Talk & Play is a free event, taking place every two months, that provides the opportunity to game enthusiasts, players and makers to meet and exchange knowledge in a friendly, relaxed and safe environment. 

Everybody’s welcome, regardless of their background and knowledge level: if you like games, we’ll make sure you have a good time! Important: this is NOT an event only aimed at developers.

Important: RSVP via meetup.com is mandatory to attend the talks, due to limited seating capacity. Registrations will open on Tuesday, June 14th at 14:00 CET (Berlin time). Please note that registration won’t be required to attend the event from 21:00 for the game showcase part. 

HOW IT WORKS

The event is structured in two parts:

— TALK: A series of short game-related presentations

— PLAY: All participants are welcome to bring games they’ve made or are still working on so that the audience can play them – a perfect opportunity to discover and play new games, collect feedback and, who knows?, maybe find collaborators for future projects.

THE TALKS

Let’s continue with the new format introduced at the beginning of the year: 5 minutes for each presentation, with no questions – if you want to ask a question to the speakers just go talk to them! ;)

HappyFunTimes by Gregg Tavares
Expand your 4 player 1 screen game to a 10 screen 100 player game with HappyFunTimes.
—
Gregg Tavares has made games from Centipede on Commodore 64 up through more recent generations including Lororoco for PSP and some PS3 titles he’s too embarrassed to mention but he redeemed himself by making WebGL for Chrome at Google and is now making random tech for fun like HappyFunTimes.
http://greggman.com // @greggman

Slayaway Camp by Ido Yehieli
Take a look at Slayaway Camp- a murder puzzle, now in beta.
—
Ido is an indie game dev living in Berlin.
http://www.tametick.com // @tametick

What Let’s Plays Taught Me About Game Design by Jennifer Wergin
An overview of Lets Player thoughts on game mechanics, broadening the topical scope and value of indie games in general.
—
Jenni is all-rounder who loves and lives everything gaming-related: she records let’s plays, functions as master of ceremonies at Game <3 Cinema, studies European Media to obtain a masters degree, is the project manager for Womenize (part of the International Games Week Berlin) and works in the field of community-/support-management for Clans.de GmbH.
http://bit.ly/1lM9Epu // http://bit.ly/1YlFecS // http://www.clansweb.com // @yun_jenni

Scratch: More Than a Kid’s Toy! by Johanna Jacob 
What professional and hobby developers (and anybody else) can do in the visual programming environment Scratch.
—
Johanna is a game designer who is currently founding an edutainment game studio for developing the awesome game “Treasure Monkeys” and who is teaching the two most basic skills to children: reading and game development.
http://www.johanna-jacob.de // https://www.facebook.com/treasuremonkeys // @johanna_jacob// @TreasureMonkeys

THE GAMES

Here’s the list of confirmed games that will be shown during the second part of the evening, from 21:00:

— Boundaries of Light by Nantroll Studios
— Fail Loop by Martin Fleck
— Farbenspiel by Rat King
— HappyFunTimes by Gregg Tavares
— Heavy Metal Tennis Training by Shape Minds & Snakeoil
— Hubert’s Hideout by TeamOmelette
— MOMENTUM (formerly Orbit) by Team NeonChameleon
— Monster Garden by Zack Wood
— Nocturnal Hunt by Wolf Pack
— Ohrwurm Game by Aidas Bendoraitis
— One Show Only by Tristan Dahl
— PipWorld by David Smit
— Pool Party Arena by 7Liter
— Scratch Showcase by Johanna Jacob
— SimonSkates by Sven Ahlgrimm
— Slayaway Camp by Ido Yehieli
— Stars of Icarus by Crunchy Leaf Games
— Tanks Ballet by Waterman7

Game showcase registrations are now closed. If your game is not on the list above you’re still welcome to bring it, but we can’t guarantee there will be space to show it – please check with a member of the team from 21:00.

If you want to make it easier for people to understand your game controls at the event, the Games Input Pal tool (made in Berlin!) might help you: http://xantomen.com/gamesinputpal/

AGENDA

— 19:00 Doors (if you come earlier you’ll have to wait outside, as we need to prepare the venue)

— 19:30 Talks start

— 21:00 Game showcase & networking: play games and chat with their creators, or just hang around and meet new people

— 23:00 The end aka “Gone Home”

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Our Safe Space Policy encourages the behaviour at Talk & Play. We request that everyone who is affiliated with and participates to the event honours it.

Besides recording the talks (thank you Iwan!),  we’re also documenting the game showcase part in pictures (thank you Julian!) and vines (thank you Nomi!). Documentation is important for us, as it helps promote the event and attract a new, wider and more diverse audience (that’s how it worked so far at least). For those who’d like to attend, but don’t want to be appear in any pictures or videos, we’re going to distribute some neon stickers at the door that you can wear on your chest to make it clear that you don’t want to appear in any picture or video.

The event is free to attend.

FINAL NOTES

Do you have any questions? Would you like to give a talk in the future? Then get in touch!

Talk & Play is organised by BerlinGameScene.com with the promotional and technical support of the monthly Berlin Mini Game Jam and A MAZE.