GitHub's Game Off returns for its 14th year this November, running the full month on itch.io. The 2026 theme is SHIFT — and how you read it is entirely up to you. Shift gears, perspectives, dimensions, or bits; work the night shift; or build a game whose only inputs are the Shift keys. Loose interpretations count just as much as literal ones.

Entries are due December 1, 2026, at 13:37 PST.

Concept directions for the theme

  • A one- or two-button game controlled solely by the Shift keys.
  • A racing game where gears change more than speed: second reverses gravity, third slows time, fourth removes the brakes.
  • A perspective puzzler in which rotating the camera turns walls into floors and shifts shadows into platforms.
  • A puzzle-platformer that swaps between two overlapping realities — the broken bridge may exist in the other world, but so may the monster standing on it.
  • A shapeshifting adventure where transformed creatures and objects carry their own abilities and weaknesses.
  • A night-shift horror game in a convenience store with increasingly strange customers and something in aisle seven outside your training.
  • A comedy detective game in which you committed the crime and must redirect blame onto unlikely suspects without contradicting the evidence.
  • A programming puzzler using bitwise shifts: shift left to double an object's size, right to halve it, and find out what happens when you run out of bits.
  • An adventure game about getting someone to cover your shift so you can make the final boss battle.

Other valid angles: shifting tectonic plates, shape-shifting aliens, shifting alliances or sands, or a particularly ambitious stick shift.

Practical advice from the organizers: start with one mechanic and one playable level before expanding. Brainstorming with GitHub Copilot is also suggested — hand it the theme and a few constraints and see what it produces.

How to enter

Work solo or in a team, in any language, engine, framework, library, or toolchain.

  1. Create a free GitHub account if you don't have one.
  2. Join the jam on the Game Off 2026 itch.io page; GitHub sign-in works if you don't have an itch.io account.
  3. Create a public repository and push your game's source before December 1, 2026, at 13:37 PST.
  4. Submit the game on itch.io before the same deadline. Pushing code to GitHub alone does not enter you in the jam.

After submissions close, participants can play and rate each other's entries. Voting runs through January 1, 2027, at 13:37 PST across six categories: Overall, Gameplay, Graphics, Audio, Innovation, and Theme interpretation. Winners are announced on the GitHub Blog and GitHub social channels shortly after.

Jam guidelines

  • The game must reside in a GitHub repository. The project should begin during the jam — templates and starter projects are permitted — and the vast majority of work should happen inside the submission window.
  • Any license is acceptable; open source is encouraged but not required.
  • Teams are optional.
  • Assets may be open source, commercial, commissioned, or original.
  • AI-assisted development is allowed. Submitters are asked about their AI use so others can understand how a game was made.

Tooling starting points

Prior game jams have seen entrants build on established engines, write their own, and target old consoles, unusual hardware, terminals, and calculators.

  • Godot (GDScript, C#, C++) — open source, lightweight, beginner-friendly, 2D and 3D.
  • Unity (C#) — 2D, 3D, mobile, and XR with a large tutorial and asset ecosystem.
  • Unreal Engine (C++, Blueprints) — cinematic visuals and complex 3D environments.
  • Phaser (JavaScript, TypeScript) — browser-based 2D, arcade games, platformers.
  • Pygame (Python) — fundamentals and fast prototyping.
  • Bevy (Rust) — data-driven engine built around an entity component system.
  • LÖVE (Lua) — lightweight 2D and creative experiments.
  • Flame (Dart, Flutter) — mobile-first 2D.
  • Ebitengine (Go) — straightforward cross-platform 2D.
  • Defold (Lua) — compact, cross-platform, with built-in tools.
  • libGDX (Java) — familiar to Java and Android developers.
  • HaxeFlixel (Haxe) — retro 2D and fast jam projects.
  • raylib (C, with bindings for other languages) — code-first, close to the metal.
  • PICO-8 (Lua) — constrained fantasy console with a pixel-art aesthetic.
  • TIC-80 (multiple languages) — fantasy computer for making and sharing small games.

For teammates and progress sharing, the Game Off 2026 Community on itch.io hosts questions and matchmaking, alongside a community-run Discord server. Those new to version control can start with the Git documentation, GitHub Docs, and GitHub Community discussions.