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Developers who want to ride the rails from Chicago to California in time to attend GDC 2016 in San Francisco and make a game along the way can sign up today to do so in the 3rd annual Train Jam game jam.

Alex Wawro, Contributor

November 12, 2015

2 Min Read

Developers who want to ride the rails from Chicago to California in time to attend GDC 2016 in San Francisco and make a game along the way can sign up today to do so in the third annual Train Jam game jam.

Organized by indie developer Adriel Wallick, Train Jam has grown every year to become a valuable place for developers to collaborate in close proximity with the promise (and the pressure) of knowing their work will be part of a unique showcase on the GDC show floor the following week.

This year the jam will once again last a little over two days and take place entirely within an Amtrak train -- the idea is that you have from when the train departs Chicago's Union Station on Thursday morning, March 10th until it arrives in Emeryville on Saturday afternoon to make the best game you can with whatever tools you bring with you.

The process can be intense -- Gamasutra editor-in-chief Kris Graft rode along on the inaugural Train Jam in 2013 and wrote about the experience in a series of blog posts.

It's also recognized as a learning opportunity for students of game design, and for the second year running Train Jam will host a Student Ambassador program (organized by Red Hook Studios' John Lindvay) that sees some tickets reserved for universities to provide to their students (along with GDC passes) so they can ride along and work with volunteer mentors.

For more details on how to buy a Train Jam ticket (or reserve a few if you work for a university) check out this Train Jam blog post. If you'd like to get an idea of what sorts of games come out of this experience, you can browse the archive of Train Jam games.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Technology Group.

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