Nordic Game Indie Night 2013 program

By Lau on May 13th, 2013

Nordic Game Indie Night 2013 is starting to look like a blast. Wednesday May 22nd from 18:00 – 24:00 is squeezed in between Unite Nordic and Nordic Game. We expect a lot of people showing up, either as a final party of Unite, a kick-off of Nordic Game, a nice bridge between the two events or just a solo event in Malmö. The event is free and open to the public, so no reason not to show up.

During the night the 8 finalist games will be showcased and the audience will be able to vote for their favorite to win the Nordic Indie Sensation Award at the Nordic Game Awards May 23rd.

If you are traveling from Copenhagen by train you will be able to get a great ticket discount. Check out this link with all the information.

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CLICK festival – Workshops

By Patrick on May 8th, 2013

We love experimenting with new ways of thinking about games and we do it often. Now we want to introduce our methodology to the world. That is why we in collaboration with Click festival have created 4 different workshops. Workshops where we play around with technology to create new kinds of interfaces for games. The click festival is in Kulturværftet in Helsingør.

Our workshops are: Using Node.js on Thursday 9th May 14-20h, Hardware Jam on Friday 10th May 12-19h, Circuit Bending also on Friday 10th May 12-19h, and then finishing off with a Mini Game Jam on Saturday 11th may 12-19h.

image: www.throughmyeyes.de – Merlin Nadj-Torma – merlin@throughmyeyes.de

Playdate: May 15, Show us what you are working on!

By joon on May 8th, 2013

The Copenhagen Game Collective, in collaboration with PlayIT CPH and the Local Multiplayer Picnic, are hosting the first Playdate. An afternoon, which will turn into an evening, where anybody can come present their pet project, play with each others’, mingle and drink beer.

Have this really fun 4 player game but you don’t have any friends? Need some input on a writers block? Looking for a job, or have a job to offer? Just want to play some games? Come to Playdate on May 15th, it’s absolutely free!

where: Scrollbar, ITU (Rued Langgaards Vej 7 2300 København)
when: May 15th, from 16:00 and onwards
what: Show us what you are working on! Bring projects, demos, anything.
contact: Contact me, Joon, if you need anything special or have a question: joon@joon.be

There is a Facebook event right here, if you like social media.

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We’re going to the Maldives – The games

By Patrick on May 3rd, 2013

Read about the background of this trip here.

We got the move controllers water-proofed and were excited to try our underwater idea. We thought of having an underwater minefield of floating move controllers. If you touched one, a chain reaction would start, and you would hear sounds played from above the water.

Ready to get wet

However, as soon as the move controllers were submerged, just a bit, they stopped working. Apparently the Bluetooth signal from the controllers is not strong enough to send through water. The medium is of course tougher than air to propagate in, but we did not think this would be an issue. Apparently it is. There went all under water ideas!

Luckily we made two new findings.

The move controllers float and work while floating
They start working again as soon as they emerge from the water! (As long as they have not been under for more than 5 sec, where the built in hardware disconnect kicks in)

These two findings together we thought was really cool and could be turned around from a bug to a feature. We figured out that we could count for updates in the code, where no there was no activity from the controller. If the duration is longer than a prescribed threshold (for us 0.5 second), then the controller had been submerged.
This got us to think about the games in another way, and even though an under water game would have been beautiful and atmospheric to play, being above water is more fun, since you can communicate and interact more with the other players.
Read more »

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We’re going to the Maldives – Boat, water and island games

By Patrick on April 25th, 2013

Read about the background of this trip here.

At our third day here we wanted to get to know the local culture more. We wanted to hear some local fairytales and folk stories. That’s why we arranged a get-together with some of the locals at a café on a Malé suburb – Villingili (it’s on another island, and you have to take a ferry to get there, but yes, it’s a “suburb”).

Telling stories to a crowd can be a bit daunting if you’re not used to it. I remembered a classic danish parlour game that my friend Anders Børup taught me. It is a collaborative storytelling game where people take turns at saying a word that is attached to the current sentence and then it goes around in a circle. Anyone can always end the sentence by saying “full stop” instead of a word, which then changes the direction and begins a new sentence. It is best played fast and to a specific rhythm. This forces people to not over-think and makes it more silly and fun.

Here is a sentence we built that I really love. It’s a bit non-sensical and aaaalmost poetic:

“Malé is unpleasantly humid, yes, this will destroy mother earth if we want all the passionfruit all in one mouthful.”

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NGIN 2013 Finalists

By Lau on April 24th, 2013

We are happy to announce this years finalists for the Nordic Game Indie Night Showcase. Our jury of Copenhagen Game Collective members, as well as previous finalists have selected eight games representing the breadth and quality of the Nordic Indie Scene:

Badland, By Frogmind [Finland]

Clairvoyance, By Erik Svedang, Johannes Gotlen, Niklas Akerblad and Oscar Rydelious [Sweden]

Flowstorm, By Neat Corporation [Sweden]

The Mission, By Xavier V Lafont, [Denmark]

The Plan, By Krillbite Studio, [Norway]

Rymdkapsel, By Grapefrukt Games, [Sweden]

The Silent Age, By House on Fire [Denmark]

Stikbold, By Team Stikbold, [Denmark]

The eight selected games will be showcased Wednesday May 22nd from 18.00 at Slagthuset, Malmö. The evening is free and open to the public and will features inspirational and experimental speakers and party all night. We will release more information about the program for the evening in the following weeks, stay tuned.

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We’re going to the Maldives – first days

By Patrick on April 18th, 2013

Read about the background of this trip here.

The last couple of days we have been settling in. Getting to know the “island time” and meeting local people and Amani’s family. All very nice people.

I got to play a game with the locals that they claim is the predecessor of the other games in the same variant. The game is called Ohlvalhu Gondi and is a type of Kalaha/Mancala and is played sea shells called cowrie. The cowrie used to be their currency, so playing this game would have an element of gambling involved. The cowrie is also depicted on their really beautiful paper money as a legacy of their history.

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We’re going to the Maldives – day 0

By Patrick on April 15th, 2013

Yay! We got invited to participate in this cool game design trip to the Maldives.

Amani Naseem of the Collective has invited a group of international game designers to go and design games and make playful events in the capital city of the Maldives, Malé. We will work with key artists, thinkers and organizers in the Maldives and create a playful event in the public spaces of Malé.

Image courtesy of Ida Marie Toft

There are more reasons why we go to the Maldives of all places in the world. Firstly; Amani is from there. She has family there.and knows a lot of the local community. Secondly, Amani was invited to join the Maldivian pavilion for this year’s Venice Biennale and decided to invite designers to do collaborative game design events in the Maldives and in Venice.

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ERVAX for 2 nominated for A MAZE!

By sbn on April 8th, 2013

So, our little game / compositional tool ERVAX for 2 has been nominated for the Most Amazing Indie Game of 2013. We are, of course, very honoured and find it a bit daunting to see the quality and scope of the other nominees.

The competition

Before this, I only knew of three of the other nominees. I’ve played (and bought) Dear Esther and was vaguely aware that David Kanaga (of Proteus fame) had been working on some MIDI-hardware controlled project. And I’ve played Space Team once, when I happened to be in a room with enough iDevices.

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Independent Drinking Game Summit 2013

By Lau on March 24th, 2013

Do you think mainstream drinking games are too… mainstream? Do you think indie games summits are too… sober? You should go to the Independent Drinking Games Summit @ GDC 2013 Come and play a selection of independent, underground and ground breaking drinking games Thursday March 28th from 6-10pm We have found a super cool and relaxed location in SOMA – Bring Your Own Beer, come early, address will be tweeted at the day at @CphGC

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