It’s been a busy end of the week with plenty of action happening on both sides of The Sound. (It’s the translation Wikipedia offers for Øresund) Thursday I went to Malmö to participate in the second day of Unite Nordic 2013. It was hosted by Unity as a prequel for the Nordic Game Conference the following days, featuring talks by names like Nintendo, Jaakko Haapasalo (Rovio), Ragnar Tornquist (Funcom / Red Thread Games) and Henrike Lode (Lohika ApS).   It was a day filled with plenty of inspiring talks, although the one that stuck with me the most was Sir, You Are Being Procedurally Generated by Tom Betts and James Carey (Big Robot) who guided us through their experience of working with procedurally generated content for their upcoming game Sir You are Being Hunted. The game went through a successful Kickstarter and is estimated to be out in July this year.

The conference was followed by the Nordic Game Indie Night where the 8 finalists for the Nordic Indie Sensation Award presented their games, both on stage and by letting people play. The evening also featured a live showcase of “48 Hour Games“, an interactive documentary movie about Nordic Game Jam. This was an experience where the audience controlled the choices made in the documentary.

Back in Copenhagen, Saturday marked the beginning of the first w00t festival, which is a 2-day festival dedicated to play and games. We went both days to present our games Mussades and Wanted:Igor. Although the weather could have been slightly nicer, we had an awesome time showing of our games, and it seemed that those playing them enjoyed them as well. Kvasir Games also experienced a positive boost as IGDA announced us as the winners of the Nordic Game Jam aftermath competition, where the requirements was to sell a single copy of your game. The price we got was 10.000 dkk, which is really going to help us in the coming months as we take our games to market!

W00t festival, however, is about much more than board games. All sorts of playful activities took place during the weekend, including Human Tower Defence and Weeping Angles. I believe it’s more than fair to say that it was a huge success, even if it was raining, and I really look forward to participating again next year!

At the end here, I have a small confession to make: I never actually got around to writing about all those awesome Exile games. If you are interested, allow me to point you in the direction of Simon Cutajar, who wrote a nice and detailed post about the weekend.

It’s Sunday evening, and I’ve just returned from Exile Game Jam at Vallekilde Højskole. It’s been an exiting week/weekend, to say the least, with new technology, lovely weather and amazing people. Within this bubble of creativity, people spent the last 5 days making games, experimenting with technology, having fun and being social. It was truly an experience I’ll remember.

Simon Cutajar (@scutajar) and I spent most of the jam working on a digital version of our NGJ 2012 board game Mussades. Although we had some start-up problems we have most of the basic functionality down. We are still missing the game play, but it’s a project I’m looking forward to continuing with. Beside Mussades, I’ve started work on a music/color-toy I’ve been playing around in my head with for while. It didn’t get as far as I had hoped either, but it’s a work in process. I’ve used the opportunity to get a little bit familiar with some new software, so I’m content with the result from that perspective. Most of what remains is actually just server side. I won’t bore you with the details, but I think it’s something that could turn out interesting.

I mentioned some new technology, and there were two things in particular that stood out. First was the Leap Motion, which is a motion controller for the computer. It gives the user a new way of interacting with the software, as illustrated by this example by Marius Jigoreanu and Alina Constantin from the jam. (Picture courtesy of Unicorn7) Although they experienced a few compatibility issues, it shows how the controller can be used to interact with different elements on the screen. (To try it out without the Leap, click here)

The main gadget of the event, however, wasn’t the Leap Motion. It was something with the potential to add a whole new aspect to gaming, namely the Oculus Rift. (Picture courtesy of Nina Croitoru) The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that reacts to the movement of the players head in a 3D environment. It lets the player explore the environment in a new and unique way. And although you look quite silly while using it, it’s really quite impressive.

One of the groups at the Jam immediately jumped towards the more grotesque uses of the Oculus Rift, and made an “Execution by decapitation”-simulator. The player would play the game on their knees, leaning over a box. When looking around, the player will see the masses that have gathered around, and by looking upwards one could see the blade of the giljotin suspended above. Eventually, the blade would fall downwards towards the player, who could do noting but await the fate. The group took it even further, and actually softly hit the back of the neck of the unsuspecting player. Quite the freaky experience, I’m sure, although I never had the opportunity to try it myself.

I’m working on a more detailed write-up on some of the games from the Jam, and it should be out in a few days.

On an unrelated side note, things are happening with Kvasir Games, and you should be expecting more activity from us within the near future. So stay tuned!

I’m not sure where the best part to start this post is, so I’ll go back and start at the beginning. If you are just here for the big news you could scroll down to the bottom of the page and just read the last few paragraphs. I won’t mind, even though I wrote all of this just for you. Yeah, you heard me: For you, and that’s not something I say to everyone reading this page. But do what you want. It’s not like I spent my time writing it or anything…

Either way, (almost) all joking aside. It all started about a year ago. Some may even notice that the date coordinates pretty well with the first time this blog was truly active. In January 2012 I participated in my first Game Jam which was the Nordic Game Jam 2012. I didn’t feel like spending 48 hours programming, so I joined the board game track where I joined up with 4 others. I could go into detail about the process, but I’ll keep it short. Together, the 5 of us created Mussades, an Arabic themed race-to-the-finish board game using hexagonal tiles. The game proceeded to the finals and won both the Jury’s Choice Award from David McCarthy and the Best Board Game Award.

We participated with the same team again this year, and we made a card based game where the players compete to create the finest creatures. The game made it’s way to the Nordic Game Jam 2013 finals under the name Beast Builder and won the Most Sellable Game Award. Later, the name of the game was changed to Wanted: Igor, although the game itself still remains the same. This time, the price we won was shelf space in Faraos Cigarer in Copenhagen. This means that we suddenly had more motivation than ever to actually get our games to a sellable state.

And now for the big news!

We’ve finally started actively marketing ourselves and our games under the name Kvasir Games. With this act we hope to gain your support for our commitment to make our games reality. Check us out on Kvasirgames.com, like us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter. We promise that this won’t be the last you hear from us!