Finally! We’ve been wanting to send out an update for a while, one of us finally had the time to work on it, so here we are.

Let’s start with the big news: at the beginning of the year Saftladen moved to a new, larger space. We’re in the same area, not far from the previous location, but we more than doubled the number of desks – from 10 to 22. This has allowed us to welcome several new members: Daniel Berndt, inbetweengames, Jörg Friedrich, Jörg Reisig, Markus Arvidsson, Martin Pittenauer and Stephan Hövelbrinks. More recently, Thomas van den Berg joined us.

Thanks to the increased room size, we’ve been able to host a couple of public events: a Game Creators Mixer in collaboration with Kickstarter in March, and an open day during International Games Week Berlin in late April. Additionally, we’re still running our biweekly Social Club internal event (we sometimes have guests too – get in touch if you’d like to participate some time) and we’ve introduced a weekly Social Lunch, as an excuse to get to know each other a little better and talk with our mouth full.

Oh, we also have a photo wall. And a nail polish station.

One last important announcement: a desk or two might become available for rent in the near future – drop us an email if you’re interested and would like to know more.

Now, let’s hear what the members of the collective have been up to recently, shall we?

‘Wassup, safties?’, or: ‘what the Saftladen members have been doing recently, in their own words’

Almut Schwacke says: Exciting game audio times! The second update for All Walls Must Fall’s closed Alpha is right around the corner, and we’re also preparing for our launch on Steam Early Access, which means I’m busy tweaking & testing things and creating new assets. Last week of July’s highlight will be the mastering of all the awesome current music tracks for AWMF’s OST – whooop! On a not so joyous note, an old friend of mine, soundd esign colleague and mentor has just been diagnosed with ALS, a terminal neurological illness. I made him a song that’s available on Bandcamp. All proceeds will go to ALSA to support further research. So if you can please head over and buy it. Thanks!

Daniel Berndt says: Working on a project management tool for game developers works best when surrounded by a lot of game developers. Following this principle led me to the Saftladen which is a great source of inspiration for developing Codecks. After working on it for over two years, we’ve launched earlier this year. The reception has been relatively positive with most active teams sticking with it even after the free trial. Our user base is still quite small though, so right now we’re carefully listening to our users and evaluating which features to do next. Should you have any opinions, feel free to check out www.codecks.io and let me know your thoughts. I’ll be listening 🙂

Firepunchd says: Finally. Our mobile party game Chicken Jump will be released worldwide on August 30th after having been in development for more than 2 years. We’ve recently added tvOS and AndroidTV as platforms allowing you to play with up to 8 players on a big screen with the game app on smartphones acting as controllers. Special treat: ‘Real Jumping’ mode allows you to make your player leap when you physically jump by using the accelerometer of your phone. Jump around!

inbetweengames says: We’re busy polishing up our latest update for All Walls Must Fall called DRONE WARFARE! which will be out for out on the 26th of July for our Kickstarter backers. We’ve got new drone enemies, lots of UI and progression updates, new missions and writing.. tons of stuff in our biggest update yet. The update on the 26th is also when we’re going to announce our Steam Early Access release date so if you haven’t already go and put it on your wishlist! 🙂

Jörg Friedrich says: Hi there, together with Sebastian Schulz I am working on Through the Darkest of Times – a game in which you play a resistance group in Third Reich Berlin. The last couple of weeks we have been veeeery busy with all kinds of preparations to make the leap from being a little side-project to becoming a full blown game (in pre-production).

This includes the two of us founding a company – which is very exciting but unfortunately does require a lot of rather boring tasks. But we are mostly done now – so back to working on the game – yay!

Jörg Reisig says: Hello World! I am working on the narrative space simulation game The Fermi Paradox, and had some very exciting months looking for talented collaborators who can help me out with art and sounds. This thing is turning into a full time adventure  

and I am very excited to tell you soon more about the procedural stories, alien radar signals and galactic warfare.

Lorenzo Pilia says: This month I’ve organised Heart Games – An Evening of Games About Relationships and the second Civic Game Jam: both events went really well, presenting games and game-making to new audiences. Right now I’m collecting ideas for the BerlinGameScene.com Patreon I’d like to launch in the near future (any tips for what the rewards could be? I’m all ears!), while also looking into other funding opportunities and partnerships. In August I will visit Cologne, hosting one of the tracks at the Gamescom Congress. On September 5th, after a summer break, Talk & Play will return with edition #26 – I’m currently selecting the speakers. Last but not least: I’ve put together the Saftladen newsletter you’re currently reading!

Maschinen-Mensch says: Is this thing on? Oh hey, we’re currently radio-silently working on our upcoming game, The Curious Case. It’s early and not much to show, and we’re still wondering if it is THE Curious Case or just Curious Case. Curious, isn’t it? Anyway, if we’re not thinking about these fundamental issues we’re traveling the world together with the Goethe-Institute to make political game jams. Oh, and we’ve just released our first job posting in which we’re looking for someone who will help us to keep working on The Curious Expedition.

Markus Arvidsson says: Hello there, friends. I do a bunch of things but most of my work lately has been on a prototype/proof-of-concept multiplayer mmo-ish space game targeting mobile and PC. The game has a bit of a history with design and technical changes but I still believe in it and it is fun to work on which I think is most important! Other than that Teotl Studios (mostly me) is continuing to do VR improvements for The Solus Project. The next patch is currently in QA and has quite a long list of small neat fixes and it also upgrades Unreal Engine to 4.16. We plan to release it as an Oculus gallery apps and maaaybe other platforms later. Depends on what happens in the VR space!

map says: I’m currently on vacation in Iceland, flying drones into waterfalls and visiting the glaciers before they are gone. When I’m back home we will continue to wrangle iOS 11 bugs and make our games fit for its upcoming release. When there’s time I’d also love to check out using the newly available Apple Watch Gyro APIs for game controls.

Mr. Luca says: I’m working on a still unnamed VR game about a giant tentacle monster trying to fit in society. It is still a prototype, I got the giant tentacle part running, still working on making the monster a perfectly integrated upright citizen. Stay tuned for updates!

Stephan Hövelbrinks says: Hello to you, indie game connoisseurs and those who want to become one. I’m working on this occult post-apocalyptic roleplaying game called Death Trash and it’s looking fine already but still has to be nurtured and cherished a bit. Next stop, soonish, will be a Kickstarter, and if you’re interested in that, then take a look at the website and subscribe to the mailing list. (And/or tell your friends about it. Definitely do that.) When I’m not busy working on the game I’m building a new computer (finally finished, *cough*) or fantasize about streaming art and development on my Twitch Channel.

Studio Fizbin says: Exciting times! You may have noticed that the release date of our upcoming adventure game The Inner World – The Last Windmonk moved to September. This is because of the additional work we put into the new languages our game will support! We’re super excited because it means way more people will be able to experience Robert’s quest to save Asposia once again from a great threat. And this time you’ll finally be able to play as Peck himself. Besides that, we’re working on some awesome other projects which you’ll probably read about in the next instalment of this exquisite newsletter.

Thomas van den Berg says: So I’m probably still the newest Saftladen member <3. I moved to Berlin two months ago and I’m still getting settled in, but a new environment is a good opportunity for new projects. So I’m currently exploring the technical side of three very different new things that might or might not turn into a game. Aside from that I’m doing design work on the next Kingdom installment: Two Crowns, which we will probably show off at gamescom and TGS.

That’s all for this time! For more frequent updates, we recommend following @saftladenberlin on Twitter (here’s a list of all our members) and on Facebook. If you liked this newsletter, forward it to a friend!