XBOX Game Camp Minneapolis: A Summer of Game Development with Best Buy Foundation

https://www.xbox.com/xbox-game-studios/game-camp

XBOX Game Camp is designed for aspiring and established developers ages 18 and older, and it’s not just for commercial studios. It meets creators where they are, whether they are early in their careers, transitioning into games or already building an indie studio. XBOX Game Camp Arcade, by contrast, focuses on accessible, hands-on introductions to game development for younger learners. XBOX Game Camp Minneapolis brought the two models closer together, engaging 18- and 19-year-old participants at a key point of transition between early exploration and deeper industry learning.

From June 15 through September 3, emerging creators connected through Best Buy Teen Tech Centers®, an initiative of the Best Buy Foundation® focused on creating pathways to economic opportunity for young people, across the Twin Cities developed playable prototypes, explored careers throughout the games industry and worked in a studio-style environment with support from XBOX, Microsoft and Teen Tech Center mentors.

The closing showcase event on September 3 marked the culmination of the first collaboration between Best Buy Foundation and XBOX Game Camp, highlighting the passion, determination and creativity of emerging developers from across the region. Through on-demand lessons, live office hours and one-on-one guidance, participants explored various disciplines while applying what they learned directly to their team projects.

Another element to XBOX Game Camp is the idea that seeing is believing. By putting emerging creators alongside experienced industry professionals who show that every career starts somewhere, the program helps them move from “I can’t do this” to “I can do this,” building confidence and making game development feel attainable.

XBOX Game Camp Minneapolis put the core mission into practice: extraordinary talent resides everywhere, and access to knowledge, mentorship and community can help emerging creators achieve more and see a future for themselves in the industry.

That belief also helped spark the partnership with Best Buy Foundation, which shares a similar vision: investing in technology access, career training and strong communities can help young people unlock their potential and pursue their ambitions.

Catch a glimpse of the closing event

From Learning to Creating

At the closing showcase, each team presented its final build and reflected on the setbacks, breakthroughs and creative decisions that shaped it.

Together, the projects spanned time-bending combat, hand-drawn storytelling, superhero investigations, medieval adventure and arcade action, demonstrating the range of ideas that emerged from a single community.

Team Rogue: Set Back

Team Rogue created Set Back, a fast-paced first-person roguelite centered on Con-4, an agent from the Temporal Defense and Analysis Force who enters a facility overtaken by anomalies. With the exits gone, Con-4 must fight toward the corrupting cores at the center of the facility, but every death resets the journey back to the beginning.

The team focused on creating combat that makes players feel powerful while incorporating customization, progression, and repeated runs into the core gameplay loop.

Duck Shuffle Studios: Numb to Reality

Numb to Reality takes a different approach. Developed by Duck Shuffle Studios, the hand-drawn point-and-click visual novel follows an unfinished drawing traveling through an artist's sketchbooks. Along the way, players meet the artist's characters, repair torn artwork, and uncover the memories connected to them.

The team built the project around original, human-made artwork and music, pairing point-and-click mechanics with an emotionally driven story shaped by the lived perspectives of its queer and neurodivergent teen creators.

The Silent Rumors: Strings Over Zecca

In the open-world 2D fighter Strings Over Zecca, The Silent Rumors puts players in the role of a disgraced tabloid reporter investigating the corrupt "heroes" of the opulent city of Zecca.

Players interrogate NPCs, gather evidence on a corkboard and publish stories that can shift public opinion before confronting each boss. The team also developed an equipment-based hero customization system and an investigation-driven narrative with multiple endings, using the project to explore ideas around heroism, influence, and power.

Cure Creators: Project Castle

Cure Creators developed Project Castle, a 3D action-adventure game in which a villager fleeing a plague enters the castle of a tyrannical lord in search of a grail said to cure any illness.

Players explore the castle, solve puzzles and battle enemies as they search for the grail and a way to save their home.

The three-person team demonstrated significant persistence throughout development, creating more than 160 versions of its first level while continuing to iterate through a reduced team roster and unexpected challenges.

Mentorship Beyond the Game

Building the games was only part of the experience.

Across the 12 weeks, participants were introduced to different areas of the games industry through sessions led by professionals with experience across XBOX, Microsoft and the broader industry.

Each week, the curriculum explored new disciplines including game design, production, engineering, art, gameplay and narrative, quality assurance, UI/UX, analytics, marketing and career development.

The sessions gave participants direct access to industry experience while creating space to ask questions, receive feedback, and better understand how professional development teams approach their work.

Game Camp mentors come from across the games industry, inside and outside of XBOX, with expertise spanning game design, engineering, art, animation, production, publishing, business development, quality and developer relations. Because their experience covers the full development lifecycle, their guidance is practical, reaching from creative decisions and scoping through production and bringing a game to market.

Ken Lobb, for example, shared the skills and habits he has observed in successful developers over the past 38 years, while discussing what goes into creating games that are both engaging and fun.

Erik Davis offered practical guidance on building a quality game, developing a strong team, and finding success within XBOX Game Camp. Both have served as mentors since the program's earliest days.

Just as important as that expertise is the human connection. Game Camp gives creators the chance to meet the people behind games and careers they may have looked up to, and to realize that these accomplished industry veterans are, at the end of the day, just people who started somewhere too. Access like that makes goals suddenly feel more obtainable and helps participants build meaningful relationships, expanding their communities beyond their local areas.

“I started my career in games at a time when there was a lot more gatekeeping, and it felt like figuring things out the hard way was part of proving you belonged. Game Camp gets to be the opposite of that,” said Erik Davis, Quality Technical PM at Mojang. “Minneapolis was especially rewarding because, even though these campers were early in their journey, they were already passionate, curious, and incredibly inclusive of each other. Best Buy Foundation gave them a safe place and the tools to create, while we at XBOX built a community where people actually want to share what they know and help each other level up. Getting to pass along some of the knowledge I wish I’d had at that point in my career, and give somebody a better start than I had, is honestly one of my favorite things about Game Camp.”

These conversations also gave participants a closer look at the many career paths that exist around games.

Annette Porter shared her own career journey and encouraged campers to think of careers as adaptable rather than linear. She emphasized the value of networking, mentorship, and business knowledge, as well as the importance of completing work that demonstrates what someone can do.

Other sessions throughout the summer similarly introduced campers to perspectives on narrative development, art direction, UI/UX and other subjects, helping connect the skills they were practicing within their projects to real-world game development.

Celebrating the Creators

The program concluded on September 3 at Best Buy headquarters, where all four teams showcased their work. The closing event included game demos, team presentations, and a fireside chat with XBOX CEO Asha Sharma and incoming Best Buy CEO Jason Bonfig.

The showcase took place during milestone years for both organizations, with Best Buy celebrating its 60th anniversary and XBOX its 25th.

“Bringing Best Buy and XBOX together to invest in the next generation of creators is incredibly meaningful, especially as both companies celebrate such notable milestones,” said Olivia Jefferson, vice president of social impact at Best Buy. “Opportunities like XBOX Game Camp give young people the space to create, learn directly from mentors and see new possibilities for their futures.”

For XBOX Game Camp, the showcase was about more than reaching the end of 12 weeks. It gave participants the chance to stand behind something they had built, talk about the decisions and challenges that shaped it, and recognize how far their projects had evolved over the summer.

What Comes Next

Reaching the end of XBOX Game Camp represented a milestone rather than an endpoint.

Over 12 weeks, dozens of young creators progressed from learning and ideation to presenting original game projects in front of industry professionals, mentors and their community. Along the way, they practiced not only making games, but collaborating, responding to feedback, solving problems and communicating the vision behind their work.

Some of the biggest takeaways from Game Camp are hands-on experience, direct mentorship from industry experts and a community of people to keep learning and building with. Participants leave with a much clearer understanding of how a game moves from idea to prototype to pitch and, most importantly, a stronger sense that there is a path forward for them in the industry.

That journey is at the heart of XBOX Game Camp. Since 2020, the program has worked to empower future waves of creators, storytellers, and game studios while supporting thriving game development communities around the world.

For the creators behind Set Back, Numb to Reality, Strings Over Zecca, and Project Castle this summer offered the chance to do something even more fundamental: make a game, put it in front of people and begin seeing themselves as the game developers they want to be.

For anyone who wants to experience some of the program, the XBOX Game Camp website is the best place to start. It collects videos, photos and stories from previous Game Camps that show what participants have created, and it shares information about Game Camp programs and opportunities as they become available. In-person camps are tailored to specific communities and audiences, so eligibility and application processes vary by program.

About XBOX Game Camp

XBOX Game Camp was founded in 2020 on the belief that Extraordinary Talent Resides Everywhere. The program empowers future waves of creators, storytellers, and game studios to realize their potential in the gaming industry while helping grow thriving game development communities around the world.

About Best Buy Foundation

The Best Buy Foundation works to expand access to technology, skills-based training, and career pathways for young people. Through Best Buy Teen Tech Centers and community partnerships, the Foundation helps young people develop career skills and gain real-world experience for technology-reliant careers.