With the video game industry enjoying increasing prominence in Atlantic Canada, Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Computer Science is getting in on the action with an event from Feb. 3 to 5 that promises to teach novice developers the basics of coding video games.

Global Game Jam, as Dalhousie dubs the event, will last 48 hours and teach participants to design and develop a video game from scratch. Among the Game Jam's private sector sponsors is rural innovation hub Ignite Atlantic.

Video game developers have begun to comprise an increasingly significant portion of Atlantic Canada’s IT community in recent years.

Lunenburg’s HB Studios was sold to California-based 2K Games after it signed popular golfer Tiger Woods in a headline-making 2021 deal. In P.E.I., the newly formed Iron Fox Games has hired 21 people in eight months. And Ubisoft and Microsoft both have offices in Halifax.

Registration is free, and Dalhousie’s ShiftKey Labs said in a statement it expects about 200 attendees. You can learn more and reserve a spot here.