Warp Zone Louisville Grand Opening!

by Matt McCloud; photographs provided by Louisville Makes Games

If you missed out on Warp Zone Louisville’s Grand opening party Saturday, Feb. 27^th, you were among the few who did. The event was standing-room only as everyone crowded in to see what was happening at Louisville’s newest and shiniest creative community project. Founded as a non-profit by several supporting developers of Louisville Makes Games, The Warp Zone is a place where people can come and discuss their creative projects, talk with other developers about their ideas, volunteer to help others with their projects and even participate in educational programs for local schools.

“Warp Zone Louisville is Kentucky’s first and only game development and co-working space,” said Alex Bezuska, president of Louisville Makes Games and co-founder of Two Scoop Games. “Our members are mostly game developers who are working on game projects on nights and weekends. And, a few who are working on game projects for a living.”

At the party, monitors were showcasing games that the group has been working on so far; games such as HydroChicken, Zombie Party and several others that were too busy being played to find out about! There was a token DJ playing some groovy 16-bit sounds, as well as a cash bar and several helpers selling Warp Zone t-shirts.  There were several tournaments for Zombie party, which I can only describe as an insane version of Smash City.  I played, and though I don’t think I was dead last, I didn’t place anywhere near the top. It was still great fun!

In talking with a few of the developers, they were very excited about the turn out and utilized the event to recognize several people who were able to help get the project off the ground, including LvL 1 Hackerspace, Firstbuild and even a wedding proposal  from Alex, which was richly accepted!

“I had no idea what to expect. We’d never done an event like this before,” Alex said. “I wanted to make it big and it was big!”

The actual space itself has three main rooms, including a main entry-meeting room, a further workroom and beyond that still another workroom that has a sweet projector for large scale tournaments. It’s within boxing glove throwing distance of the Muhammad Ali Center right off of Main at 612 Washington Street, a great location downtown close to several bars and places to eat if you’re working all night on your next app design. A reasonable membership fee grants a contributor a key for 24 hour access to blazing hot internet access and plenty of workspace and collaboration.

“Some of us are developers, some of us artists, and some musicians,” Alex said. “Usually, if somebody has an idea, it needs to be backed up with some effort on their own, but come to the meetings, hang out with us and get to know us and we can often help.”

Perhaps one of the greatest selling points of Warp Zone is its Game Developers Louisville Meetup, or Game Dev Lou, a local, bi-weekly meetup and support group of game developers of all skill sets to help each other out, advise, consult, and basically discuss issues on everyone’s ongoing projects. People looking to have help on their designs should definitely make one of those meetings which is listed on their site.

All in all, a great time was had by all, whether you are a tech-head, nerd, cyberpunk, or just someone who enjoys meeting cool people and playing fun games!  Check it out!

You can find out more about Warp Zone, including membership cost and more, at Louisville Makes Games.