Pitched as “game dev summer camp” for indies, the Stugan accelerator is putting out the call this week for applicants to its second game-making program, which will see twenty developers (or dev teams) spending eight weeks working on their games while shacked up in a cabin in the Swedish countryside.
This is chiefly notable for developers seeking outside assistance and guidance in their work, and who can afford to pick up and move to Sweden for two months in search of it.
Like last year’s program, Stugan 2016 is billed as an “all expenses paid” experience (though that may not include the cost of transporting yourself or your equipment to the cabin) and applicants are assured they’ll retain rights to the games they work on at Stugan.
The program debuted last year as a non-profit accelerator backed by a grant from the Swedish government and professionals from around the industry, including veterans of notable Swedish game industry heavyweights like Avalanche, Mojang and Rovio. The fact that it’s back for another round suggests its backers saw enough merit in last year’s inaugural summer outing to keep it going.
“For the second year we have secured enough funding from our private sponsors,” Stugan manager Jana Karlikova told Gamasutra via email. “Some came back to support Stugan again and some of them are new like Jeb_.”
The “Jeb_” she’s referring to is Minecraft lead developer Jens Bergensten, who served as a Stugan mentor last year and this year returns as a sponsor — and presumably a mentor as well, though it’s yet unclear what the final lineup of mentors (who support participants by, among other things, giving talks and offering feedback) will look like.
For more details on this year’s Stugan program and information on how to apply, developers should check out the Stugan website.
Some of last year’s participants blogged about their experiences on Gamasutra, and you can go back and read them for a bit of perspective on what it was like to be there last year. For a more literal look at last year’s program, you might also want to take a look at Stugan’s YouTube channel.