The program has been updated with juice details. The talks on Main and Indie track that takes place Friday afternoon has been updated with bios on the speakers and details on the content of their talks.

Among others we have a visit from Peter Vesti Frendrup, who worked on James Bond: Quantum of Solace, Dead Space: Extraction and 007: GoldenEye as level designer. The indie spirit is kept alive by a showcasing event from Swedish Cactus, Zamarkand, Martin Jonasson, die Gute Fabrik and our own Tim Garbos. On top of this Knytt creator Nicklas Nygren(Nifflas) will talk about his latest creations.

There’s also gonna be an epic showdown between Three Game Journalists, and talks touching the subjects of serious games and game research, plus some pratical advice for Windows Phone 7 Game development with XNA.

Go here to see the (almost) full program…

First, you take a bit of Ludo, then you add a bit of Trivial Pursuit, and finally you top off your creation with nuances of Monopoly, Solitaire and UNO and finish off with a LEGO die.

This could be the recipe for the next great board game success when Nordic game developers meet this weekend in the game development competition Nordic Game Jam at the IT University in Copenhagen.

Normally, only digital games are developed at Nordic Game Jam’s 48-hour competition but for the first time ever in Europe, board games have got their own track this year so people can test their creativity with board game development.

The rules are simple: design a new board game in 48 hours and present it to an expert jury and the other developers.

“Board games are very social and form the basis of all video games. It is a very pure form of game design since knowledge about graphics, programming, audio design og computer experience are required in order to “jam” a board game. It just needs good game mechanics,” says Thomas Vigild, one of the three coordinators of the Board Game track at Nordic Game Jam.

“Additionally, we have put together a broad jury that will evaluate the new board game ideas based on design, merchantability, game mechanics and appearance. We are sure that the seed for future Danish board games will be sowed this weekend at the IT University,” he adds.

Come visit and discover future board games on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at the IT University in Copenhagen. This year’s board games will be presented at 4pm, followed by a voting session.

The jury at Nordic Game Jam’s Board Game Track consists of the Nordic sales director of Bezzerwizzer Klavs Lunding-Sørensen, the Barda star Martin Rauff, associate professor at The Danish Design Academy Denis Virlogeux, Jens Hoppe from Copenhagen’s Board Games Club and the games expert Henrik Ståhlberg from the specialty store Games in Copenhagen.

Read more about the Board Game Track here

As some of you may remember, last year we presented the very first Nordic Game Jam trophy to the winners of the People’s Choice vote. Creating it there on site during the jam was a labour of love. It consisted of many donated bits of technology- and game-flavoured flotsam carefully welded together with the magic of a hot-glue gun, and was more than a little bit inspired by Katamari Damacy.  A steady stream of curious participants were drawn in by it’s increasing gravitational pull on their way to recaffeinate, as the mass of objects grew ever bigger and more complex.

It was such a great experience that we wanted to do it all over again this year, and to involve you guys a whole lot sooner this time around!

Continue reading ‘CrowdSourcing the NGJ 2011 Trophy – We Want Your Knick-knacks!’

Copenhagen Collective throws a hell of a opening party again this year. So after attending SpilBar 3.0, you should head out to ITU. It’s the day before the jam at Thursday the 27th of January… Look at this flyer for more info and click it for even more info(wow)