GDevelop sponsors the Coding Pirates Game Jam 2025

Maria Scheel-Lonsdale

Posted

19.12.2025

Coding Pirates Game Jam 2025 Logos - Copenhagen: Thomas

This year Coding Pirates held the annual Game Jam in Copenhagen and Aarhus - Denmark.

Between the two locations app. 150 kids ages 10-17 years participated in the Game Jam this year. Coding Pirates Game Jam is a National 24 hours event which the volunteers plan. This year was a bit different, as we had to hold the National Game Jam on two different weekends. The two locations always collaborate during the planning of the event, to keep the main structure of the event as similar as possible. However the event itself folds out a bit differently in each location. This article will tell the event from the Copenhagen location view.

Getting ready

This year the Coding Pirates ITU department was behind the Game Jam at the Copenhagen location, where we held our 11th Coding Pirates Game Jam for 90 participants with 42 volunteers covering the event from Saturday 8am till Sunday 4pm - the 22th and 23th of November. The volunteers had been planning Game Jam since the summer.

28 volunteers arrived at 8am on Saturday morning to prepare for the 90 kids that were to arrive at 9.30-9.50am. All participants went through the 7 check-in stands among others our Teaminator check-in program, made by volunteer Kristoffer. Here the kids give name, age, gender, skillsets and if they have wishes for teammates, which we then try to accommodate when putting the teams of 5 kids together before we announce the secret theme of the year.

With all participants checked-in 2 volunteers then sit and sort out all participants to teams of 5, taking their wishes and skills into mind. This process is a bit tricky.

Getting ready for check-in at the Copenhagen location. PHOTO CREDIT: Susanne, Lasse - Copenhagen location

Speakers

Inspirational speaker and keynote speaker at the Copenhagen location

At the Copenhagen location we had the pleasure to get inspired by 2 speakers again this year. Both speakers made a really good presentation that engaged and inspired the participants to never give up and keep on trying. Sharing their ups and downs during their process of gamemaking and of their path of making games, starting small and ending up getting to make big games in the industry.

The presenter. PHOTO CREDIT: Maria - Copenhagen location.

As a tradition, we had the co-founder of Coding Pirates as our presenter, to steer the show. Among others to announce the rules while staying(our 10 commandments during their participation), spreading joy and announcing our secret theme of the year and of course closing the event with manners the next day.

The secret theme of the year

We try hinting a bit at the secret theme and giving inspiration with the chosen gifts in the goodiebags. Every year, suggestions for the secret theme are collected from various volunteers across all departments in Coding Pirates. The event coordinators from the two locations had many good suggestions to choose from. But this year's theme was... "It spreads!". The theme offered many good associations and idea generation among the children. And believe it or not, there were surprisingly very few teams that made games about a virus 😉 Thanks to the presenter that also asked all the kids “what kind of things spread?” before sending them off to start making their games.

PHOTO CREDIT: Anette, Christian - Copenhagen location

The event

Every year a volunteer is connected to a team for 30 minutes to help them start of the brainstorming - making sure they find a path, divides the project into milestones, ensures that the participants distribute tasks according to the abilities of the participants in the team and that the team have decided on which program they will make their game in - it depends on the skills and knowledge of the team members. After this each volunteer spreads out and visits the teams continuously during the competition, making sure all teams get the help and guidance they need.

PHOTO CREDIT: Susanne - Copenhagen location

As part of the tradition, there was again the possibility to draw challenges - challenges for their game that either had to be in their game or left out. The teams(with all teammates presented) could draw these after their brainstorming. There were 20 different secret challenges that the teams could draw between, varying from easy to hard to implement.

They had the opportunity to say no 3 times to the drawn challenges. Those challenges they accepted and solved in the game were taken into consideration by the judges when voting the games. The queue for challenges was long this year, as all 18 teams, except 2, wanted to draw. This year the range of challenges chosen by a team varied from 1 to 8.

It's a mix of luck, the challenges of the year, and what they've already chosen their game to be about during the brainstorming that determines which challenges they say yes or no to. E.g for some teams, easy challenges could be “your character needs to be able to double jump” or “the game must not be about a virus!”, “record clapping sounds and use it in your game”, “all graphics must be made by the team only”(as shown in the picture), where it for other teams might ruin their game.

This is always a very popular opportunity for the teams and a very nerve-wracking experience for both them and us as volunteers for what they draw and agree to. This is also where we already see the early signs of teamwork for the teams and how they work solution-oriented around the challenges they draw as a team.

PHOTO CREDIT: Christian, Simon, Susanne - Copenhagen location

Again this year we were lucky to borrow retro computers with old classic games accommodating the theme of the year for the event, thanks to Dansk Datahistorisk Forening. A good break and a great hit! for both participants and volunteers that enjoyed a trip down memory lane with games like Minesweeper, SimCity2000, Theme Hospital, Solitary and more.

PHOTO CREDIT: Christian, Anette, Kristoffer - Copenhagen location.

There was a good mood and humor all around during the event. The participants were very engaged and focused on their game and volunteers went around offering help to issues that might occur for the teams. But Game Jam is not just a fun competition for the participants, it is also very much the event of the year for the volunteers that use this event to collaborate between departments, share, inspire and boost their network - while having fun.

During the event we also offered teams to compete in laser tags as a break against each other to great excitement and enthusiasm amongst the teams. This thanks to one of the volunteers that made it himself from scratch - the program, rules, the scoreboard and 3d print of all the parts for the laser guns 💪 each game took around 5 min, the teams could choose to compete twice for 10 minutes and use their whole timeslot.

This was an awesome way for the participants to get a break from sitting at their computer. We arranged laser tags two times on Saturday for 1,5 hours each time.

PHOTO CREDIT: Per - Copenhagen location.

This year we only had to take care of lunch on Saturday, after that we all were surprised and pampered with delicious food from the kitchen of the location and also got to meet a true pirate chef 😉

PHOTO CREDIT: Christian - Copenhagen location

Deadline

The excitement lasted all the way through the 24 hours, to the end of the competition! With only 10 minutes left volunteers went around helping where needed so all teams could submit their game before 1pm on Sunday. Afterwards the judges went behind closed doors to go through all games and vote for the 5 teams that would win one of the 5 winner categories.

PHOTO CREDIT: Maria - Copenhagen location.

The COUNT DOWN CLOCK - Build by Daniel - Copenhagen location.

The Winner categories

Best Game award
Design- og innovation award
Teamwork award
Best sound design award
Pirate Prize award

A volunteer from the Aarhus location again made the design for the prizes this year. We decided at the Copenhagen location to 3D print them this year.