We are super excited to announce the Nordic Game Indie Night Summit. Every year we have invited the developers of the finalist games to do short presentations, which has led to wonderful and colorful talks. The sessions has always been a favorite of the audience. This is why we have expanded the talking and discussing part of Nordic Game Indie Night into a regular indie night summit.
Nordic Game Indie Night kicks off the Nordic Game Conference, and it will take place Wednesday 23 May from 18.00 at Slagthuset, Malmö. The summit runs from 19.00 – 21.00 and from 21.00 there will be partying and drinking. The selected finalist games can be played all night. The evening is free and open to the public!
While everybody was at the Game Developers Conference in SF, having fun and receiving awards, we were also having fun with a talk about prototypes and experimental games. We were invited by Shareplay to give a talk about our work. The talk was titled “from protoype to production”. Shareplay is a transmedia venture interested in the development of the future media sector. That means they have some capital for thing like this. Which is pretty good for Northern Jutland and the gaming scene there.
The actual location for the talk was in a bar called Viva La Revolution. It was kind of a small and cozy setting, which led the mind towards a small smoke filled underground NYC comedy club. Perfect setting for showing experimental and ridiculous games. And of course, there was beer, which also helps to set the mood. In that sense, it really differentiates itself from the Copenhagen version of the Spilbar, which is more geared toward formal talks and professional networking. The Spillbar 9000 takes another approach and creates a more casual environment that should help the networking. It was even more evident, since, as mentioned, it was during GDC. So they audience was mostly students and less people in the game industry.
Last week some of us were at a couple of events that gave us the feeling that Copenhagen is a cool and thriving city in regard to indie games and interactive installations. It also gave us renewed energy and motivation to create our own events to further expand the game culture and to have some interesting and different parties.
Last September, we rolled through New York City to throw our Brutally Unfair Game Bash at Babycastles. While I was in town, I stopped by ITP (Tisch School of the Arts, NYU) to give a talk to a “Games-Art” class co-taught by my friend Zach Gage.
The talk was about abusive game design, so of course I had to do the obligatory live demo of Dark Room Sex Game. Apparently, somebody caught the moment on video. Enjoy!
We’re still busy making the final selections for our Nordic Game Indie Night showcase. We’re hoping to announce the final lineup this Friday evening – stay tuned!
Meanwhile, the full program for Nordic Game Conference 2011 was just announced today. This year, our collective was invited to “curate” a brand new Indie Track. Of course we were thrilled to jump at the opportunity! There is so much indie talent right here in the Nordic region, and so it’s about time that people here at “home” started recognizing that scene.
We arranged five sessions, including a four talks and one panel (moderated by yours truly). Most of the speakers are Nordic-based indies. But we also managed to rope in a few very special guests from abroad. In particular, we’re very pleased to announce that IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer (formerly of Offworld fame) will be giving a keynote. As you can imagine, we’re pretty damn excited.
One of the other track keynote speakers, by the way, is Jordan Mechner, the mind behind the original Prince of Persia. Awesome!
Below, I’ve copied the full list of Indie Track sessions. Hope to see you at the conference!
We’ve planned the event together with our friend, NYC-based game artist Zach Gage. I’m very happy to announce that both Katherine Isbister and Frank Lantz are going to kickoff the event with two game talks. Lau and I will also join in on the speaking fun – I’ll be speaking on deliberately “broken” games, and Lau will be talking about our efforts to push indie gaming out into the living room, beyond the screen.
After the talks, we’ll be throwing a party! Knife City from Anamanaguchi will be on hand to perform some live music, and we’ll be showcasing a number of our games, including B.U.T.T.O.N., Dark Room Sex Game, Rückblende, Fuck You It’s Art!, and several other projects. Actually, we’re going to run the official 2010 World B.U.T.T.O.N. Championship.
Here’s the details again:
Saturday October 2 @ Silent Barn (915 Wyckoff Ave, Queens NY)
Potluck at 5pm
Talks from 7-9pm
Party 9pm till late!
$5 door charge for the musicians
WarCraft III star Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen was recently here in Copenhagen for a day-long workshop on e-sports. He spoke on a great panel about pro gaming, along with Ryan Hart and Jonas “bsl” Vikan (Street Fighter and Counter-Strike pros, respectively).
You can watch it here:
The event was organized by my research group here at IT University of Copenhagen. The workshop was the “sequel” to a similar event that was hosted at Stanford last year.
It was exciting to see Grubby in person. I was even able to briefly chat with him afterward. He’s not only very articulate, but also very amicable!
