Global Game Jam at Game Dev Local​

Five Years. Fifteen Hundred Creators. Nearly Three Hundred Games. One Unstoppable Community.

Game Dev Local is home to the UK’s largest Global Game Jam site, a title we’ve held for five consecutive years. What started in 2021 as a bold online experiment has evolved into one of the most influential jam hubs on the planet, drawing students, hobbyists, professionals and first-time creators into one shared creative storm every January.

Across 2021 to 2025 our jam sites have welcomed more than 1,500 jammers and produced almost 300 games, a staggering output by any global standard. Our growth has been entirely community-driven: no paid ads, no PR machinery, just thousands of developers who trust GDL as the place where ideas spark, friendships form and careers begin.

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A Year-by-Year Rise to Global Prominence

2021 marked our first official GGJ as GDL, drawing 269 jammers and instantly becoming the No.1 Global Game Jam site in the UK, and the 11th largest worldwide.
In 2022, with Into Games and London Met Accelerator standing beside us, we hit 251 jammers, holding our UK crown while climbing to 8th largest site in the world.
By 2023, our virtual site surged to 367 jammers and 58 games, becoming one of the highest-participation GGJ sites globally.
Then came 2024, the record-breaker. In partnership with Goldsmiths and UniJam, we welcomed 417 jammers and produced 78 games, ranking No.1 in the UK and No.2 globally out of more than 790 sites worldwide.
And in 2025, our hybrid Goldsmiths + UniJam site produced an astonishing 101 games, one of the highest outputs of any site in the history of the jam.

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A Creative Engine for the UK Games Industry

GDL’s GGJ site isn’t just “big”. It’s meaningful.
We’ve become a gateway for new developers entering the industry, a training ground for emerging studios, and a collaborative bridge linking universities, colleges, grassroots communities and professional developers.

Our partners now include Goldsmiths, ACM Games Academy, LSBU, UWL, Westminster, SAE, LCC, College of Esports, Sheffield Hallam, ICMP and more. These relationships help hundreds of students gain their first real game development experience and offer them mentorship, feedback and opportunities well beyond the 48 hours of the jam itself.

The impact echoes throughout the year: jam teams become studio teams, prototypes turn into commercial projects, and friendships forged over frantic weekend sprints become the networks that power the UK indie scene.

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A Community That Builds, Learns and Belongs

What truly sets GDL apart isn’t just the numbers.
It’s the energy.
It’s the generosity.
It’s the unstoppable belief that creativity thrives when people feel welcomed, supported and challenged.

Every January our Discord becomes a buzzing workshop. Our physical spaces become studios. Our mentors become anchors. Our jammers become unstoppable. And every game created is a testament to what happens when a community decides to lift each other higher than they could climb alone.

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A Legacy We’re Still Building

Five years in, GDL has cemented itself as the heart of Global Game Jam in the UK and one of the world’s premier sites. But we’re not slowing down. Each year we refine the experience, build stronger partnerships, and fight to keep the jam accessible to everyone—students, hobbyists, graduates, studio teams, first-timers, parents, shift workers, dreamers and doers alike.

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Global Game Jam at Game Dev Local is more than a weekend.
It’s a launchpad.
It’s a home.
It’s proof of what the UK indie community can achieve when we build together.