Earlier this year i was looking for game developer communities here in Amsterdam. So i put my Pikachu detective hat on and this is what i found out.
I looked up game dev meetups on Meetup.com and shortlisted the most popular meetups.
Amsterdam Indie Game Developers was the first community i found. They meet at the Crea Cafe at the Amsterdam University. Nice place! I attended the first meetup of 2019 in January. Listened and had a chat with an indie game dev duo which was about to release their crowdfunded game, Unsung Warriors. I learned that Kickstarting an indie game is hard work! If I am not mistaken, they mentioned they prepared the Kickstarter campaign for 6 months. A design artist told us about the visual novel she was creating. Also showed us her pro digital design skills on her iPad. Cool stuff!
I also joined the Unreal Engine User Group NL (currently 320 members on Meetup.com). They usually meet at the Dutch Game Garden in Utrecht. DGG is a game incubator and business centre with 4 locations in the Netherlands. I had not about them before, so i got a 2-for-1 deal on this find!
I attended their last event in February, usually it’s a “Show And Tell”. Members present to the group their latest projects in Unreal Engine. Most were commercial projects, but not only. An artist showed how he utilises Unreal Engine for his art projects. Another attendee showed his interior architecture project plus a cool looking DJ turntable. Also learned Unreal Engine is utilised for creating digital studio sets for tv media.
This weekend I found another interesting group, Amsterdam Unity 3D Co-Learning Meetup. I’m still considering if i should join, as I’ve been focusing on learning UnrealEngine. Don’t want to become overloaded with stuff.
Last week, I bought tickets for INDIGOx (June). It’s the largest game showcase event in the Netherlands! In other news, also bought tickets for Gamescom (August) in Germany. Same as INDIGOx, I never attended. Looks like a massive event. Gearbox is going to present some Borderlands 3 there!
If you’re attending any of these events, reach out and follow me on Twitter!