By, Luthfi Taher
GOMBAK, 16 May 2026: The Google Developer Group on Campus (GDGoC) of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) held the GameFest 2026 at the Kulliyah of Information and Communication Technology (KICT) on 16 May, making it the first game festival the university has ever seen in its history.
Students, game enthusiasts, and industry partners all came together on the day, and the energy inside the hall reflected that. The venue had Games Booth, Sponsors Booth, Artist’s Booth, and Board Games corner running side by side, the latter made possible through collaborations with MMU D.I.C.E and Here Be Dragons. A stamp rally had attendees moving from station to station, and a lucky draw kept things exciting well into the later part of the afternoon.
Pictures shows Board Games corner, Artist’s Booth, and Games Booth
Beyond just the activities, the exhibition gave students a real chance to sit at the same table as industry names. SerpAPI came on board as the corporate sponsor of the event, joined by SEAGM, Keychron, TODAK, MDEC, and Dreamonaut Studio, and their presence added a layer to the event that went beyond a typical campus gathering. Most who attended left describing it as lively and worth the time.
GameFest 2026 was not limited to Exhibition Day alone. In the lead-up to the event, GDGoC IIUM ran three workshops across Phase 1. Pyxel was a Python-based session where participants built an AI that learns to play a game using reinforcement learning. HelloGame was a two-day game development workshop split into beginner and intermediate tracks using GameMaker Studio and Godot respectively. Modding Mayhem was a Minecraft modding workshop centred on custom Datapacks. Alongside the workshops, two competitions ran concurrently.
The GDGame Jam was a seven-day online challenge where teams designed and built complete games from scratch based on a given theme. The osu! Skin Competition, open to all Malaysians, invited participants to design a custom interface for the rhythm game osu!, with winners decided through a combination of judge evaluation and public voting.
Closing the event, the Program Manager, Nurul Balqis Binti Jamhari spoke briefly but genuinely. “Thank you for bringing your energy and passion in games, in this GameFest. This is our very first game festival in IIUM,” she said, and the weight of that statement was not lost on the crowd.
She also made sure her committee heard it directly. “I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to my amazing committee members, 50 members,” she said. On the delay in the closing ceremony, she did not sidestep it, she apologised openly and said the team would carry those lessons into whatever comes next.
GameFest 2026 landing the way it did says something about where student interest in IIUM is heading. GDGoC IIUM has always been rooted in tech but stepping into gaming and creative culture the way they did here points to something broader taking shape on campus.***
