MADJAM is an Edmonton-based, year-long event made up of quarterly game jams, each associated to a global or local event. We give local game industry professionals and amateurs a chance to meet, mingle, and create games with one another in a fun and creative environment. We also host talks from local game developers and sponsor representatives at each MADJAM event.

MADJAM participants are challenged to create a game around a series of restrictions determined by the MADJAM organizers. These restrictions are designed to encourage participants to move out of their comfort zones. Each game jam has a specific theme, a time limit, and a set of optional design challenges called "badges".

At the end of each event, our panel of experts selected from various Edmonton game studios and educational institutions give each team personalized feedback and select their favourite games. Points are then tallied to determine the winning teams from the event, with points being awarded by the judge's choices and the completion of badges. Team members from the winning teams receive prizes at the events.

MADJAM takes earning points one step further by holding an individual competition that runs across all four events. Any points earned by a team are also earned at the individual level. The points accumulate until the last event, at which point the three top ranking individuals will receive some amazing prizes. By incorporating this individual competition, we hope to encourage participants to work with different teammates and to push the boundaries when creating their games.

In between events, the MADJAM games are posted online on the MADJAM site and subjected to a public vote. Teams with the most votes at the end of the voting period will earn more points to their individual tallies.

There are four MADJAM events occurring throughout 2015, one of which has already come and gone with great success.

Global Game Jam Event Date: January 23 - 25, 2015
Location: Startup Edmonton

The first MADJAM event was a 48 hour game jam held in conjunction with Global Game Jam. The event brought 74 game makers to the Mercer Warehouse, making this Global Game Jam the largest in Edmonton's history. Together, the MADJAM participants made fifteen spectacular games which are available online for free. The speaker list included Andrew-David Jahchan of MADSOFT Games, Mark Barazzuol of EDAC, Trent Oster of Beamdog, and Erik Johnson of Infinite Monkeys. This event also played host to two representatives from Edmonton's City Council and a Microsoft swag booth. Throughout the weekend, over 200 people dropped in to watch the event livestream on Saturday and we had CityTV drop by to cover the event as well. We managed to give away over $6000 worth of prizes and goodies courtesy of our sponsors. You can read more about the event and the MADJAM organizers' thoughts here.

Game Discovery Exhibition Event Date: April 25 - May 2, 2015
Location: The Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS), University of Alberta & other Edmonton locations

The second MADJAM event will be a week-long celebration of game development in Edmonton, kickstarted with the brand-new Game Discovery Exhibition on Saturday night. Teams will be formed at the event and the theme announced. During the week, spaces around Edmonton and St. Albert will be made available for teams to meet and work, and we will be hosting a series of talks on development and design. Judging and a MADJAM after-party will take place the following Saturday, May 2nd.
Click here for details!

Unity Jam Event Date: July 17 - July 24, 2015
Location: Northlands & other Edmonton locations

The third MADJAM event is focused on development using the Unity engine. Held during the final week of K-Days, Northlands will be hosting a MADJAM booth in their Tech Life exhibit. Much like the GDX game jam, the Unity event will also feature a series of talks spread out across the week to discuss game development and design.

Extra Life Edmonton Event Date: November 7, 2015
Location: Northlands

The fourth and final MADJAM event will be held at alongside the Extra Life Edmonton 24 hour gaming marathon. The event will be streamed live and participants are encouraged to raise funds for Extra Life Edmonton before attending the event. This event will not have event-specific prizes in order to help raise money for the Stollery Children's Hospital.

Edmonton is a city on the cusp of a video game explosion. With the University of Alberta, Grant MacEwan, NAIT, and Edmonton Digital Arts College each launching their own game industry programs, we've seen an enormous surge of students looking for work in the industry. As it stands, Edmonton is ill-equipped to deal with the amount of graduates with only one AAA studio headquartered in the region (Bioware). While there are many indie studios cropping up, expanding a team is costly and often not at the top of an indie studio's priorities. Many game industry graduates have no choice but to leave Edmonton for greener gaming pastures or be forced to follow a different tech career path. This brain-drain inevitably results in a stagnant, closed-off game development community. We want to change this.

While there are a few initiatives in the region that are working to bring developers together (such as GameCamp Edmonton and a few student organizations), we firmly believe that there is a demand for a better, more permanent support structure for Edmonton'sup-and-coming game developers. MADJAM provides people with a place to experiment with game creation. MADJAM events will help give rise to new game studios, allow new game makers a chance to expand their portfolios and meet industry experts, and hopefully attract national and international attention to Edmonton as a game development hot spot.

The primary organizers of MADJAM 2015 are members of MADSOFT Games, a small independent game development studio and publisher. We moved the company across Canada from Montreal in 2013 and we haven't looked back since. Current projects for the company include Project: Velyria, Avillum 2.0, Aikonia, and Me and My Dinosaur 2.

Lead Organizer
Andrew-David Jahchan is a game developer and designer from Montreal, Quebec. He has been working in the game industry for over six years and is a co-founder of MADSOFT Games alongside Jose Jimenez III.

Running large game jams like MADJAM does not come cheaply. We will be using monetary contributions to fund prizes and goodie bags for participants, renting and outfitting venues for talks and meetups, and advertising on the web. Given the chance, we will also use the money to rent booths at local conventions to advertise the event and display MADJAM games, with the goal of gaining more exposure for MADJAM and its participants. Additional funds not spent on MADJAM events or advertising will go to Extra Life Edmonton in support of the Stollery Children's Hospital.