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Press release:
Global Game Jam (GGJ) are today very happy and proud to announce that Global Game Jam 2021 has just concluded its very first online version of the annual event (an event which became a huge success story).

The 12th annual Global Game Jam went entirely online this year from January 27-31 with 28,825 amateur, hobbyist and professional game developers from 104 countries cooperating to create games under the umbrella of this year’s theme: Lost & Found.

In total, 6,383 original game designs emerged from 585 virtual sites around the world with the top combined participation sites in Shanghai, New York, Curitiba, Istanbul and Cairo.

“After last year’s in-person event, the pandemic really started to unfold and we were concerned that we wouldn’t even be able to hold the Global Game Jam in 2021,” said Kate Edwards, Executive Director of Global Game Jam.

“But after discussions with our community we were really driven to find a solution and pivot to the online format this year. The tremendous turnout for the event made all of the effort worth it, and we are so pleased that even in varying degrees of lockdown throughout the world we were able to bring so many people together for a weekend of creativity, collaboration, community and fun.”

Headline sponsor, Core, added to the excitement of this year’s Global Game Jam with a contest for games developed using its groundbreaking new platform for creating and playing games utilizing the Unreal engine. Core provides players with an endless universe of games to play and worlds to explore, designed by a global community of creators.

Core is a radically accessible game construction kit and social game-playing platform, all-in-one. In total, 113 games were created for the Core Diversifier, with a prize pool up for grabs of $10,000 spread across a selection of winners in different categories.

Those winners are:

Hidden Secrets by Burnzie

Lost Toys by NANIMOON and JollyTopple

Garden of the Lost Lands by Team DocBdesign

Lost & Found: Blind & See by Tomkun and Rinvy Fan

Sockit Enterprise by Grunlock

Drunk Race by Team Kirch

Island of Lost Words by randomphantom

Lost in the Dungeon RPG by exUnity

Death Farm by LittleCreator

Dignity by mert0706

For more info on the Core Diversifier winners, please visit the Manticore Games blog here.

About Global Game Jam, Inc.
GGJ is operated by the Global Game Jam, Inc.®, an international non-profit organization based in the United States, with a mission to empower individuals worldwide to learn, experiment and create together through the medium of games.

Jonas “O.J” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround