Hi everyone! We just realised that we haven’t done our annual blog post swap with Nordic Game Day – so we’re going to sneak it in before the big day. Here’s NGD co-ordinator Lone Hejlskov Munkeberg with a bit of information about this partner event!
Hi from Nordic Game Day!
Phil from International Games Day has invited me to tell you a bit about how we work.
As we are closing in on the date November 15th, the Nordic libraries are doing the final preparations for the Nordic Game Day and International Games Day.
This year we have representatives from all the Nordic countries since for the very first time we can welcome four Icelandic libraries to the community. All in all, there will be 115 attending libraries in Denmark (30) – including the first attending library from Greenland! – Finland (34), Iceland (4), Norway (35) and Sweden (12). In Finland they just can’t get enough – since they are having a game WEEK. Way to go!
The Nordic event is supported by the Nordic Game Institute and the Nordic Council of Ministers. Even though it is supported by them, it is very much a community-driven event. The attending libraries all set up local initiatives and events. More about that later on.
As a coordinator, I have different tasks. I make sure that the event has a new poster every year, created by a local graphic Artist (Pernille Sihm). I ensure there is established contact between the developers, publishers, game critics and the libraries. I post news on the blog, Twitter, and Facebook etc. This year we have been able to send out free merchandise and board games for the libraries. This underlines that both the video games industry and the boardgame publishers also support the event – they too want games to be as visible and accessible as possible in libraries!
Another coordinating task is the annual browser game tournament. And this year we have chosen a semi-bald naked guy on a mini bike to run the competition, since we will be competing in the very cool browser game Icycle, by the British indie developer Damp Gnat! At stake are cool prizes like Samsung Galaxy TAB 4 10.1” WIFI and gift certificates to the online service OnePlay – who has a digital library lending service.
Locally all kinds of stuff is going on. There are talks from game critics, workshops, cosplay, manga, retro games, FIFA tournaments, Minecraft LAN, ping pong, chess, card games and much more.
Some of the Nordic libraries are also participating in IGD initiatives, so we are excited that you once again will host great stuff like the Global Gossip Game and the International Minecraft Hunger Games tournament.
We wish you all a very cool Game Day!
Thanks, Lone! And I’d just like to point out a mildly awesome fact: that Nordic Game Day is using a British game for their tournament, while IGD is using a Nordic (Swedish, to be precise) game for ours! We’re international without even trying 🙂