What’s this, a game dev retreat?
Hello, hello! It feels good to finally go official!
Up here in the North of Sweden, we’re following our dream of starting a game dev retreat (think a co-living & co-working space), which will open up later this year!
We have been set up in a strictly non-profit way, and the idea is that any revenue goes straight back into the community and making this place sustainable.
Our dream is to host game devs, musicians, and like-minded folk for both short and long stays, plus workations!
Em playtesting Harry’s game “Pawsta”
This is one of our office spaces in the building tat used to host a indie game studio incubator.
We have a few things to improve here, but our main focus atm is renovating and decorating our accommodation complex next door.
Hosting an indie dev night
Along with Arctic Game, we hosted an indie dev night at our café. This is a biannual event which brings together the local Skellefteå game dev community for small announcements, shared insights, and playtesting sessions. Through the café, we were also in a great position to open it up to the public and get some non-developer opinions on our games.
With all these devs and game students under one roof, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to say “Hello World” and announce The Jörniverse!
We made it into the news!
Lars Westerlund from Norran also kindly attended the event and wrote a report on us.
The article covers the event and marked our press coverage debut! Thanks Norran!
The article is available online here, but it's only in Swedish and behind a paywall.
Harry, Em & friends in the news!
Who are the other faces you ask?
Tim (left) is a good friend from Arctic Game, an organisation that looks out for indie devs in the local area.
Sebastian (middle right) is a game dev in Jörn, from Co-Optimal Games! He’s currently working on Tiny Coven, which is a cozy co-op game.
Johan (right) is a board member of The Jörniverse and is CEO ofCreative Crowd, a company which mostly works with motion capture, games-for-impact and gamification.
What’s next?
Next on our to-do list is to prepare for Nordic Game, where we aim to hand out invitations to The Jörniverse, before visiting Spelkollektivet.
We’re also busy checking our accommodation and workspaces to see what renovations are needed before we can properly decorate and paint everything
We hope to share more before too long!
Harry enjoying a ginger beer
on a nearby frozen lake
The snow and ice can stick around for a while here. April is usually our last Winter month. Some locals call it Spring, but we beg to differ.
