Jump for June! | IAA Patch Notes (Ver. 06.2025) 🏳️🌈
Hello again, Alberta game dev! We love June 🏳️🌈, don’t we folks? Is it getting hot on the pride dance floor or is that just the 🔥 wildfires 🔥 *pause for applause*? June is, of course, also a time to remember and celebrate Indigenous history. How better to do that than showcasing some of the awesome work done by Indigenous game devs right here in Alberta?
This month we have a wealth of info for you in preparation for GDX 2025 next month, in addition to features from the queer and Indigenous communities! All that and more down below…
Credit: @QuiteDan
If you would like to have your own games, memes, or news added in this newsletter in the future, please email [email protected] to be included!
GDX 2025 Tickets on Sale! 🎟️
Join us this July as we celebrate 10 years of the Game Discovery Exhibition!
The 2025 GDX Conference centers on the theme RISE: Resilient Industry, Sustainable Ecosystem, highlighting the people, projects, and ideas shaping the future of games. Connect with hundreds of developers, artists, researchers, and industry leaders for two exciting days of talks, panels, and community in the heart of Alberta’s game scene.
📍 Conference Dates: July 16–17, 2025📍 Location: Queen Elizabeth II Building, Edmonton, AB
GDX Speaker Reveals! 📣
Did you see our speaker tease from last month? Well make sure you stay up to date with our website and social media to see our speaker announcements!
Here are some more confirmed speakers for this year’s conference!
We’ll be welcoming local ARG expert Nick Hoskins, Baby Ghosts fund co-founder Eileen Mary Holowka, studio co-founder and CEO Kim Belair, graduate student and student leader Jawdat Toume, and games educator and studio co-founder Ahmar Rana.
GDX Exhibition Announcements 🏟️
Excited for the return of the exhibition? The public calendar of who is coming will be available soon! Local studio (and powerhouse) Swordmonkey will be leading the way as GDX once again expands to take up half of Hall F in the Edmonton EXPO Centre. We’ve got locals demoing as well as folks who have come from as far away as Panama City showing off their projects!
For those who are attending KDays on July 18th, all are invited to a game dev gathering from 4 PM - 8 PM at Klondike Park! It’s the conference wrap up and the opening of the exhibition, what better way to celebrate game dev than enjoy some time together?
We Want YOU to Volunteer at GDX! 🤩👈
It’s your last chance to sign up for volunteer opportunities with GDX! You’ll have a chance to spend a day at the conference alongside your day of volunteering, applications are due for June 30th!
Like the Cut of Our Jib? Donate Today! ☝️
A reminder that the Walkthrough Collaborative Centre is your community hub, and is a free co-working space for you to access. Walkthrough is kept afloat by donations, so any support you can offer is much appreciated, but not obligatory!
June Feature: Meet Ari from Simply Sweet! 📸 🌈
Meet Ari Thompson (she/they), a new graduate of Capilano University’s IDEA School of Design!
Specializing in illustration, concept art, and character development, Ari has used many of their creative pursuits to aid with the exploration of gender and self-reflection in life. Post graduation, Ari’s mission has been to express true authenticity through design and communication. Ari works with Simply Sweet games, a studio specializing in high-quality casual games grounded in diversity. You can hear more about Simply Sweet Games when their co-founder and CPO Carina Kom speaks at GDX 2025!
Check out Simply Sweet games and see Ari’s work in action!
Call for Submissions: Community Corner! 🎙️
Got something to share in our next newsletter? We want to hear from you!Whether you're developing a new game, honing your skills, or reflecting on the local games industry, this is your opportunity to be featured.
Send us a 300–500 word piece on something you're passionate about in the world of Albertan game dev. We're looking for genuine stories, insights, and updates from across our community. You’re welcome to include images, demos, or videos—though they’re totally optional.
Selected submissions will be featured in our newsletter and amplified on social media. Let’s celebrate the amazing voices shaping our local games scene!
If you have questions about a community submission, reach out to us at [email protected].
The Moonmeter Collective joins forces with Baby Ghosts! 🌊🌙 x 👶👻
Alberta’s own The Moonmeter Collective is over the moon(meter) to announce their inclusion in the Baby Ghosts peer accelerator program. Moonmeter is an emerging worker-first studio founded by Edmonton developers Ahmar Rana and Eliot M.B. Howard, along with New Zealand-based artist Beth Tianxin Xia.Moonmeter’s first project, currently in development, is Consonance: A De-escalation Game. Based on the principles of transformative justice, this narrative strategy game will explore alternative means of conflict resolution and community peacekeeping.As part of Baby Ghost’s Cohort 5, Moonmeter will be receiving both financial support and professional training aligned with the organization’s goal of establishing co-ops and worker-centric models as the standard for Canadian game studios. Moonmeter is the second Alberta studio to be accepted into Baby Ghosts; after Cozy Comet Games of Cohort 3.Developers interested in learning more about Baby Ghosts or worker-first studio models are encouraged to attend IAA’s GDX 2025 Conference this July 16-17th in Edmonton. Baby Ghosts co-founder eileen mary holowka will be speaking; as will DoomScroll Studios of Cohort 4. GDX has previously featured Baby Ghosts fellows daffodil & friends (Street Uni X) and Diaspora Games.
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Recap: Designing Intentional Booth Experiences with IxDF Edmonton 🎪
On June 21, we partnered with the Interaction Design Foundation Edmonton Chapter to hold a workshop about “Designing Intentional Booth Experiences.” Our very own Madison Côté presented a foolproof guide to “Maximizing the Benefit of In-Person Events”:
Prepare: Ready your booth by determining where to exhibit, the materials you need to bring, and how to ready your game for data collection.
Attract: The art of enticing the audience to come to your booth.
Observe: How to conduct user research in the field and collect key data and qualitative feedback to improve your game.
Capture: Providing your audience with a call to action to interact with you post-event.
Delight: Ensuring that your audience leaves feeling positive and cheerful about what they just experienced.
Analyze: Collating all your data into actionable insights, and confirm product-market fit.
Exploit: Choosing which interventions you will employ to improve your game’s design and future marketing opportunities.
The UI/UX experts from IxDF walked attendees through space design considerations such as:
Purpose: what is your main purpose, who are you trying to engage, what you want them to remember, and how will you measure success?
Flow: What elements will bring your booth to life and help deliver on your purpose?
Narrative: Shape your story and preparing for critique, including first impressions, key interactions, and takeaways.
Attendees of the event walked away with insightful information about how they can ensure that they will get the maximum benefit from GDX and future events. Stay tuned for more “UX in Play” sessions in collaboration with IxDF and their talk coming to GDX 2025!
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You read it here: KDays Value Days Hack! 💵 🏃♀️
At KDays, they’re dedicated to creating an event that is enjoyable and accessible for everyone. Check out more info on how to take part in the best ten days of summer—free!
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Final AIIDE’25 Call for Submissions 💾
The Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) conference—one of the leading global gatherings exploring AI in games, entertainment, and interactive systems—is coming back to Edmonton in 2025!
This internationally recognized event brings together researchers, developers, and creators who are shaping the future of AI and digital media. This year, AIIDE will be linked with GDX 2025, offering a unique opportunity for participants to pilot their content at GDX ahead of the main conference. If you're interested in contributing, reach out to [email protected] to start a conversation.
AIIDE is currently seeking Case Study submissions that highlight how AI is being used across a range of fields—including art, games, robotics, education, and research. The conference also welcomes interactive demos, prototypes, and tools that demonstrate creative or experimental applications of AI.
To submit, you’ll need a short title, a 500+ word outline, and any optional supporting materials. Accepted contributors will present a 15-minute talk, a demo, or both. Limited registration reimbursement is available for students and practitioners.
📅 Submission Deadline: July 9 (11:59 PM AoE)
Learn more and submit here: AIIDE 2025 Cal for Case Studies.
Questions? Contact the organizers at [email protected] and [email protected].
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South Edmonton Game Dev Munch 💻🐒
Join Gaian and friends for a cozy, welcoming evening created with game developers and enthusiasts in mind! Whether you’ve been in the industry for years or are just getting started, this laid-back meetup is all about connection, shared stories, and a mutual love of game development—no pressure, no pitches, just good company and good vibes.
The munch meets every second Wednesday of the month, though the location may vary—so be sure to check Gaian’s Eventbrite page to stay in the loop. We’d love to see you there!
Click on this page and then hit follow next to their name: https://allevents.in/org/gs_gaian-helmers/22977916.
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Want your community event or game news shared with the masses? Reach out today to be included!
🐺🗣️ DENEQUEST - Indigenous History Feature:
Preserving Language Through Play: Learn Dene Dedlıne Yatı in This Immersive RPG!
Discover Dene Dedlıne Yatı ("t-dialect Chipewyan") through an innovative and heartfelt interactive RPG that blends language learning with traditional land-based activities.
Set around Tu Nedhé (Great Slave Lake), this educational demo invites players to explore over 100 levels focused on building fluency in Dene Dedlıne Yatı. Along the way, players fish, hunt, trap, and harvest in familiar and meaningful real-world environments.
Support Elders in more than four Dene communities, build relationships with eleven animal companions, and reconnect with language through culture and play.
Currently in demo form, the game is still undergoing bug fixes, but already offers a compelling glimpse into how games can help preserve and revitalize Indigenous languages for future generations.
Congrats to Kyle Napier and the team for undertaking the task of addressing such an important topic in this project!
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🔪🧅 Spritz the Happy Onion - Upcoming Release!:
Spritz the Happy Onion is a zesty, delicious throwback to momentum-based platformers of old. But unlike them, Spritz is not beholden to jumping off the ground; he can also leap infinitely off stuff in the background! A chill but challenging adventure, Spritz the Happy Onion will have you weeping for all the right reasons.
Glutorax, Devourer of Moons, has arrived at Earth from deep space to, you might have guessed, devour our moon. Only Spritz the Happy Onion possesses the recipe for a cake that will spoil his appetite. But the ingredients are spread across the world, and protected by regular-sized guardians, which seem really massive because Spritz is a regular-sized onion.
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🚀 Story City - Play testing now open!
Love adventure? Obsessed with trying new things before anyone else?
We’ve got something just for you.You’re invited to join the Story City Street Team — a select group of early testers helping us shape the next evolution of immersive, real-world storytelling.
The Story City app turns your city into an interactive story world. Whether you’re solving a mystery, uncovering hidden history, or stepping into a character’s shoes, you’ll be testing interactive stories that unfold as you move through the world around you.
Now’s your chance to be part of the inner circle. As a member of the Story City Street Team, you’ll get early access to the beta version of these adventures, test new experiences before they go live, and help shape the future of city-based storytelling.
Spots are limited, so sign up now to secure yours!
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Did we miss your game? Give us a shout! We would love to share your work with the community!
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