Game Off 2026: The theme is SHIFT

It’s time to make Shift happen.

Game Off, GitHub’s annual month-long game jam, returns for its 14th year this November. Thousands of developers have joined us over the years to make everything from polished platformers to wonderfully weird experiments.

Whether you’re making your first game or your fiftieth, we’d love for you to join us.

The theme for Game Off 2026 is SHIFT!

Shift gears. Shift perspectives. Shift dimensions. Shift bits. Work the night shift. Or make a game where the only buttons are the Shift keys.

How you interpret the theme is entirely up to you.

You have until December 1, 2026, at 13:37 PST to build and submit a game inspired by SHIFT. Strong or loose inspirations apply!

Need inspiration? Here are a few concept ideas

A one-button (or two-button) game where the Shift keys are is your only control.
A racing game where shifting gears changes more than your speed. Second gear reverses gravity, third slows time, and fourth removes the brakes.
A perspective puzzler where rotating the camera turns walls into floors and shifts shadows into platforms.
A puzzle-platformer where you shift between two overlapping realities. That broken bridge might exist in the other world. Unfortunately, so might the monster standing on it.
A shapeshifting adventure where you transform into creatures and objects, inheriting their abilities and weaknesses.
A night-shift horror game set in a convenience store where the customers get progressively stranger, and whatever’s in aisle seven definitely isn’t covered by your training.
A comedy detective game where you committed the crime and must shift the blame onto increasingly unlikely suspects without contradicting the evidence.
A programming puzzler: Use bitwise shifts to manipulate the world. Shift left to double an object’s size, shift right to halve it, and discover what happens when you run out of bits.
An adventure game about convincing somebody to cover your shift so you can attend the final boss battle.

Of course, you could also build a game about shifting tectonic plates, shape-shifting aliens, shifting alliances, shifting sands, or a particularly ambitious stick shift.

Don’t overthink it. Pick an interpretation that interests you and see where it takes you.

Pro tip: Start with one mechanic and one playable level. Get those working before adding the multiverse. Future you (and your bug tracker) will thank you.

Need another perspective? Try brainstorming with GitHub Copilot. Give it the theme, a few constraints, and see what it comes up with:

Act as an indie game designer. Suggest 10 original game concepts inspired by SHIFT, each with a unique core mechanic, genre, and technical twist. Prioritize ideas a solo developer could prototype in a weekend.

How to participate

Work alone or form a team. Use whichever programming languages, game engines, frameworks, libraries, and tools make sense for your game.

Create a free GitHub account if you don’t already have one.
Join the jam. Head to the Game Off 2026 page on itch.io. If you don’t have an itch.io account, you can sign in with your GitHub account.
Create a public repository. Store your game’s source code on GitHub. Push your game before December 1, 2026, at 13:37 PST.
Submit your game on itch.io before December 1, 2026, at 13:37 PST. Pushing your code to GitHub does not submit your entry to the jam. After submissions close, you’ll be able to play other entries and cast your votes.

Voting

Here’s the fun part: you decide who wins.

Once submissions close, it’s your turn to play and rate the games your fellow developers have created. Every vote helps determine which games take home the bragging rights.

Entries will be evaluated in the following categories:

Overall
Gameplay
Graphics
Audio
Innovation
Theme interpretation

Voting will end on January 1, 2027, at 13:37 PST. Winners will be announced on the GitHub Blog and GitHub social channels shortly thereafter.

Light rules

Game Off is intentionally relaxed, but there are a few guidelines to help keep it fair and fun:

Your game must live in a GitHub repository. You should begin the project during the jam, although templates and starter projects are welcome. The vast majority of the work should take place during the Game Off submission period.
License it however you like. Open source is encouraged but not required.
Fly solo or join a team. Work in whichever way makes you most comfortable.
Use any tools and assets you prefer. Open source, commercial, commissioned, and original assets are all welcome.
AI-assisted development is allowed. We recognize that AI use in game development is a sensitive subject, and participants have different perspectives. When submitting your game, you’ll be asked about your use of AI so others can better understand how it was made.

That’s it. Keep it creative, respectful, and fun… and make sure your final code is pushed before the deadline.

Help

New to game development?

You don’t need to be an expert to participate. Many Game Off participants create their first game during the jam.

Some use established engines. Some build their own. Others make games for old consoles, unusual hardware, terminals, calculators, or platforms we assumed had been lost to time.

However you build your game, there’s no single correct way to play.

Here are a few engines and frameworks you might want to explore:

Godot (GDScript, C#, C++): Open source, lightweight, beginner-friendly, and excellent for both 2D and 3D games.
Unity (C#): A popular option for 2D, 3D, mobile, and XR games, with a large ecosystem of tutorials and assets.
Unreal Engine (C++, Blueprints): A strong choice for cinematic visuals, complex 3D environments, and high-end experiences.
Phaser (JavaScript, TypeScript): Great for browser-based 2D games, arcade games, and platformers.
Pygame (Python): A friendly way to learn game development fundamentals or prototype an idea quickly.
Bevy (Rust): A modern, data-driven engine built around an entity component system.
LÖVE (Lua): Lightweight, fast, and well suited to 2D games and creative experiments.
Flame (Dart, Flutter): A useful option for developers interested in mobile-first 2D games.
Ebitengine (Go): A straightforward, cross-platform 2D game engine for Go developers.
Defold (Lua): A compact, cross-platform engine with built-in development tools.
libGDX (Java): A familiar option for developers coming from Java or Android development.
HaxeFlixel (Haxe): A good fit for retro-inspired 2D games, platformers, and fast-paced jam projects.
raylib (C, plus bindings for other languages): A simple, code-first library for developers who want to work closer to the metal.
PICO-8 (Lua): A fantasy console with deliberate constraints, ideal for tiny games with distinctive pixel-art aesthetics.
TIC-80 (multiple languages): Another fantasy computer for making, playing, and sharing small games.

Looking for teammates or a place to share progress? The Game Off 2026 Community is a great place to ask questions, share progress, and look for teammates. There’s also a friendly community-run Discord server.

New to Git or GitHub?

Game Off is the perfect opportunity to check it out. Version control pun fully intended.

Git documentation: Learn the fundamentals of version control and get started with Git.
GitHub Docs: Explore tutorials, guides, and documentation for building and collaborating on GitHub.
GitHub Community: Ask questions, share your work, and connect with other developers.

Whether you spend November shifting pixels, shifting bits, shifting timelines, or shifting unfinished tasks into the final 24 hours, you’ll be part of a global community making games together.

So take a different perspective, change the rules, and see what happens when you press ⇧.

Good luck and have fun! Can’t wait to play, err, test all your games! <3

Written by

Lee Reilly

Senior Program Manager, GitHub Developer Relations. Open source hype man, AI whisperer, hackathon and game jam wrangler. I write && manage programs, support dev communities, and occasionally ship something.