Over the weekend of 11-13th November, Creative Assembly, the UK-based games studio responsible for titles including the Total War franchise, are raising funds for the charity Team Verrico, in honour of the studio’s employee, Simon Franco.

Simon Franco, who sadly passed away in June 2014 after a short battle with a terminal illness, was a long-standing member of the Creative Assembly family having worked for the studio for over 10 years. Simon was a Senior Programmer on Alien: Isolation as well as having worked on a number of the Total War games.

After his passing, #FrancoJam, an annual event in which CA employees donate their own free time to a timed game development competition, was created to honour his memory, raise money for charity, and communicate the impact Simon’s work and life had on the studio.

The 2016 #FrancoJam is raising funds for Team Verrico, who fund treatment, diagnosis and support the families of those suffering from rare and hard to treat cancers: http://www.teamverrico.org/

Franco Jam is back for a third year, and while the Creative Assembly team take part in the game jam, fans are invited to join in through the Total War twitch channel and donate for this fantastic cause.

While the CA jammers work tirelessly to create their own games within 48hrs, the weekend-long twitch stream offers plenty of opportunities for fans to get involved, including:

• Game giveaways every half hour, from indie to AAA titles on PC, Xbox and PS4
• In-game incentives, including the chance to watch the CA team in a blindfolded Alien: Isolation run!
• Back to back gameplay from our team’s personal archives of favourite titles
  
• Regular updates on Creative Assembly’s internal game jam; Franco Jam

Watch the stream from 5PM, Friday 11th November here: http://twitch.tv/totalwarofficial