Heb je je ooit afgevraagd hoe een team met weinig mensen complete werelden bouwt voor games? Daar gebruiken we de techniek photogrammetry voor. We scannen met drones of gewone camera’s een object en maken soms wel tienduizend foto’s. Met speciale software zetten we deze foto’s om naar een 3D-bestand dat overal digitaal te gebruiken is! Dat betekent dat je bijvoorbeeld op een museumwebsite het hele museum kan bekijken vanuit elke hoek. Of met een druk op de knop in VR om een kerk kan lopen vanaf je eigen computer. Bekijk deze link om een idee te krijgen.

In deze workshop leren we je om in een paar minuten van een klein object een scan te maken. Je loopt er met een iPad (pro) omheen en schiet vanuit elke hoek een foto. Al vanaf 150 foto’s is een mooi model te maken. En iedereen kan het! Schrijf je in via hello@indietopia.org en we zien je graag op 26 oktober 2023 van 11:00 tot 15:00 uur.

For the permanent Ede Staal museum exhibit in Museum Borg Verhildersum, our team recently created a VR experience, as well as other game and design elements.

The VR-game is fueled by folk songs of late local singer Ede Staal. One scene depicts the landscape of the Hogeland municipality. In another scene, viewers can partake in fun activities in a garden. The final scene revolves around the harbour area of Nieuwe Statenzijl.  Check out all the info about the expo (in Dutch).

Disco Elysium and Suzerain have been made using Articy. This company offers a visual database to keep track of your storylines, characters and variables in one place. It also makes integrating content into your game easier, as well as sharing content within your team. Articy gives a presentation at our HQ for interested parties. Could your game studio benefit from this solution? Send an e-mail to hello@indietopia.org to book yourself a spot (limited capacity).

3 November, 16:00 at Indietopia HQ (in English)

Merijn de Boer, Director of Operations at Indietopia, is invited to give a talk as part of the TEDx event ‘Under ConstruXion’. Humans are working on dreams, innovations, relationships, a better world and themselves. They are under construction so to speak. Always developing, breaking down what doesn’t work and coming up with new ideas. This event features various speakers for a day of Technology, Entertainment and Design. Merijn’s talk focuses on what makes game designers our modern masters.

25 October, 08:30 – 17:30, TEDxDenHelder – Theater De Kampanje (in English)

Have you ever noticed similarities between overwhelming landscapes in games and artworks by Caspar David Friedrich? In this lecture, you will get to know how improved interaction and an unmatched level of realism transformed simple shooting and jumping games to impressive arthouse productions. How do game makers bring about emotions of pride and regret in players? Indietopia director Merijn de Boer will show many examples of arranged realism in video games.

20 October, 20:00 – Residentie De Roskam for Gorsselse Kunstkring (in Dutch)

How do you create Pong, Breakout and Asteroids? In 5 lessons we’ll teach you how games are made from start to finish and you’ll create your own game! For children aged 9 and up, taught in Dutch.

We’re preparing and keeping our fingers crossed that the lockdown will be lifted just enough on 14 January for you to take part in this course at Forum Groningen from Thursday 20 January from 15:30 – 17:00. More info and tickets. This course is cancelled until further notice, due to Covid lockdown restrictions.

From 9 October 2021 – 23 January 2022, Indietopia hosts the expo Arranged Realism at Museum Belvédère. It’s the first expo in the Netherlands where art from screens is translated to the real world using new techniques such as rotoscoping and photogrammetry. 

In an interview with Leeuwarder Courant, Merijn revealed that visitors will get an insight in how game artists work, discover giclées of game art and 3D-printed scenes from games. Read the full interview (‘Museum ontdekt kunst in games’, Leeuwarder Courant, 8 May 2020, in Dutch). Check out all the info about the expo.

Would you like to become an Indietopia Citizen and set up shop in our swanky new office area? Find out how at the Northern Game Industry Gathering 62 at the Indietopia HQ. This event is a collaboration between Study Association Glitch and Indietopia. We are proud to welcome two guests: David Jimenez from 2Awesome Studio and Emma O’Hare from Creative Europe Desk NL (funding). It’s the perfect opportunity to catch up with fellow game enthusiasts! Throughout this free event there will be drinks, relaxing music and endless opportunities to make new connections and catch up with colleagues!

More info on our Facebook event page.

On 17 November we provided a Risk workshop for YMCA youth work in Meppel. That sounds like risk management but turned to something else. During the explanation of the popular board game, more than 30 children made completely new versions. Our favorite was ‘SpeedRisk’, taking the world with only 12 pawns in 4 minutes. By dissecting games and adjusting small details, children learn to work together in a group on solutions to complex problems – in a safe environment. The day’s statement: “Why don’t world leaders use this game to wage wars?”

In het kader van Meet and Code geeft Indietopia directeur Merijn de Boer op 19 oktober een gratis workshop gamedesign voor jongeren tussen 9 en 24 jaar.

Je krijgt een uitgebreide introductie van Construct 3, een veel gebruikte service om games te maken. Geschikt voor alle apparaten (van Windows PC tot Chromebook) en toegankelijk voor alle leeftijden! Construct wordt o.a. gebruikt door SEGA en King. Je kunt er razendsnel mee testen in een browser.

In een dagdeel maken we alternatieve versies van het eerste computerspel ooit: Pong! We geven ook uitleg over Breakout en Asteroids: games die ruim 45 jaar geleden de basis legden voor de industrie. Vroeger waren complete teams nodig voor het maken van deze games. Pong maak je in 15 minuten met Construct en een klein team.

We kijken ook naar het grotere plaatje van gamedesign. Hoe verdeel je taken in een team? Wie maakt de tekeningen? Hoe bouw je verder op een succesverhaal? Indietopia is ervaren in het maken en uitgeven van games en helpt ontwikkelaars om games te produceren. In 2018 ondersteunde de stichting 9 projecten en organiseerde zij workshops en evenementen.

Geef je op voor deze leuke en leerzame workshop via https://bit.ly/2kBUo3f

The Northern Game Industry Gathering #61 takes place at the Indietopia HQ in Groningen on Thursday 19 September from 16:30 – 19:30. For this event we cooperate with Study Association Glitch. It’s the perfect opportunity to catch up with fellow game enthusiasts and professionals after the summer holiday. Just arrived in Groningen or Leeuwarden to start your game-related studies? Welcome to the industry and we look forward to meeting you! Throughout this free event there will be drinks, relaxing music and endless opportunities to make new connections and catch up with colleagues!

Every month you can enjoy game industry events in Groningen or Leeuwarden, organised by Indietopia, the Game Bakery and Stephan Caffa (teacher at NHL). We’ll keep you posted on all the events via Facebook and Twitter.

Indietopia and Study Association GLiTCH team up to present you the greatest Northern Game Industry Gathering to date! We plan to turn it from an ‘insiders event’ to an interesting and fun event for all. The theme for this edition is: “I booked my first succes, what’s next?” Our line-up revolves around sharing success stories and debating the question: what’s next?

We’ll show the first part of a documentary about the game industry in the North by Studio PushPlay. Furthermore, game developers Excalisoft and award-winning Tweetal Studios share valuable experiences to get us in the mood for discussion. Then, the lucky people who signed up to demo are able to showcase their games and get feedback. You have endless opportunities to make new connections and catch up with colleagues!

If you’d like to demo your game or product, make sure to use the sign-up form.

The Northern Game Industry Gathering is hosted on the 3rd Thursday or Friday of the month alternating between Groningen and Leeuwarden. Consider signing up for the mailing list, so you get notified of future industry gatherings.

The Northern Game Industry Gathering #58 takes place at the Indietopia HQ in Groningen on Friday 12 April from 17:00 – 20:00. As usual, there are no costs for participating. Let us know if you’re attending via our Facebook page (underneath the pinned post at the top). If you’d like to showcase your game, please let us know with a comment underneath the same post. If possible, please include a link to gameplay footage, a screenshot and a small description of the game.

The Northern Game Industry Gathering is (usually) hosted every 3rd Friday of the month alternating between Groningen and Leeuwarden. Due to the ‘Goede Vrijdag’ holiday, this 58th edition takes place on the 2nd Friday of April. We look forward to seeing you there!

Consider signing up for the mailing list, so you get notified for future industry gatherings.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.