Technical artist/programmer Wessel van der Es will lead our fourth Indietopia Session. Find out how to work in small teams, whilst keeping tabs on the big picture. Sometimes generalists work better in smaller teams and specialists in bigger teams. Wessel will give you insight in working for several kinds of studios.

This event is relevant for students/individuals, startups and developers wanting to know more about optimizing work in small teams.

About the speaker: Wessel is an amazing shader wizard, 3D and technical artist and maker of several puzzle games. He currently works at Triangle Studios. Former studios he worked for include Excamedia and Kava Game Studio.

Visit our Facebook event page for more info and tickets.

Our first two sessions revolved around pitching your game and running your own studio. For this third session we have invited Jesús Fabre to talk about PR, identity and event management. He has valuable pointers on how to integrate communication / marketing of your game along with its development. How do you identify a target audience for your game and design a communication strategy that suits it best? Which indie pitches, challenges, events and conferences are important to attend while developing your game? And how can you attract partners?

This event is relevant for students/individuals, startups and developers wanting to know more about joining indie pitches and challenges. Jesús teaches you how to use social networks and social media tools and how to talk to the press and to your audience / community.

About the speaker: Jesús Fabre works in marketing & business consultancy, PR & social media for various video games. He also gives videogame marketing workshops. Jesús managed the PR for the launch of puzzle game Monument Valley in Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Another great project was Horizon Chase, for which Jesús took care of social media presence and press relations.

Visit our Facebook event page for more info and tickets.

After pitching your game or app and thinking you can move to production, there is still a lot you may want to research before assembling a definitive team and start work. How do you stand out in comparison with your competitors? What does the market look like for your specific concept? Is it wise to start with your ambitious project or can you build momentum – and a financial basis – with work for hire first? The game industry is now the biggest ‘player’ within the entertainment industry. But we should heed the fact that only a few well-established giants remain at the top. Sometimes blending in before trying to stand out is a wise course of action. Oscar Sahun has experience with running his own studio. Yet he is also able to add valuable insights due to his other activities as a Program Manager for GameBCN.

This event is relevant for students/individuals wanting to know more about breaking into the game industry, startups on the road to a first launch, developers with the need for more business and market perspective. Also: everyone with the desire to learn more about joining programs comparable to the Indietopia Accelerator in sunny Spain!

About the speaker: Oscar Sahun is the co-founder of Blowing Minds and Program Manager at GameBCN in Barcelona. Besides learning about launching projects from an indie studio, Oscar has valuable pointers on how to acquire work for hire projects. Furthermore, he can give you more information about GameBCN in sunny Barcelona!

Visit our Facebook event page for more info and tickets.

This talk will focus on getting concepts ready to pitch them to relevant partners and investors. In a one-hour talk and subsequent Q&A we move from ideas to delivering these to relevant audiences and responding to first criticism and feedback. We’ll look at a recent concept that was submitted to an entrepeneurs challenge in Groningen and how we can use its learning points for your specific projects.

This event is relevant for students, professionals wanting to know about launching a project with partners, game and app developers who would like to smoothen their pitches and adapt these to the right audience.

About the speaker: Merijn de Boer is the director of operations at the Indietopia Accelerator. He also works on his own projects. These include the production of a concert with music from video games (more info here: https://goo.gl/qPrLjC) and several projects now in development. He’ll gladly tell you more about these after the seminar.

Go to our Facebook event page for more info and tickets.

Indie Gameleon is a yearly independent game festival for talented game developers, the game industry and the game media. We want to create a platform for all the Nothern game developers and enthusiasts to come together and share, collaborate and have fun! In 4 days you can experience and join:

• Showcases of Indie Games
• 8-Bit Dance Party
• Networking Event
• Game Jam
• Harbour Festival Hamburg

Interested and want to join us for an inspiring festival? Find more information via: indie-gameleon.org and the facebook page.

The Northern Game Industry Network Gathering is hosted every 3rd Friday of the month, alternating between Groningen and Leeuwarden. These networking events for the game industry were created by Friso Roolvink from Critical Bit and Mendel Bouman from Indietopia. They wish to connect the game industry in the North of the Netherlands.

Anybody who has an interest in the game industry can get together at these events, meet new people, gather new experiences, get inspired and talk about games. Also, there is space for game developers to show their latest creations or give updates on their current games.

If you want to keep up to date on these events and receive the inviations for the following network gatherings, feel free to sign up.