Japan GameJam March 7, 2008

In order to promote The Netherlands in Japan, The Dutch Embassy in Tokyo, The Dutch Game Garden and the NLGD Foundation are looking for Dutch game developers to create a mobile game for the Japanese market.

The first round of this search will take place on March 8 – 9 during the national “Japan GameJam”, organized by the NLGD Foundation and The Dutch Game Garden, in the city of Utrecht. The assignment is to create a Java or a Flash game concept for for mobile phones. At the start of the jam here will be some workshops in order to get a clear picture on the position of The Netherlands in Japan, the Japanese culture and the Japanese mobile games and -technologies. At the end of the GameJam a professional jury will choose the three best concepts. The chosen teams are given three weeks to finalize their game concept and to create a playable demo. Based on these final concepts and the playable demo the jury and the members of the Embassy will decide which game can represent The Netherlands in Japan. The goal is to get the winning concept developed into a mobile game and the aim is to launch the game in Japan during the Tokyo Game Show, halfway October 2008.

After a successful Dutch presence on the Tokyo Game Show in 2007 the aim for 2008 is to draw even more attention to the strong upcoming game-industry in The Netherlands and to try to capture a firm position in the Japanese game-industry. As 2008 is the year that Japan and the Netherlands celebrate their 150 years of diplomatic relations and in 2009 both countries celebrate 400 years of trade relations. The mobile game will be part of the official Dutch festivities in Japan and therefore the standards are high.

Official Website: http://gamejam.nl/