Tickets are now available for this year's installment of the Berlin Indie Game Jam!
Set in
St. Oberholz, a lovely café in the devastatingly indie
Mitte district of Berlin, BIGJam offers
programmers,
designers,
musicians and
artists in general* the opportunity to get together in one place and collaborate on exciting and, hopefully, absurdly inventive projects. We'll have the rapid-fire 3-hour themed game jams (shorter, if people think they can handle it) which have become a standard at this type of event, along with any presentations you might be willing to put on to share your areas of expertise with one another—these were very popular last time, and covered a range of topics from Unity to Ableton Live. The jam is also a great chance to get feedback on whatever you're working on at the minute from other indies, all fleshy and in-person.
We'll be occupying the top floor of the café, giving us space for up to
30 laptop-toting jammers (and a bit more arm room than we had the first time around).
Free WiFi will be available for all, and should be considerably faster than last year.
Those who come equipped with hulking desktop PCs and monitors will find themselves in a position of regrettable homelessness which, added to the back and thigh injuries likely incurred in the transportation of those items, will probably not result in the most enjoyable of weekends.
Don't bring desktop PCs.For those who aren't familiar with the arrangement we have with St. Oberholz, the situation is basically that they (very kindly) offer us the space and internet access for free on the understanding that attendees will be consuming food and drinks bought on the premises. This is what enables us to offer the tickets for as little as €5. We're not asking for anything excessive; in Robert (Jstckr)'s words, "a coffee once in a while keeps everyone happy". The café is a brilliant environment—one of the most popular places in the area—and offers a range of
good, home-made food in addition to most varieties of exotic tea you might desire. We're very lucky to be able to hold the event there, and it all worked very amicably and successfully last time.
Thanks to Robert's hard work and string-pulling, we can also announce that we'll be throwing a Sunday night
end-of-jam party at Kaffee Burger. Kaffee Burger is located nearby St. Oberholz and, like that café, is among the area's popular venues. Robert's secured a great DJ duo,
Bianca Kruk + DJ Tomma Hanksa, who'll be playing a selection of soul and funk along with an abundance of chiptuney dance music. (DJ Tomma Hanksa, AKA Bastian Hagedorn, also plays with Joe Howe in his band Ben Butler & Mousepad [
] and previously made hardcore chiptunes under the moniker of GTUK [
]). The party will be open to the public, but entry will be free for jammers. So, if you want to come along, make sure you're not leaving early (i.e. before Monday). Oh, but you'll need to be
18+ to get in.
Accommodation-wise, there are a number of hostels in the area. We have two reasonably comfortable rooms reserved for those who would like places in them: one at the Circus hostel (19€/night, two 8-bed rooms — 10 beds taken already, so 6 remaining in one room) and one at the Meininger (6-bed room, 15€ first night, 18€ the following two). On the off chance that anybody wants something fancier, there's also a 4-person apartment available for 200€ a night directly above St. Oberholz (
link).
Registration is open to everyone above the age of 16 (blame Germany's youth protection laws). Tickets cost
5€, and in number they are 30. We look forward to seeing you there!
For your ease, here're the facts in summation. For everyone's ease, the summary's more or less identical to last year's.
- In a cool café with nice food and drinks
- Hostel and bars right outside
- Bring a laptop
- Meet awesome people
- Make beautiful things with said people
- Participate in 3-hour game competitions, give and
listen to presentations, whatnot - Sunday-night soulfunkchipdance gitdown at Kaffee
Burger (free entry to jammers; 18+) - 5€
- 16+
*"Artists in general" here meaning people with skills, not just people with ideas.
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