Day Zero Productions, the Los Angeles-based manufacturing firm based by Trevor Noah, is launching a brand new recreation jam with Anima Interactive and Cinereach.
Indie online game studio Anima Interactive has teamed up with Day Zero to unveil the inaugural online game competitors — Day Zero Video games: Solarpunk Jam — a climate-themed international recreation jam awarding a $10,000 grand prize.
The initiative is sponsored by Cinereach, a not-for-profit story lab behind Academy Award nominated movies Marcel the Shell with Footwear On and Beasts of the Southern Wild. It’s also supported by neighborhood companions throughout the international recreation growth ecosystem, together with Worldwide Recreation Builders Affiliation (IGDA), Black in Gaming Basis, Latinx in Gaming, and Video games for Change.
Following Day Zero’s current announcement of its funding in gaming startup Midsummer Studios, the sport jam alerts the corporate’s rising dedication to supporting modern storytelling and indie creators within the gaming house.
“Indie video games are fertile environments to push artistic boundaries in our business”, remarks Dan Zubrzycki, head of video games at Day Zero, in an announcement. “Our crew’s title, Day Zero, has its roots within the local weather dialog. It’s a problem near Trevor’s coronary heart. With this Solarpunk Recreation Jam, we’re tapping into that spirit to reimagine the local weather dialog — not with concern, however with creativity, resilience, and pleasure. The longer term wants greater than warnings; it wants worldbuilders courageous sufficient to think about a greater tomorrow.”
Day Zero Productions takes its title from the water scarcity disaster in Cape City, South Africa that occurred between 2015 and 2018 — an origin that displays the studio’s local weather consciousness. Day Zero Video games: Solarpunk Jam invitations builders world wide to think about hopeful and optimistic local weather futures impressed by the solarpunk literary and artwork motion.
Final 12 months, Anima Interactive and Cinereach hosted Simply Play, an initiative that inspired creators to discover completely different lenses of justice by means of interactive media. These recreation jams culminated in showcases at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and the Hollywood Local weather Summit.
“Recreation jams supply a secure house and playground to experiment and take dangers which may not be doable inside extra structured studio environments,” stated Anima Interactive’s artistic director Karla Reyes, in an announcement. “We’re excited to associate with Day Zero on this solarpunk-themed jam. Throughout a time when our Earth is fragile, it’s extra essential than ever for artwork and activism to converge and encourage a brighter future. It must be electrifying.”
Reyes can be a speaker at our upcoming GamesBeat Summit 2025 occasion on Could 19-20 in Los Angeles. Anima Interactive beforehand ran the Simply Play recreation jam for justice in 2023.
Launching on Earth Day (April 22, 2025) and operating by means of Could 10, 2025, the jam challenges creators to make authentic online game prototypes that deliver local weather visibility to the forefront. A story toolkit created by Cinereach in partnership with Good Vitality can be supplied to members, providing insights and local weather analysis to tell and encourage their initiatives.
“We’re thrilled to crew up with Day Zero Productions on our third recreation jam with Anima Interactive,” stated Cinereach’s chief artistic officer, Candice McFarlane, in an announcement. “We are able to’t wait to see our narrative blueprints—formed by representatives of impacted communities and local weather professionals—reworked into playable worlds with the ability to encourage various futures. What builders create right here may simply be the seeds from which a brand new actuality can emerge.”
With greater than three billion avid gamers globally, and an business rising quicker than movie, tv and music mixed, video video games have turn out to be one of the vital highly effective platforms for social commentary and cultural impression. Day Zero Recreation Jams harnesses this potential to reshape how creators and audiences have interaction with one of the vital pressing problems with our time: the way forward for our planet.
Submissions for creators open on Earth Day, April 22, 2025 on itch.io.
Day Zero Productions is a three way partnership between Trevor Noah and Paramount International. Its gaming division collaborates intently with the corporate’s movie and tv initiatives to take a 360-degree strategy to storytelling. Along with trans-media initiatives, DZP produces authentic interactive experiences like JokeNite with Epic Video games, and helps the broader business by means of strategic investments, together with a seed spherical in Midsummer Studios, based by Firaxis veteran and XCOM creator Jake Solomon.
Anima Interactive is a brand new socially acutely aware unbiased video games and immersive media studio that blends artwork and know-how to ignite optimistic cultural change. The corporate is at the moment growing Take Us North, a story journey that immerses gamers within the poignant journeys of migrants and asylum seekers on their strategy to cross the US-Mexico border.
Cinereach is a not-for-profit story lab advancing tales that spark curiosity, empathy and company. We’re working to revolutionize the narrative course of, bettering how tales are made and consumed, and bridging the hole between social impression storytelling and widespread leisure in movie, tv, and rising media. Initially based in 2006 as a movie basis and manufacturing firm, Cinereach has supported greater than 200 beloved and acclaimed movies, together with Academy Award Finest Image-nominees Beasts of the Southern Wild and Marcel the Shell with Footwear On.
