Winter Game Jam 2024: The Game Before Christmas

By The Code Zone team 4 min read

Only one week left until Christmas! And you all know what that means... it is time for another Code Zone Game Jam!

Only one week left until Christmas! And you all know what that means... it is time for another Code Zone Game Jam!

During half-terms and the various holidays throughout the year, The Code Zone loves to host a Game Jam to give our members the opportunity to make games and animations of their own using the coding skills they gained with our coding clubs and mentors.

During our live clubs, members can get the help of a STEM-certified mentor through a live video chat whilst our starter and academy members can contact our mentors throughout the week via our live chat to get help and advice on how to make their games their own. 

Kicking off this week, we have our latest Game Jam: The Game Before Christmas. Our coders were given some base code for an infinite runner style game where the Zonebot must leap over Christmas trees obstacles! We have seen a plethora of amazing entries for this week's winter theme. In no particular order, here are some of our favourite entries so far!

"The Game Before Christmas: starring the Christmas Pupper" - Niamh

Instead of having our own mascot Zonebot catching presents, this festive entry stars a Christmas Pupper! This little furry friend has a job to do as well; collecting all the bow-wrapped bones for his four legged friends. It isn't just Christmas for humans, you know!

Not only does this game include the bonus bows which gives our Christmas Pupper more points, but we've also got some AMAZING animation with the twinkling Christmas lights and falling slowflakes. Animation requires several costumes, adjustments in x and y positioning as well as cloning code - a fabulous feat for this Game Jam. 

"Rudolph to the Rescue!" - Lilya
This entry was done by one of our tasters this weeks... that's right! Even tasters can participate in Game Jams and what an amazing job she did. Using the theme of reindeer, it is up to Rudolph to save the day and get all the presents ready for Santa.

In this Game Jam, we added some animation for the snow as well as reindeer moving around the in the background. We also added extra obstacles to the game - so Rudolph has to fly over both trees and snowmen in order to get the presents. This was Lilya's first time coding and we are all so impressed with the amount of features she added to her Christmas game. 

'Christmas Clicker' - Leo 
Not only have we had Scratch Game Jam Entries, but MakeCode ones as well. This entry was done by one of our Game Dev Members, and instead of using a base game to create their entry - they made the game entirely by themselves! This fun clicker game involves trying to catch a variety of Christmas goodies from trees to puddings and jams and gifts.

Depending on what the player clicks on they can either receive extra points or extra time in the clicker game. We always love seeing a game built entirely by one of our members - great job!

"Santa's Little Helper" - Ithamar 
What an achievement this Game Jam entry is! Using the base game, this member jam packed as many cool and unique features into this Christmas feature; from adding cool effects and animation to the backgrounds, to creating an opening cutscene with Santa to finally adding a win condition for the player.

In addition, we have to highlight the cosmetic designs of the game with the secret Happy Christmas messages in the snow and the adorable little elf character.  

What an amazing set of entries we've had so far from some of our most experience members to even tasters! Well done to everyone who has taken part in the Game Jam so far, all of us mentors are blown away with your creativity and we've all been sharing the entries amongst each other to enjoy the Christmas cheer.

Please do continue to make games and share your entry for the Game Jam as there is still time before we all break up for Christmas. 

Happy Coding!

How a game jam works

  1. Six to eight weeks of club

    An hour a week, the same mentor, a group of no more than six. Over a term the pieces stack up: events, loops, variables, functions, and whatever else the thing they are building turns out to need.

  2. Then the holidays, and a theme

    We announce a theme and stop there. No brief, no worksheet, and no deadline you can fail. It is the one stretch of the year with an unbroken run at a single idea, which is why most of the building happens here rather than in the term.

  3. Then somebody else plays it

    Finished games go up on our own platform and on this page, where sharing between members is moderated by mentors. Other children play them and award XP. Having a stranger pick up the thing you made is the part that keeps children coming back.

The games our members made

9 games 9 makers 82 XP awarded by other members Built in MakeCode and Scratch

Every one of these is playable in the browser, no account needed. Have a go at a few.

About our game jams

A game jam is a themed build: we announce a theme, and children across the clubs spend a few weeks making something from it. There is no brief beyond the theme and nothing to finish by a deadline you can fail. Children share what they made on our own platform, where chat and sharing between members is moderated by mentors.

Jams run alongside the ordinary weekly clubs rather than instead of them. A Game Dev Club session is one hour a week, in a group of no more than six, with the same DBS-checked, STEM-certified mentor each week.

Children build their own games rather than working through a set course, starting in Scratch or MakeCode and moving to Python and TypeScript when they are ready.

Past themes have included Evolution, Elemental Powers, The Wall of Doom and Strange Sports, and the results range from a two-screen platformer to something genuinely strange that only makes sense to its author. Both count. A jam is the one point in the year where the brief is deliberately loose, which is when children who normally follow instructions carefully surprise everybody.

Mentors write a note on every child after every session, which is how we know when somebody is ready to move up a level, or would rather stay where they are. Levels move down as readily as up, so the work always fits.

More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join, and in 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society.

Children can keep the camera off, type instead of speaking rather than being put on the spot, take a break without it disrupting anyone, and step away and come back.

Jams tend to be where that matters most: a deadline nobody set and a theme nobody has to interpret the same way is a much easier place to take a risk than a classroom is.

Live clubs run online across the UK and in person across Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Over 1,000 children are enrolled. In 2026 we were ranked second in the UK in Club Hub UK’s Top 100 Children’s Activity Providers, scored by five independent judges on safeguarding, inclusivity and community impact.

More like this

The blog is in two halves. Guides are the evergreen explainers written by the mentors who teach the clubs, covering the questions parents actually ask: what comes after Scratch, how to support a coding-mad child when you cannot code yourself, and what works for autistic and ADHD children.

Club news is the other half, and it is where posts like this one live: game jams, Minecraft builds and weekly roundups, written up by whoever ran the session. Neither is marketing. If you want to know what an hour actually looks like before you book anything, club news is the more honest read of the two.

The first session is a free taster and we do not ask for card details. Book a free taster session, see what it costs, or read about support for neurodivergent children.

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