Games Transformed (a festival for radical gaming) welcomes you (back) to our annual game jam, this year in collaboration with Clapton Community Football Club.
The theme this year is Smash the Fash!
>> Join our Discord<<
Submit your game designs by April 30 May 31
We welcome:
- Video games
- Tabletop games
- Other games
GAMES AGAINST FASCISM
Fascism is on the rise. But beyond fascist dirtbags playing with flags and threatening our neighbours in the streets, they are also running political parties, taking over the internet and poisoning politics and society with their propaganda.
How can games be part of the fightback against fascism?
Beyond just making another game where you get to erase some naz1s (although by all means, do so!), we encourage attention towards:
- The fascist themes and mechanics encouraged by the corporate games industry
- How the capitalist ruling class support fascists
- The way "centrist" politicians and media enable fascism by stoking the flames of racism and transphobia and increasing the repression of movements for liberation.
- The way the seeds of fascist thoughts and feelings are embedded in the everyday social relations of racism, sexism, etc.
Today, we see fascism in the normalisation of harsh anti-migration policies and extreme nationalism throughout society. We see it in the anti-transgender movements that bring together a strange alliances between so-called feminism and religious conservatism. We see it in masculinist influencers who package racist and misogynistic ideas as self-help, hustle culture, or gaming community. We see it in the imperialist warmongering and genocidal violence, and in racist, Islamophobic, and antisemitic abuse in our neighbourhoods.
Since fascism doesn’t appear in just one place, resisting it means working on many fronts. We can’t focus only on the most obvious forms while quieter, more subtle forms packaged as "liberalism" go unchallenged. At the same time, the resurgence of organised and explicit fascism, both in institutions and on the streets, can’t go unanswered.
What role can games play in the antifascist struggle? We invite you to show us!
For this jam, we invite all kinds of interpretations of antifascism!
- Your game might let players step into the role of an antifascist activist, neighbour, journalist, hacker, or football fan.
- It might imagine a world beyond fascism, explore how communities organise, or experiment with different forms of solidarity and resistance.
- Maybe it’s a game about defending your neighbourhood from a far-right march.
- Maybe players build mutual aid networks, expose corrupt politicians, sabotage fascist propaganda, or organise collective action.
Your game might be angry, serious, playful, experimental, hopeful, funny, or all of these at once. Whether it's a surreal puzzle about dismantling authoritarian systems or a tiny city-builder imagining co-operative futures - what matters is that it creatively explores how we can destroy fascism and the systems that sustain it!
FOOTBALL IS FOR EVERYONE
This year, Games Transformed is partnering with Clapton Community Football Club, East London's 100% fan-owned and fan-run football club. They're a proud anti-fascist club (their away kit is based on the International Brigades and the Flag of the Second Spanish Republic) and do valuable solidarity work to support their local community.
Grand prize! Your game in the Clapton FC clubhouse!
Clapton CFC will choose one of the video games from the jam to go in a custom built pay-to-play arcade cabinet (like the one we built for Thatcher's Techbase that Jeremy Corbyn played in 2022). The cabinet will go in Clapton's club house at The Old Spotted Dog ground and all proceeds raised will help support the club!
TAKE INSPIRATION
But wait, there's more! For the past few months we hosted two workshops where folks brainstormed and made game posters for you to take inspiration from. Make your game taking as much or as little inspiration from them as you like. Just acknowledge it on your game's description.
>> Look at these amazing posters here! <<
TIMELINE
March 29th: Kickoff event at Clapton CFC
Join us from 5-9pm for a brainstorm and team-building activity in person at Clapton Community Football Club.
It's also the launch of Max Haven's new board game Billionaires and Guillotines!
You can join us in person, or online. We'll share a streaming link with the participants of the jam.
May 31st: Submission deadline
Submit your game to the jam by 11:59 pm of the last day. Use the button on the top of the page to do so. Make sure your game follows the rules below.
RULES
- The first and most important rule is to be kind! This is a progressive jam, we're looking for cooperation and collaboration over competition. Keep it civil.
- Take as much or as little inspiration as you like from the game posters that folks made. You can see them all here.
- The digital game selected by Clapton CFC will have their game displayed in an arcade cabinet, so make sure your game is playable with just buttons and joysticks (i.e. no mouse controls!). More details below.
- We reserve the right to reject any submission for any reason, including barring offensive material. No violence depicted against real, living individuals. Ask on the Discord if you're unsure, we're happy to discuss limits with teams.
- External assets from the Unity store or similar platforms are allowed, but preferably code assets and gameplay logic should be as original as possible.
- Teams of any size or solo developers are allowed.
- Participants keep the rights to the games they produce
Video Game technical requirements
- Control scheme: The arcade cabinet will have 6 buttons and an 8-way joystick, mapped to Xinput, such as an Xbox controller, as follows:
- If your game is playable with an Xbox controller using only the buttons specified above, then it will be playable with our arcade controls.
- Controls will be digital and not analogue, so do not rely on precise movements of the analogue stick.
- Games must be browser-based and playable on their itch.io page
- 2-player games with multiple controllers are allowed and will be supported on the arcade cabinet via a plugged-in USB Xbox controller, only one set of arcade style controls will be available on the final cabinet.
If you have any questions, please ask on the Discord.
Games that are playable in the browser but don’t meet the control requirements can still be shown at The World Transformed festival but won’t be eligible to be on the arcade cabinet.
Contact
Discord is the main channel of communications for this event - please join using this link and we will be happy to answer any questions there! You can also email gamestransformed@gmail.com or DM us on social media.
Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram.
About us
What is Games Transformed? Games Transformed is a volunteer-led organisation celebrating games and radical politics. Founded in 2023 in the wake of mass layoffs in the video games industry, we run a yearly festival and game jam, bi-weekly board game nights, and a year round programme of events.
What is The World Transformed? The World Transformed is an annual festival and year-round political education project. Our first festival took place in 2016, as an attempt to revitalise the left’s presence at the Labour Party conference, bridge the gap between the parliamentary and social movement left, and develop a space for radical, participatory and creative political education. Since then the festival has grown to become the biggest left-wing multi-day event in Britain, and we have seen the emergence of dozens of local Transformed groups across the country, as well as TWT launching a number of other year round educational projects from short courses to organising schools, podcasts, trainings and pedagogical research.
To find out more about The World Transformed, visit our website and follow us on Twitter.
We use games to explore anti-capitalist ideas, build friendship and community, and introduce workers and fans to political organising so they can take the fight to the games industry and beyond!
Research note
Briar Dickey, a PhD researcher working on antifascism and games, may approach participants to discuss their projects. Taking part in the game jam does not mean you have to take part in the research. If you do choose to participate, it may involve interviews during or after the jam, as well as analysis and discussion of your game once it is complete. The research is intended to be collaborative and participatory, so you will have input into how your work is represented and discussed.