XR Stories hosts York and North Yorkshire Game Jam

On 5 and 6 June 2026, XR Stories partnered with the York Game Maker’s Guild to host the York and North Yorkshire Game Jam.

The event brought together local digital games professionals, enthusiasts and university students to rapidly design and create new digital games, share talent and build skills over a 48-hour period.

After the “inclusive gaming” theme was unveiled on the first day, attendees quickly formed teams and began to dive into the challenge, assigning roles and sharing ideas.

Dan Norman, XR Stories comments: “I was impressed with how focused the attendees were and how quickly everyone formed teams and got to work. There was such a friendly and supportive atmosphere and it was great to see people with expertise in a specific area moving outside of their comfort zone to learn new skills in a different role”

Participants worked with each other and with mentors from XR Stories and the York Game Maker’s Guild to rapidly prototype, test and build their games before submitting their creations to the itch.io platform ready for judging.

At the end of the second day, a judging panel from Game Republic, Revolution Software and XR Games assessed the games on three criteria: theme, gameplay and innovation and selected the winning game: Disco Survivors.

The aim of Disco Survivors is to befriend a diverse range of dancers by matching their disco grooves! The game is also designed with a colour blind friendly colour palette. 

Game Jam judges Jamie Sefton, Bobby Thandi, Wendy Fritscher and Michela Vilinskis.

The winning team will become part time residents in the XR Stories immersive R&D lab with access to state-of-the art facilities and time with creative technicians and producers to further develop their game. The winning team will also demo their game to developers, game industry publishers, investors and platforms at a GaMaYo showcase event in November 

Jamie Wright, Studio Manager, XR Stories said: “Four excellent games were created in less than 48 hours, all with completely different interpretations of the theme and game mechanics ready for the public to engage with, which is a huge success for our first event and I’m already excited to be planning the next jam!” 

Michela Vilinskis, Game Republic said: “The event was a great showcase of regional talent and collaboration. The participants all rose to the challenge with enthusiasm and creativity, they should all be proud of what they accomplished in such a short time and I hope they continue to work on the projects going forward.”

Visit the Game Jam itch.io page to view and play all of the games created at the event.

Published on 8 June 2026