I am terribly sad to announce that the Isolation Jam will not be held this year, 2020, because of health reasons. I feel like I could not ensure a properly planned and managed game jam because of my current health problems and therefor had to take this difficult decision. On the flipside, this will allow me a faster recovery, and the ability to make Isolation Jam 2021 unforgettable!
See you all next year
Jóhannes Gunnar Þorsteinsson
Here we go again! Applications for Isolation Jam 2019 (5th to 9th of June) are now open! This time, it’s Isolation Jam: Laxahvammur edition! Read more about it here. https://www.kollafoss.farm/isolationjam/
We will be going through the applications in the week 25th to 29th of March so we do recommend signing up before the 25th.
The fifth edition of the Isolation Jam 2018 was a great success. With 5 participants in total we somehow managed to pump out more than 8 games over the course of 48 hours. But you can view them over at our itch.io page.
Great thanks to everyone that participated and helped make this into reality. I am already looking forward to seeing you, and others, next year!
Below you can also find a quick writeup on the games.
Coffee Basketball, game by Nothke
This is Coffee Basketball by @Nothke. Use a big, round bowl as a sort-of-a-halfpipe to launch coffee beans into ‘goals’ for each player.
Fire Sheep, game by TMM
A realistic simulator on how it is to drive a car with a boat and sheep tied to it. Because why not?! Game by @TMM2K.
Godot Split Screen Test by Jóhannes G.
Not really a game, but a little tech demo by yours truly @johannesgunnar experimenting with best ways to implement FPS split screen in the Godot Engine.
Icebears are coming! by Nothke
Game by @Nothke. Polar bears are coming to Iceland via giant icebergs from Greenland and the north pole. Try to catch them with your helicopter and a fish and transport them to Greenland.
SheepShot Gun, game by TMM
Not really a fan of shooting sheep? Well, what about shooting pellet sized sheep out of your gun and see them grow and roam around in the nature afterwards? Game by @TMM2K
Archeoloball by Horatiu
Do you like digging stuff? Archeoloball was an interesting prototype by @horatiu665 about digging in virtual reality and finding random stuff and throwing it into the opponent’s goal. This one did not make it onto our itch.io page but I wouldn’t be surprised if this idea will somehow make it into a VRUnicorns title some day. It wouldn’t be the first VRUnicorns mechanic made at Kollafoss.
Spell Reflect by Benóný
Spell Reflect is an extremely tense two player game where keyboards get destroyed, by Benony Thor. This game was also submitted to the Game Makers Iceland Summer Jam and won!
Tooth Pick Guesser by Horatiu
How about 20 questions but with toothpicks and infinite questions? Go Play @horatiu665‘s Toothpick Guesser now! All you need are two toothpicks and you are good to go.
Two Bears One Iceland by Horatiu
Two Bears One Iceland, pen and paper boardgame about bears stuck on icebergs, by @horatiu665.
Applications are now open for Isolation Jam 2018. Head over to the registration page and sign up.
Do note that a payment for the game jam needs to be made before April 6th. If a payment has not been received by that time the next person in line will get your spot.
Those that manage to secure a spot will get an e-mail regarding that, along with payment information.
For more information see the Isolation Jam page, and the Practical Information page.
The date has been set for the fifth anniversary of the otherwordly Isolation Jam! 13th to 17th of June 2018.
I will never forget the lambs walking by our window, curiously peeking at these strange people sitting inside, making games, or simply having a good time with old and new friends. – Minnamari Helmisaari, Isolation Game Jam 2014, 2015, & 2017 attendant
We will open up for application here on Thursday the 8th of March, a week from now. At 18:00 UTC.
In 2014 the first Isolation Jam was hosted at Kollafoss, before there was anything such as Kollafoss Game Farm. At that point in time Kollafoss was simply an abandoned old farm owned by my family, and mostly unused.
In 2015 we held the second Isolation Jam, installed a 3G antenna, and right after the game jam we (Jóhannes & Adda) officially moved in. Not only that, but shortly after the game jam we received funding from SSNV to start Kollafoss Game Farm as a game developer residency. In November 2015 Josh Raab of Studio Wumpus stayed with us for a whole month while working on the digital board game Sumer (which is now on its way to the Nintendo Switch)
In January 2016 we hosted the first ever Global Game Jam in Iceland (as far as we know), and June obviously included the third installation of Isolation Jam.
In 2017 we managed to get optic fiber Internet on the farm. Matt Marshall of Wayward visited us in April 2017 for two weeks to work on his game The Veil (and give the new Internet connection a spin). The fourth Isolation Jam was hosted in June like expected.
And now it’s time for the year 2018. We will obviously host the classic Isolation Jam which will be announced in the next days, but the biggest news is that 2018 is also the year of some changes around Kollafoss Game Farm. The game developer residency program will be closing down and more focus will be put on actual game development with our first game (to be announced soon) set for release in mid/late 2018. Most of the information on the website has been updated to accompany that but there might be still some outdated information sneaking around that we missed, but that should slowly get fixed in the coming weeks as the website gets adapted to its new purpose.
Thank you to everyone that joined us for this amazing ride in the past few years, and helped making this possible. We are already looking forward to what the future will bring forth here on the farm.
Even though the residency is officially closed we still welcome game developers to drop by for a visit. If you are driving by or in the “neighborhood”, please do drop us a line and we’ll start brewing the coffee.
Sign ups are now open for the Isolation Game Jam 2017. Head over to the registration form and sign up.
Do note that a payment for the game jam needs to be made before April 1st. If a payment has not been received by that time the next person in line will get your spot.
Those that manage to secure a spot will get an e-mail regarding that, along with payment information.
Also, the Kollafoss Game Farm refund policy now applies to the Isolation Game Jam as well.
Mark your calendars. 7th – 11th of June 2017 is the date for the fourth installment of Isolation Game Jam. Registrations will open on the 1st of March.
These game developers hugged lambs last year
Head over to the Isolation Game Jam website for more info
The second game to be featured from the Isolation Game Jam 2016 is the aptly named Tractor Egg by Jonatan Van Hove, Pavel Savchuk and yours truly, Jóhannes Gunnar Þorsteinsson. This post comes just in time for the second harvesting season which is about to start here in the region.
A 4 player local multiplayer harvesting mayhem where farmers are forced to share a field and steal hay bales from each other. Just like in real life.
One could say that Tractor Egg, of all the games made at the Isolation Game Jam, had the most focus put into research. Game developers had the opportunity to try out and feel how it is to use a tractor to pick up hay bales, or like we called it during the game jam, tractor eggs. No game developers were harmed during that experiment.
Do you want to refresh your harvesting skills? Or have you perhaps never operated heavy machinery during harvesting season? Well, now is your chance. It’s time to harvest more tractor eggs than your neighboring farmers. Get the game at itch.io
This year, we had a game jam attendant come all the way from South Africa. Robbie Fraser has been traveling around Europe, meeting game developers, and writing about it for the past months (Check out his blog!) and he decided to join in on the fun here at Kollafoss.
During the jam a lot of ideas were born and concepts were tested out. But it felt like Robbie had a clear idea right from the start the core game mechanics he was aiming for. The result of that was the beautiful and serene management game Sky farm.
This is a game that has been kept running on a secondary screen for hours here on the farm.
For more games from the Isolation Jam, go check out our itch.io page.