journey. Be the first to find the crown to win!

Lost Remembrance: "While visiting home for the holidays, you rediscover the joyful memories from childhood.” Our epic team submitted this game for the Global Game Jam 2021. The theme was Lost & Found. We...

Mind your Marbles: An attempt at creating a god game where you control elements with your mind using the NextMind developer SDK. By focusing your mind you can trigger elements in the game and alter the landscape.

Obelisk: An exploration puzzle game where you find yourself lost in some mysterious woods and are trying to find your way out...

RATS: Sneak around crates and walls in this stealth death-match frenzy. This game is a multiplayer game and makes use of multiplayer. There is no local multiplayer.

Satellite in F# Minor: Explore a quiet galaxy in search of lost fragments from a long-past civilization.

Thanks, I Hate It!: Try failing. Main hint: you can't.

The ok Adventures of Jofree: This Cinematic Gaming Experience centers around 2 characters. Phanstasmo, a super hero who frequently "gets lost" in time and space, on epic adventures around the universe. Then there'...

VOXVOXVOX: ASCII isometric voxel game

Work-life Balance Talent: During pandemic, we have main time at home. Try your best to balance your work life balance, please don't lose your concentration and entertainment in your daily life. Find you happiness!

Abstractor Zero: Abstract puzzle

Every Problem Looks Like A Nail: I guess Wac-a-mole meets job simulator? How to play: WASD to move, LMB to use the hammer. The "looking busy" timer will drain as time goes on, hit any object to fill it. Some objects...

Fix IT!: Fix the pipes so that the water reaches its destination

Leaktastic: Your cave is leaking! Use the bricks to plug up the leaks. Throw bricks at the flowing water to stop the flooding.

Metal Snail Gear Solid: You're in a rush for time to fix the communities food machine before the children complain! Navigate your over and under obstacles and through enemies to prevent the rumbly tummies!

Rep Air: In REP AIR, the new state-of-the-art in air selling simulators, you take on the role of a 5 year old air rep! Look at all the features we managed to cram into this game in the last 48 hours...

Rope Man!: Repair the city's broken fire hydrants with your trusty rope!

Sketchy Towers: 4 Players: 4 players and you use your phone as a controller. Neat right? Rock goblins and towers are like oil and water. Goblins hate them, the towers that is -- not oil and water. Anytime a tower turns up...

Stop, Co-op, and Roll: In a factory that's come ablaze, two players, one in VR, team up to avoid disaster. The non-VR player puts out fires on the factory floor, while the VR player looks down from the control room,...

Wormcraft: You and your enterprising space-worm buddies are suddenly left stranded when your spaceship breaks down. Luckily you seemed to have crash-landed into an alternate dimension of magical wrenches that...

Bowel Battle

Work from the inside to keep “Bait” the fish happy. The imbalance of bad bacteria in Bait’s belly is negatively influencing Bait's mood (maybe Bait ate some bad Taco Bell). You and your friends...

BridgeNoise

Liz is a programmer who came to Global Game Jam at Noisebridge with purpose: to make a game! By herself. When the aliens of her imaginary game planet turn out to be real, they transmit clues to...

Buzz Word Factory

Buzz Word Factory is a builder game in which you need to build an assembly line to combine letters into words to sell and make money! Time for system designers and scrabble junkies to unite!

Crap Connector

This game solves the ages old question of "how do I plug my cat into the speaker"! Starting with one type of signal output, the player must quickly match and connect objects until the...

Cult

Amass a following and grow your cult.

Dread Sonar

War submarine lost at sea. Must find a way to get home without dying or being eaten.

Headhunters

You are a head. Try not to be a head. Take other players heads, and feed them to your teams monster.

I've Got Feelings

Our hero has been working tirelessly on their project. They start with enthusiasm, but as they progress, Doubt begins to take hold. Is this going to be great? Will it even be good? Are they even...

Infect'em All

Tap ONE person to infect. See how fast you can infect everyone!!!!!

Konnect

Konnect is a game with Kinect, where you guide lil'orbs home by forming a connection across the chasms with your arm. To play this, you'd want to set up Kinect sensor about 2 meters from...

Labwork

You are a parasitic organism trying to break out of a lab by turning the residents into hosts for your hive mind.

Lost in Transmission

A two player deduction game played in 5 minutes for PC/Phone. Lost in Transmission is about two people trying to communicate across country borders where an authoritarian government modifies and...

Night of the Dead Living

Night of the Dead Living is a game about being a zombie. Not just any zombie, but the best zombie. Compete with up to 4 players to infect as many healthy humans as possible. Humans are clever and...

One Fish Two Fish

A game about eating Use controllers to play left analog moves character "a" button to fire on an xbox controller

One Fish, Two Fish

Two player physics game where each player eats to get as large as possible and knock the other player into the water.

REFILL

Survive as long as you can in this arcade-style action game. Keep the electromagnetic field that is your play area alive by TRANSMITTING energy from a flying ball to receptors scattered around the...

Trench Troopers

You are a message runner in the trenches of World War I. You must find the captain and deliver crucial messages to him, while avoiding the incoming artillery strikes!