JIGE, the Java Instructional Game Engine, is a collaborative project developed by Scott Wallace (Washington State University Vancouver) and Andrew Nierman (University of Puget Sound) in conjunction with a small group of dedicated students. The JIGE project is proudly supported by the National Science Foundation and fills an important niche in the space of currently available game engines:

• JIGE targets students with a background in Java programming while most game engines rely on C++
• JIGE targets 2D games suitable for course projects and assignments at a variety of skill levels
• JIGE is being developed as a collaborative project to meet the needs of a diverse set of students
• JIGE is intended to be used longitudinally throughout all four years of the computer science curriculum
• JIGE will be accompanied by a suite of curricular modules that allow instructors to easily integrate game related projects into traditional courses
• JIGE 1.0 and beyond will be open source

You can find out more about the project by going to:

  http://ai.vancouver.wsu.edu/jige/