Looking for participants for my Charity Game Jam in Chicago, IL

Hello readers! If you are living in the Chicago land area or would like to come to Chicago for a fun filled weekend, then keep on reading. My name is Paul Borawski, and I am a programmer at a custom e-learning shop, Nogginlabs. I have been making game prototypes as a hobby for the past couple of years and went to my first game jam back in December of 2012. It was an Adobe sponsored event, so you had to use Flash technology which was perfect for me because that's what I am most proficient in. While I had a great time, and would do it again, I felt that there were a couple things missing from the game jam and some things I would do differently. 

The first thing that strikes me with game jams, not just the Adobe one, is that while people can play the games online afterwards, there isn't much celebration of what was just accomplished. So I wanted to have an after party where people come out to the space to play the games, eat food, have some drinks, listen to music, and the developers can network or just talk about their game. 

The second part that I wanted to be different from the game jam I went to is that I wanted to open up the game jam to all tech, including card and board games. Because people will be playing these games publicly, I want to encourage developers to make offline coop or competitive games to get the crowd engaged and excited to play the games. Also I know a bunch of writers so I even opened the jam up to text adventures and choose your own adventure type games. While those don't fit in the coop or competitive types of games, I feel that some people may just want to hunker down on their phone or iPad and play something privately. 

The final missing piece comes form a blog post on Gamasutra by Christer Kaitila titled Videogames and Charity. I loved that idea so much that I wanted to have the parity guests donate money to come to the event to benefit a great charity in the Chicagoland area, Clearbrook. A place that creates opportunities for people with disabilities. Although Clearbrook has never had an event like this before, they have been extremely supportive in my efforts and have embraced the event whole heartedly. 

That brings me to you, the reader. I first and foremost need more game jam participants, I have 10 as of writing this right now, and I would also love that if you can't make the game jam for whatever reason, you consider on buying a ticket to play some games and help out this wonderful charity. In addition to the great games you will get to play, the free food is being provided by my wonderful wife who is an Executive Chef at Jerry's in Winnetka, IL. 

You can sign up for the game jam here: http://charity-gamejam.eventbrite.com 

You can get more detailed information on the game jam here: http://www.chicagocharitygamejam.org 

P.S. I would like to publicly thank Christer Kaitila for giving me this great idea! Thanks Christer! 

Paul Borawski Programmer / Animator animepauly.tumblr.com @animepauly facebook.com/animepauly