Castle Game Jam is a relaxed, week-long game development event held in a majestic castle, where participants form teams to craft game prototypes. These teams can be pre-formed or assembled at the event's outset.

Following the resounding success of the 2023 edition, Castle Game Jam will return to Jaunpils, Latvia, for 2026, promising an enhanced experience with insights gained from the previous year.

Next event is July 11th to July 19th, 2026.

Making Castle Game Jam happen requires a lot of work, and unfortunately a lot of money as well. We run a tight ship and none of the ticket sales are used for salaries, only to pay for castle rent and other expenses that comes with executing the event.

Before we commit to make Castle Game Jam happen, we need to reach a goal of 100 tickets reserved by people intending to attend. Once we've reached that goal, we can finalize the booking of the castle and start selling tickets for real.

If you're ready to commit to attend Castle Game Jam 2026, use the button below to get to the ticket reservation page. Tickets are 2 500 SEK (~250 EUR), and you will receive an invoice for it once and if we hit the target goal for reservations.

We're expecting to break even with the current plans at around 200 tickets.

The castle in Jaunpils is first time mentioned in 1411. Most likely it's built in the end of the 14th century. The tower was added in the 15th century. In the first half of 16th century Jaunpils Castle was the place where many old and weak brothers of Livonian Order settled. In 1576 Jaunpils Castle became property of last komtur of Dobele Matthias von der Recke. Castle was owned by his descendants until 1920. The castle was heavily damaged in war by Swedes in 1625. Later a third floor was added and the old fortress became a manor with all conveniences in the end of the 17th century. The building was partly reconstructed in the 18th century. The castle was burned down during the Russian Revolution of 1905. A year later it was rebuilt by architect Wilhelm Bockslaff.

From the 16th century until 1920 the castle belonged to the family of the Baltic German baron von der Recke. One of the family members who lived there in the 18th century was the poet Elisa von der Recke. After the Latvian agrarian reforms of the 1920s, the castle complex housed a cattle-breeding experimental station. During the Soviet occupation of Latvia, the interior of the castle was heavily reconstructed and for many years had typical Soviet interiors from the 1960s. In the 2000s, a team of Latvian designers refitted the interior of the castle. Today it features luxurious medieval style apartments which blend luxuries with glimpses of the castle's history.

Castle Bedroom

If you've got it made and you're looking to have the best sleep, we've got your back. There's a very limited amount of cool bedrooms in the castle. Each bedroom has a double bed, and some have plenty of room for air mattresses should you want to book one for your whole team.

Due to the limited amount of bedrooms, we'll be auctioning off the rooms to the highest bidders in March, 2026.

Castle Hostel

If you're interested in sleeping inside the actual castle, but don't need a whole bedroom for yourself there's hostel rooms available with 8 beds in each room.

We'll open up this for booking as first-come-first-serve in March, 2026.

Castle Mill Hostel

Just outside the castle is an old mill which has been furnished to be a hostel. There's 30 beds in it, but also room for an additional 20 air mattresses. Unless you book one of the beds, we recommend that you bring an air mattress or similar, but if you don't want to travel with that you can also rent it from us on site.

We'll open up this for booking as first-come-first-serve in March, 2026.

Tenting

For the adventurers attending Castle Game Jam, there's plenty of space in the beautiful nature, and you will be able to sleep just a few meters from the castle itself.

We currently do not have any plans of providing tents.