Ignite
Ignite is run by locals, for locals. Founded in Seattle, the events are held around the world. Ignite is fast-paced and merciless, but most of all they're fun, thought-provoking nights, full of fresh ideas and clever insights. Speakers get five minutes to present their idea. They make use of twenty slides that auto-advance every fifteen seconds. Ignite serves as a platform for locals to connect offline and have a drink together.
Program
We collected a wide variety of gamers, developers, theorists, hackers and journalists who gave a crash course in new and old developments and trends in gaming. These were the speakers.
David Nieborg
David has published widely on popular culture, the military entertainment complex, online participatory culture, war games and the gaming industry. He is currently affiliated as a PhD-student with the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis.
Vlambeer
Super Crate Box is Vlambeer's way of paying tribute to vintage arcade games. Rami and Jan Willem will show off this wonderful little game.
Anna Sonnemans
Anna is a freelance journalist (Gamez, Elsevier). She'll be talking about the evolution of the game controller. From Pong's paddle to Microsoft's and Sony's Kinect and Move.
Adriaan Wormgoor
FourceLabs designs physical games and playful spaces. During one of the freshest festivals of The Netherlands, Stekker Fest, they presented Wip 'n' Kip, a spring animal race. Adriaan joined us for a chat
Koen Martens
Koen is the initiator of Revelation Space, a hackerspace in Den Haag. He's also a big fan of pinball machines and just returned from traveling through the USA visiting pinball museums. He came to spread the gospel!
BlewScreen
BlewScreen is an independent game studio from Tilburg. They made a great game called Retro, in which you start as a one-pixel avatar and collect pixels instead of points throughout the game.
Matthijs Dierckx Kuijper
Matthijs is knee deep into games! Before co-founding Control, the leading Dutch publication on game development, he worked as an editor for titles such as PC Zone, GameQuest and PlayNation. Now, besides working on Control, he runs his own publishing company and contributes to Bashers. Matthijs talked about games as vehicles for storytelling.
Gijs Gieskes
Gijs has modified, mutilated, destroyed, rescued and made music with Game Boys. There's a lot you can do with your old toy!
Richard Boeser
Richard is co-founder of Sparpweed, and presented a game he's currently working on called Ibb & Obb. This beautiful multi-player game defies gravity and sports tunes by none other than Kettel.
Dreams of Danu
Dreams of Danu use brain-computer-interfaces and biofeedback to make games you can control with your mind.
Jeroen van der Heijden
Jeroen works for Valsplat. Valsplat conducts research into playability and usability, helping game developers to improve their games.
Kars Alfrink
Kars is the founder of Hubbub, a design studio specialized in physical, social games operating in the public space.
Ekim Tan
Ekim Tan is the founder of the city design and research network ‘The Responsive City’ (TReC). She talked about what role games can play in the planning and transforming of cities.
Joost van Dongen
Joost is the creator of Proun, a racing game with stunning visuals. Using this game as an example, Joost talked about alternative sources of inspiration, and how gamers don't have to limit themselves to comic books and action movies.
Jelte Timmer
Jelte has been a key figure in putting together the Arcade exhibition. Just before the break, Jelte gave a quick presentation of the video arcade machines in the exhibition.
More information
Doors opened at 8pm. The evening set you back €7,-. Ignite Amsterdam 4 was part of the Arcade exhibition.
Arcade is an expanding collection of old and new games and technologies. We kick off with a collection of rare vintage arcade video games operating alongside our newly developed interactive installations. Exhibition space meets arcade. Come play with us. The opening of Arcade took place on December 18th, at Mediamatic Bank, Vijzelstraat 68, Amsterdam. The exhibition closes on March 27th. Open from 13:00 - 19:00 during the week, and on Friday and Saturday from 13:00 - 18:00.
