Nigeria-Japan Game Creator Contest 2026: How Nigerian youths can apply

• Imo State has partnered with a Tokyo-based company to launch the Nigeria/Japan Youth Game Creator Contest 2026
• The competition offers a total prize pool of about 1,000,000 JPY (N8.6 million), with all the top three winners also receiving a fully sponsored trip to Japan
• Participants are encouraged to develop skills in game design, coding, storytelling, digital art, and pitching

The Imo State Government, under the Ministry of Youth Development and Talent Hunt, has officially partnered with a Tokyo-based company for the Nigeria-Japan Gaming Contest titled the Nigeria/Japan Youth Game Creator Contest 2026. 

The winner walks away with 500,000 JPY plus a trip to Japan, second place gets 300,000 JPY plus a trip, and third place gets 200,000 JPY plus a trip, bringing the total prize pool to about N8.6 million. 

The contest is a partnership between Imo State's Ministry of Youth Development and Talent Hunt, the Office of the Special Adviser on Narcotics and Illicit Drugs, Gigbeing Inc from Tokyo, Japan, and Ebelebe Trading Investment. 

Eligibility criteria

• Open to individuals, teams, or companies residing in Nigeria.
• Applicants must be 18 years of age or older.
• Entries must be completely original, unpublished, and must not have won any previous competition.

How to Apply

1. Easy sign-up: Register using your Google, Apple, or Facebook account to create your contest account.

2. Create your profile: Complete your profile by adding your school, skills, strengths, and other relevant details to showcase your background.

3. Submit your work: Upload your game project or concept using images, videos, URLs, or PDF documents. Make sure your submission clearly explains your idea and demonstrates your creativity.

4. Get discovered: Once your submission is live, you'll be eligible to be discovered for the Nigeria-Japan Youth Game Creator Contest 2026, with opportunities to compete for cash prizes, a trip to Japan, and potential internships or future contracts.

Required skills

1. Game design thinking

Liking to play Call of Duty doesn't make you a game creator. Judges want to see original ideas: mechanics, storylines, or concepts that show you understand why a game works.

Start sketching game concepts on paper. Character ideas, level layouts, win conditions. This is the foundation on which everything else is built.

2. Basic coding or game engine skills

You don't need to be a senior software engineer, but you need working knowledge of tools like Unity, Unreal Engine, or even beginner-friendly platforms like Scratch or Construct. These are free, and YouTube has thousands of tutorials.

3. Art & visual design

Games are visual first. If you can sketch, animate, or even do solid pixel art, you already have an edge.

Apps like Procreate, Aseprite, or free tools like Krita can turn a rough idea into something that looks like it belongs on a real screen.

4. Storytelling

Japan's gaming culture is obsessed with narratives like Final Fantasy, Persona, and Death Stranding. If your entry has zero story and zero world-building, you're already behind.

Nigerian folklore, street culture, and Naija humour could be your biggest advantage here — judges want something they haven't seen before.

5. Presentation skills

You could have the best game concept in Imo State, but if your pitch deck is scattered, your demo video is shaky, or you can't explain your idea in under two minutes, you lose points fast.

Practise explaining your game idea out loud, like you're pitching to an investor, not just showing your guy at the cyber café.

Why this contest matters beyond the money

A prize pool of N8.6 million total sounds nice, no doubt, but the trip to Japan is the real jackpot. 

Networking with an actual Japanese gaming company, seeing how their studios operate, building international contacts — that kind of exposure doesn't have a price tag.

This is a foot in the door to a global industry that's currently worth billions, and Nigeria's gaming and creative economy keeps getting louder on the world stage.

Key dates

• Submission deadline: August 31, 2026
• Public voting opens: September 1, 2026
• Public voting closes: September 10, 2026
• Winners announcement: September 30, 2026