The second BIG Night of 2013 has the theme of tabletop games.

• Mike Trotzke will present his new venture capital card game.
• Elizabeth Steward will show off her board game.
• Kevin Makice will demo his board game Party On!
• As a special treat, Adam Ploshay & Joey Baird will talk about their Global Game Jam entry, Rescue Beats, which is now FREE on the iOS and Google Play app stores!

More presenters will be announced before the event.  Contact will at studiocypher.com if you’d like to present on the tabletop topic.

That’s right, Bloomington is participating in the Global Game Jam this year!  Come on out January 25th-27th to design a game alongside people all over the world.

For more details, or to sign up, check out btownggj.com.

2013 is going to be a big year for BIG Night and games in Bloomington!  Our first meeting will be on Jan 11, with some great presentations on game jams.  That’s just in time to get you pumped up for the Global Game Jam on Jan 25th-27th. We hope to have a location in Bloomington this time, so more details will follow.

We’ll also be starting a weekly gathering for casual playtesting and shop-talk, Playtest pThursdays, 7-9pm every Thursday. Once again, expect more details soon!

If you’re  interested in presenting at the next BIG Night, especially if it’s connected to game jams, let me know and I’ll add you to the agenda.  If you have a jam game to show off, strategies for completing a jam, or a cautionary tale, now is your chance to shine!

Presenting at the next BIG Night are:

1. Sean Duncan about why game jams are interesting from an academic perspective
2. Will Emigh relating his experience at jamming during the Ludum Dare
3. Jordan Jalles about the process of taking a jam game and fleshing it out

Let’s have a big round of virtual applause for all of our BIG Jammers!  This year, everyone successfully completed a game and I think we had larger variety than ever before, from a kid-friendly iPad game to time travel to a sneaking game constructed entirely from Kill Dr. Lucky pieces.

Thanks also to Zon for presenting his Unity game-in-progress with some cool ship-based combat, including novel ideas for encouraging flanking.  We also had fun playing WhimMill’s HereWolf game with Chris Borland as moderator and two despicable werewolves who successfully killed all the villagers.

It’s been over 24 hours, so BIG Jammers should be finishing up, polishing, and writing up the rules!

BIG Night begins at 7pm at Sproutbox.  Bring your jam game to show off or come to hear about other games, like WhimMill’s latest. See you at 7pm!

 This year’s theme is: villain, night, coin.

If you’re making a physical game, I’ll have an actual plastic coin for you on Saturday, courtesy of The Game Crafter.

So how do you use the theme words?  Create a game that uses each word (villain, night, and coin) in some way, with creative uses encouraged!

Get started tonight brainstorming and creating and then come to Sproutbox at 1pm tomorrow to start pulling everything together and begin playtesting.

We also have a special treat for this year’s jammers: Local developer WhimMill will be playtesting their new game, HereWolf at Sproutbox!  If you’re interested in playing this iPhone-mediated version of Werewolf, sign up at tflig.ht/PfLMJs to download the game. If you don’t have an iPhone, you can play with a borrowed device when you show up tomorrow. Don’t worry, Android users, it will be coming to your platform as well.

Good luck!