Nordic Game Indie Track!

Ricky Haggett and a certain keynote speaker, playing Monkey See, Monkey Mime at our Killscreen vs Scandinavia party. Boy, our guests have to put up with all kinds of absurdity! (Photo by Elliot Trinidad)

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!

Keynote: What I Mean When I Say Games
Brandon Boyer, Chairman, IGF

The current videogame landscape is almost unrecognizable compared to just a decade ago, while at the same time surprisingly similar to that of the artform’s earliest days. In this keynote one part educational and three parts inspirational, writer and Independent Games Festival chairman Brandon Boyer charts the course that has brought us to where we are today, and makes the case for independent creators leading the form into the future.

The Minecraft Story: How it All Started, and Where We Are Today
Daniel Kaplan, Business Developer, Mojang AB

This talk is mainly about the development of how Mojang grew from one guy to the nine man working force it is now. What we are aiming for and how we are doing it is something that is going to be central in this talk too. There will also be room for QA 🙂

Techniques for Getting a Relatively Large Game Done Fast With a Small Team
Niklas Nygren, Nifflas’ Games

I will present my upcoming game Knytt Underground (working title) and share a number of creative techniques I use to simplify and speed up the process of creating the game.

iOS Indie Development Panel
Ricky Haggett, Honeyslug Ltd., Erik Svedäng, and Asbjørn Søndergård, Tactile.
Moderated by Douglas Wilson, Co-founder, Copenhagen Game Collective.

In this panel, three indie developers share the highs and lows of their experiences making games for iOS devices. Which game design decisions have worked well, and which ones not as well? For small indie studios, is iOS really as viable a development platform as it’s sometimes made out to be? And how can indies distinguish themselves in such a crowded market?

How to Make a Hard Thing Even Harder
Anders Gustafsson, Game Designer, and Erik Zaring, Producer, Cockroach Inc.

A behind the scenes look at how The Dream Machine was made. The Dream Machine is a point & click adventure game in five chapters, made by hand using materials such as clay and cardboard.

BONUS VIDEOS:

To whet your appetite, here are some videos of talks that some of our speakers have given in the past: