The 2015 Austin Education Game Jam is a Game Development Contest inspiring the creation of
high-quality and commercially viable video games by both professionals as well as students and
teachers. One of the missions for this year’s Game Jam is to provide an interactive learning
experience during the development process, while competing.
Whether the game content is an action shooter taking place in a real historical battle setting or
a platform puzzle game that challenges eye-hand coordination, game development for all 2D,
3D, AR, and VR platforms will be encouraged during this Game Jam. Participants will be able to
make games for mobile and online platforms and submit them to win.
There is an extra emphasis this year to provide helpful mentoring resources for participants
such as sharing game development tool links, sharing game engine FAQ and forum support, and
sharing related SDKs/APIs/Services for use prior to, during, as well as after the Game Jam.
Game Industry and education professionals will award prizes in various categories during the
SxSW Gaming Expo Awards Ceremony as well as there may be helpful presentations, chances to
meet directly with industry leaders, as well as raffles and surprise VIP guests throughout the
educational and interactive events.
This Competition follows the White House Game Jam to continue the promotion of the
President’s vision that education should be fun, interactive, and always evolving with and
supporting student’s needs. The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational
Technology, the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Skillpoint Alliance and Globaloria join the Austin
and US gaming community to support the development of new, high-quality games that
educate.
Following this year’s AEGJ there will be a follow-up event currently titled ‘Publish Your Game
Jam’ to help this events teams get their creations and prototypes to market.
FAQ
Who Can Attend?
The Austin Educational Game Jam is an opportunity for professional, independent, as well as aspiring game developers to join together for a full week of game development with peers, educators, and leaders from the interactive space.
What Should I Bring?
Hardware - Laptops, PCs, MACs, phones and any development hardware needed
Software - Game development tools, digital art assets, game designs, and any software needed
Personal items - Comfortable clothes, snack foods and drinks, and anything that makes you feel focused and relaxed
A healthy mind - experience, creativity, concentration, and a willingness to learn!
AEGJ developers need to provide their own hardware and software. This means that any participant must possess and have necessary access to the development tools they and their team needs from beginning to end.
AEGJ will try to maintain and provide a document containing information about development resources including download links for free and premium game engines and other potentially useful development, marketing, and publishing tools.
What are the Awards Categories?
This year all entries will be eligible for Best Educational Game. The other categories include Best of Mobile, Best of Online, and Best of AR and Best of VR. There will be raffled prizes throughout the week for all Game Jam Developers.
There will be two tracks of competition at the Austin Education Game Jam that teams can enter:
Track 1: Build a New Video Game Prototype: Teams will build a new game prototype for education from scratch over the weekend. This game can be a new addition to an existing game franchise you own or a stand-alone concept to be fully developed after the event.
Track 2 (prizes not applicable for this track): Modify an Existing Non-Educational Video Game: Teams will begin with an existing video game in production along with any associated game assets, and collaborate over the weekend to hack and modify the game adding elements and/or content in order for the game to be used for education.
Award Prizes
In addition to the experience developers get from their peers and learning more about professional game development, The Austin Education Game Jam will have a jury of veteran (including local) industry professionals who will judge the games at the end of the event.
What is the schedule?
The Contest will run from Saturday, March 7th at 10:00AM until Saturday, March 14th at 6:00pm.
Participants are free to work outside the event area during the Contest hours but winners are required to attend the initial registration and final awards show. Some important timestamps are as follows:
Saturday, March 7th
Location: Capital Factory
9:00am: Check-in, Registration, and getting started
10:00pm: Start Hacking
12:00-6:00pm: Educatior and Student Mentoring
8:00pm: End Day 1
Sunday, March 8th
Location: Capital Factory
9:00am: Start Day 2
12:00-3:00pm Educator and Student Mentoring
3:00-5:00pm: Educator and Student Play Testing
6:00pm: End Day 2
Monday, March 9th - Saturday, March 14th
Game Developement
Saturday March 14th
6PM: Final submission Deadline
Sunday, March 15th
Daytime: Judging
6:45 - 7:15PM: Award Winners Present on Geek Stage at SXSW Gaming
Will there be food & drinks?
We will intermittently provide food and drinks during the event when available. There are also many food and drink options available in the vicinity.
Where is it?
Capitol Factory is located at 701 Brazos Street Austin, Texas 78701
We encourage participants to take public transportation. http://www.capmetro.org.
For commuters, street parking is available.
Contact Information:
Chelsea Biggerstaff (Skillpoint) - cbiggerstaff@skillpointalliance.org
Scott Lipton (Globaloria) - scott@globaloria.com
