Long night of computer games
The Long Night of Computer Games is a games festival that takes place every year at the Leipzig University of Technology, Business and Culture . With its focus on historical home computers and game consoles , the festival for the culture and history of games is the largest event for retrocomputing and retrogaming in Germany.
history
The first Long Night of Computer Games in 2007 was intended as the highlight of a series of lectures at the HTWK Leipzig for a few dozen students. It was brought into being by the computer science professor Klaus Bastian and the journalist and collector René Meyer . Media professor Gabriele Hooffacker and her team have been organizing the computer game night since 2017 .
Over the years, the event grew by area, content and visitors. Today it occupies the corridors and rooms of several floors of a university building; With an area of 3,000 square meters and around 4,000 visitors from all over Germany, it has reached the dimensions of a small trade fair.
The first game night started at 6 p.m. and ended around 4 a.m. Over the years, the times have been moved forward several times to accommodate foreign visitors and families with children. Today the Long Night of Computer Games starts at 2 p.m. and closes around midnight. The institution's university information day has preceded it since 2015.
In 2018 a game podcast of the computer game night was added. In 2020, the 14th Long Night of Computer Games will take place entirely in virtual space. A new addition is a symposium, the "Science MashUp", on the subject of "The future of games", which is streamed live. The contributions are published in book form.
program
The focus is on current topics such as laser tag or virtual reality as well as numerous home computers and game consoles from four decades that are being built up by private collectors and associations. Traditionally, these are devices popular in the seventies and eighties such as Atari 2600 , Commodore 64 , Commodore Amiga and Super Nintendo , but also exotic ones such as Virtual Boy , Apple Pippin and Vectrex . Older PCs with MS-DOS games are increasingly being used . In addition to historical exhibits, new games and hardware solutions for classic systems will also be shown.
There are also board games, workshops with soldering courses and 3D printers, stands for indie developers , computer pools with the latest PCs, tournaments, lectures, film screenings, game music concerts as well as exhibitions and installations relating to digital art.
In 2020, a scientific symposium will be held for the first time on Compute Game Night under the title "Science MashUp: Future of Games".
Highlights
Content highlights in recent years were:
- the live broadcast of the first event in 2007 in Second Life
- a network of 16 Atari STs to play MIDI Maze against each other
- Friendly matches of the university's soccer robots (who regularly reach the top positions in the Robocup and became world champions in 2018) with teams from other cities
- the premiere of the German subtitling of the documentary Moleman 2: Demoscene - The Art Of The Algorithms
- Guests like computer pioneer Petro Tyschtschenko and Knut Müller, the creator of the RHEM series
- Chiptune concerts, etc. a. by Tronimal
- Hosting of the German Mega Drive Championships
literature
- From retro to robo: Long Night of Computer Games inspires visitors to HTWK , Leipziger Volkszeitung April 30, 2017, accessed March 30, 2019
- Eight years of the Long Night of Computer Games - How a student party became the largest retro event in Germany (Amiga Future July / August 2014)
Web links
- Long Night of Computer Games website
- Long Night of Computer Games website (archive)
- Picture gallery on Tom's Hardware
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eight Years of the Long Night of Computer Games - How a student party became the largest retro event in Germany (Amiga Future July / August 2014)
- ↑ https://www.games-guide.de/news/9-lange-nacht-der-computerspiele/
- ↑ http://www.leipziginfo.de/ratgeber/freizeit/lange-nacht-der-computerspiele-in-leipzig/
- ↑ https://computerspieleacht.htwk-leipzig.de/impressum-datenschutz/
- ↑ http://www.schreibfabrik.de/spieleacht/faq.php
- ↑ http://mephisto976.de/news/lange-nacht-der-computerspiele-49373
- ↑ https://computerspieleacht.htwk-leipzig.de/podcast/
- ↑ Source: Long Night of Computer Games for the first time virtually , press release of the HTWK Leipzig of April 24, 2020, accessed April 25, 2020.
- ↑ Source: Poster 2019 , accessed February 28, 2020
- ↑ Source: Computer Games Night website , accessed February 28, 2020
- ↑ https://www.htwk-leipzig.de/hochschule/presse-marketing/pressemitteilungen/detailansicht/artikel/1286/
- ↑ http://www.lvz.de/Nachrichten/Kultur/Games/Lange-Nacht-der-Computerspiele-begeistert-Besucher-der-HTWK
