KO(O)RTS is back in 2025!
The Short Film Festival of the weird, wicked and wonderful, organized by Sickhouse, returns for its second edition in collaboration with 

. To be held in Enschede, Netherlands the 26 & 27 of September.

KO(O)RTS is a vibrant 2-day short film festival. It provides a platform for (emerging) local and international filmmakers to showcase their work, celebrate creativity and connect with each other. At the same time, the program offers the public an alternative, never-before-seen and fun selection of films, presented with care, multisensory setups and
playful ways. 

In addition to the various screenings, the festival includes workshops, a filmmakers meet-up, and an awards ceremony. In this way, we strive to create a vibrant event that brings together both filmmakers, film lovers and celebrates the art of short film.

 and submit your film before May 1st (read the terms for applying on the open call page).

KO(O)RTS Short Film Festival OPEN CALL

It' time for The Ultimate IndieMash Game Contest! For the third time, indie-game makers from all over the world get to present their projects to an international audience, play interactive games together and have the chance to win a spot at The Overkill Festival 2025!



 : 30th MARCH
ULTIMATE INDIEMASH SHOW : 24th MAY



 is a contest for unique playful makers of the world, to present their work to an international audience. Hosted live from Bristol, UK and Enschede, NL, and streamed all over the world, the participants get three minutes each to show their game, interactive project, immersive installation or playful performance, through an online video connection. So you don’t have to travel to participate!

The evening is for them to share their concepts and gain new fans, and at the end of the program, the viewers and a jury of professionals will vote for their favourite project. Besides receiving the Sickest Trophy, the winner of the Ultimate IndieMash will also get a spot at The Overkill Festival 2025!



Not only are we looking for the most original, extravagant and alternative playful concepts, the 

 is also a celebration of diversity within the indie-game community. We welcome applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in the gaming world. From coding mothers to queer visual artists and indigenous storytellers, everyone is invited to show their unique project and creations to our audience online!


 is a two-hour online program, filled with music, playful interactions and of course the gamemakers and their projects. In the first hour, the participants show their work in a 3 minute presentation, that can be as playful as you want! They will get a chance to answer some questions from the audience as well, to explain their projects as well as possible. In the second hour, the participants together with the audience will play some exciting games in which the audience creates prompts, drawings and more for the participants to be creative with. After that, the audience and the jury will vote for their favorite project, and at the end of the show the winner will be announced.



- Open call-deadline for participants is the 

. 
Afterwards, the Sickhouse team will make a selection of 10 participants to present their projects.
- Selection announced on the 

If you have any questions regarding this program, don’t hesitate to email 

The Ultimate IndieMash Open Call is now closed :)

In 2025 Sickhouse will have a new location and we are commissioning our first alternative arcade! 

Dutch artists Vincent Schoutsen and Wouter van Veldhoven are joining forces with French artists Leon Denise and Emilie Breslavetz from 

, to develop and build a playful arcade machine. Reflecting on the theme "Alternative control and Resistance" they are working together to create an arcade that will be playable at the new location of Sickhouse .

January and February are the months for creative brainstorms, starting with many ideas and getting inspired by their favorite objects. From buttons to plane cockpits, from sci-fi adventure to A.I relationships, the artists question the found objects they are working with, the role of the future player and the state of new technology in our society. 

In March, the 4 artists will be in Enschede for one week to bring everything together and build the arcade. They will present their process and progress during our monthly meet-up 

at BlackBrick.

The Arcade will be officially inaugurated in September, during the re-opening of Sickhouse in its new location! This project is a pilot edition and hopefully we will be able to commission several alternative arcades in the years to come.

Arcade Mayhem

The Overkill Festival 2024 - RADICAL, JOY, RESISTANCE After-movie is here! 



The Overkill '24 has been over for a few months, but now we can re-live the festival and recall our favourite memories with the after-movie!

The Overkill is a playful gathering creating space for artists, makers and players to meet, exchange and learn from each other. In 2024 with the theme “Radical Joy Resistance” the festival looked into the role of play in movements of resistance. Curious to find out how a certain lightness, alternative rules, humour, joy and pleasure can be of support when going into the street, countering official narratives, refusing institutionalised violences.. The festival started in front of the city hall with a performance of women led by LasTesis, followed by a playful march of resistance through Enschede. The festival included an interactive exhibition, workshops, hosted film screenings, a day of interactive talks and panels, a karaoke of resistance and an experimental music program. 

The program has been curated by Marie Janin and Aike Lutkemoller, directors of the festival with the support of Zuraida Buter, Erik Peters, Resistencia videoludica, Jugar Juegitos and JacqNoise. The festival is produced by Sickhouse.

You can find more pictures of the festival in the 

.
The next edition of The Overkill Festival “Return to Dreamland” is taking us in an exploration from #CalmTok to rest as resistance. It will be held from 19 to 23 November 2025, in Enschede.

LINK to video of the opening performance of LasTesis 

Video production: Djannah DZ (@artiuss) 
Music: LASTESIS (@lastesis) and RADVLAD (@radvlad) 
Voiceover: Bas Helmig (@bashelmig)

The Overkill Festival '24 Aftermovie

From January 24th to 26th, the Global Game Jam took place. The theme of this year was ‘Bubble’. So, all over the world, almost half a million game makers, programmers, designers, creatives and curious people came together to create, share and inspire each other in a very bubbly edition.

Sickhouse set up a venue for the jam to take place in Enschede in GrensFrequentie - a working place for musicians and entrepreneurs with spaces available for rent.  People from different cities and various backgrounds came together and created six staggering games!

Don't pop and don't stop! Bublo is a roguelite game about creating as many bubble gum bubbles as you can without popping them. The goal is to collect as many points as you can; the bigger the bubble, the more points you get. You can also get coins to buy upgrades, like extra strength for your bubble gum or blowing speed. This game was created in HTML.

This addictive brain-rot game is created to satisfy the urge to destroy freshly created (evil) bubbles with different shapes inside them. Inspired by the satisfaction of popping bubbles, whether plastic or soap. The sound is great! This game was made in HTML with the assistance of ChatGPT.

BUBBLE RAGE - by PAKO, YUXUAN, LUUKAS & PABLO

The biggest booming bubble battle! An arcade game for two players, one creates bubbles from a canister and the other chews and blows gum. Match the size of the bubble with the target, and win! This game is made in Godot Engine.

This augmented drinking game investigates why grocery prices have inflated into unaffordable price-bubbles. With a barcode scanner as your controller, this game is perfect for getting drunk while lamenting capitalism with your friends. Made in HTML.

A game of willpower; you play in bubbly world where you can try to resist popping the bubbles! This game was created in Bitsy Engine.

Space Bug is a platformer where you need to jump over various bubbles and reach the sun! It’s made in Game Builder Garage for Nintendo Switch.


You can play some of these games in the upcoming edition of COLLIDERS next Thursday, 

 to be part of COLLIDERS community and receive a monthly newsletter.

GLOBAL GAME JAM 2025 (RECAP)

In 2025 following the progress of our reflection on play and activism, in the context of a hyper productive society, long conflicts, climate catastrophes, engulfing A.I, we want to take the risk, the counter intuitive move, the challenge to stay in bed, under the blanket, heads in the pillow. If new technologies infiltrate our beds to transform it into data to be mined, XR technologies, video games and virtual environments are also relevant media when delving into dreamworlds. This new edition wants to be another chapter of resistance where we self-organise to wander, dream, let our subconscious meet, invite our nightmares in...


The year program of Sickhouse and its main guest artists will be the leading process to develop the research and the selection for the festival.

Shall these remain only dreams? we said. Shall we not bring these things into wakeful beings?

” Ursula K. Le Guin in Changing planes : Social dreaming of the Frin.

Jana Romanova, LARP designer, is invited to design new playful experiences based on collective dreams, role-playing and dream-building experience that explores the boundaries between reality and imagination. At its core, the "DreamWalks" is about creating and inhabiting collective imaginary spaces—something akin to sharing a dream or a hallucination with others.

DreamWalk #1 : KristalBath - Sunday 9-03
DreamWalk #2 : Flying Field - Saturday 29-03
DreamWalk #3 : Walk in the ParQ - Thursday 24-04
DreamWalk #4 : to be announces


Wherever they stood it came, suddenly and simultaneously: refusal, refusal, refusal. And in a gust they collapsed into sleep

In the second part of the year we are inviting Sondi to create an immersive set-up for her games “Mbombo-Dream Echo” and “Sleep On It”. The set-up/playground is meant to become a collective space for daydreaming, reinventing hybrid places of rest. Mbombo builds on years of research into the nature of rest and dreaming as radical forms of resistance against capital, colonial violence on the Black body. (concept formalised and put into embodied practice by Tricia Hersey in her Nap Ministry and her book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto. New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2022.)

*JANNE SCHIMMEL (

Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy


In the third part of the year Sickhouse is inviting Janne Schimmel to dive into nightmare references and hack a game device to navigate them, in hybrid ways mixing sensorial experience and digital storytelling. Curious about the ambiguous space, nightmares create for fantasy and pleasure.

Exhausted, Burned out, anxious, overwhelmed are now recurrent adjectives we associate with our daily life and our work environments. Technology coming to save us is now selling us “digital rest points’, ‘CalmTok’,’ Raw-dogging a flight’ ‘Pokemon Sleep app’ to track our sleep and for the best ‘Sleep Tourism’ hotels with VR lucid dreams experiences... 

Rest is resistance but it is under attack, our escape is already trapped. Beyond the idea of healthiness, The Overkill wants to look at rest as an act of refusal, a protest against efficiency, productivity, or even this monetised idea of a  better version of ourselves. 

Theme 2025 : Return to Dreamland



Here comes the last newsletter of the year, to wish you all beautiful holidays and announce a few dates for 2025.
The team of Sickhouse is incredibly proud and thankful for all the support it receive this year while being without a fixed home! While we were struggling to make space for our alternative ways of doing art, Sickhouse community, local partners and international playful friends made sure we could present, exchange, produce and that meant everything.

* We also especially want to thank our volunteers that followed us in the multiple location we hosted our program, that stayed enthusiastic and helpful, adapting all the time and making these places home for the community! THANK YOU! *

In this newsletter,

Look back on 2024, RADICAL JOY RESISTANCE

We wish you all beautiful celebration days, may you be with love ones and playful ones!


In 2024, with the theme RADICAL JOY RESISTANCE Sickhouse has been looking into the role of playfulness in movements of resistance.

 presented artists playing around with their hardware, questioning control, purposes and material. With 

Bearwarp - Silvia Binda Heiserova - Emilie Breslavetz - Leon Denise - Dorian Rigal - Vincent Schoutsen - Wouter van Veldhoven - Tijmen Zonnevijlle



Over the summer we invited artists to host LARP sessions 

 to engage in complex situations while taking on new roles. Designed by 



In September the interactive and performative installation 

, invited visitors and the local queer community to explore what their collective voice could express. Presented by 

.

In October, the immersive exhibition of 

 invited players to get lost and navigate, float, swim or dive in between all directions. Installation from 

Through this program we asked ourselves what or whom we are resisting and how we are integrating resistance in our lives, what spaces do we take, what shapes can it take… It brought us to places of weakness, intimacy, awkwardness, sadness, where play could almost always find room.

Empowered by this research we wanted 

 to be a moment to bring people together, a moment to rethink our way to take space, an event allowing planned but also spontaneous gathering to arise… The program has been set-up to showcase diverse testimony of resistance while giving the visitors tools to share their own stories.

From the performance with 

 to the March of resistance, the opening has been an incredible moment to recognise the power of play and the strength of this community.

Poetry is an important aspect that connected many moments of the festival, letting chosen words, random associations, foreign sentences give a certain lightness to our acts of resistance.

Addressing the role and the responsibilities of the game industry and art world in the violent context the society finds itself in, was also an important objective for our organisation. And the festival has been a way to step up and stand stronger.



Looking forward to start 2025 and plan the great move to our new location, we are happy, proud and thankful to share that Sickhouse will be supported by the 

De zeggingskracht en oorspronkelijkheid van het programma worden door de commissie hoog gewaardeerd. Het spreekt veel energie uit het voorstel. Het programma wordt door de commissie als voorbeeldstellend gezien voor de manier waarop de nieuwste generatie makers op een vanzelfsprekende manier eclectische programma’s samenstelt.

The committee highly values ​​the expressiveness and originality of the programme. It expresses a lot of energy in the proposal. The committee sees the programme as an example of the way in which the latest generation of makers naturally composes eclectic programmes.

"

quote from the Stimuleringsfonds committee review.

GOOD BYE 2024 (NEWSLETTER)

 is back! Are you a playful artist, a game maker or a creative coder based in Overijssel, looking for a community, mentors and material support? This is for you! 



 program from Sickhouse, supporting the making of an 

. You will get the support of professional mentors, visit exhibitions, join meet-ups and festivals and meet other professionals and studios from around the world. Every month you will organise a game night with your selection of playful projects, you will get the chance to present the progress of your work and collect feedback from different crowds. In November 2025, you will present your project at The Overkill festival.

SickProd was created to foster the game maker community of our region and create a chain of opportunities for local young talents within an international network.  
In 2023 we supported the development and release of 

, a narrative game from Shaman Garage, young studio from Enschede (NL) and Madrid (SP). Together we went to 

 in Hilversum and many other places. 

TO APPLY is super easy!



Add a portfolio (or some links), a CV and a motivation later.
If you have questions you can mail Marie at marie@sickhouse.nl or join our 

 channel to meet the community.

What we ask from you/ your studio :

- Being 

 for meetings, presentations, makers meet-up and excursions.
- 

 an interactive and playful project at The Overkill
- 

 the playful community of Enschede

What we give you access to :

- Professional support from playful curator Zuraida Buter and the Sickhouse team.
- Regular 

Test / Feedback sessions with diverse crowds


- A monthly fee of 250€ between February and November 2025
- 

 (tbd) to present the gaming experience in November at The Overkill festival 2025.
- Access to an 

The selection committee is led by Sickhouse co-directors Marie Janin and is constituted of Co-director Aike Lütkemöller, mentor Zuraida Buter and alumni and colliders coordinator Pablo San Gregorio. 
The committee is considering the playfulness of the work, the implication of the artist/maker in the local scene, the potential of development of the project.
The committee will study all the applications and discuss in a meeting the relevance of their 3 favourite choices, based on the criteria mentioned above. 
-----


SICKPROD OPEN CALL 2025

From 20 to 23 of June, 3 groups of Saxion CMGT students presented their new games at Sickhoes. Inspired by the theme of The Overkill 2024 " Radical Joy Resistance" the groups had to create a multiplayer from scratch. 

The three groups took very different approaches to what multiplayers can be and the results were very fun! 

Team Spectrum Spectacle build a game where 2 players have to share a keyboard and run out of a boring, dark office! There is no way out but with the help of the other player until you find the outside world together!

Team CTA associated colour meanings to different activistic convincing tactics. You could choose your character and find out the best way to spread your arguments! Sometimes staying still also pays off !

Team Chaotic detectives hacked a telephone to transform it into a controller. Looking for Ilvy in a small American town, your way of playing left a trace for the next players!

Very proud of the works presented and super happy to work with such enthusiastic students we are very excited to present the finale versions of these games at The Overkill festival coming up in November! 

Saxion-CMGT new multiplayer games reflecting on activism

YOUR FAVOURITE PLAYFUL CONTEST IS BACK, AND YOU CAN JOIN!

formerly known as Sickhouse Eurogaming) will be held on the 18th of May and YOU can be part of it! 🥁🐔 

🕹️ The Ultimate IndieMash is a contest for playful makers from all over the world, to present their work to an international audience. 

> Hosted live from Enschede and streamed online, the participants get 3 minutes each to show their game, interactive project, immersive installation or playful performance, through a live video connection from wherever they are in the world. 
> The challenge is to make the public and the jury want to play their game the most.


> At the end of the program, the public and a jury of professionals will vote for their favourite project. 
🕹️ 🏅

Besides receiving the Sickest Trophy, the winner of the Ultimate IndieMash will also get a spot at The Overkill Festival 2024! 



Not only are we looking for the most original, extravagant and alternative playful concepts, The Ultimate IndieMash is also a celebration of diversity within the indie-game community. We strongly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in the gaming world. From coding mothers to queer visual artists and indigenous storytellers, everyone is welcome to show their unique projects and creations to our audience online and in the theatre, so sign up now! You don't have to come to the Netherlands to participate, all contestants get to show their project through a video connection! 


This year, for the first time, we’re collaborating with the 

from Wierden, to create an exciting show with music, glitter, glamour and of course the main acts of the evening; the playful contestants!

! You have until April the 24th!  Our team will choose the 10 best fitting concepts to show their work on the 18th of May! 


If you have any questions about the concept, the application, or anything else regarding the Sickhouse Ultimate IndieMash Game Contest, please email niels@sickhouse.nl or join the 


See you all very soon!
💜 Lots of love,
The Sickhouse Ultimate IndieMash Playful Contest team

The Ultimate IndieMash : Playful Contest

Sickhouse celebrated their sixth anniversary and it was fun! 

Without a physical space to gather, Sickhouse is looking for different ways to be present, support its community and share playfulness. This is why we are publishing this magazine, to find you again, share some thoughts and take you on the new reflective theme for this year.

At the start of 2024, Sickhouse does not have a space to present and host its program. Finding a new location is a challenge we have been working on since a few years but the last months have shown how difficult the path towards a fitting space is. And we are not alone in this struggle, revealing a great fragility within the cultural middle field of Enschede.

One could wonder why Sickhouse needs a space, when it could be nomad, presents programs within the institutions Enschede/The Netherlands already has, rent a desk in one of the few co-work spaces of the city, mingle with entrepreneurs, free itself from the burden of rent and focus all its budget on content.

But this position fails to see that the large part of Sickhouse’s content is its community. The programs centre around the encounter, the gathering. Designing and crafting its physical space allows  Sickhouse’s visitors to feel safe,  encourages experiment and supports diversified encounters. As a playful art space, Sickhouse does not only support the makers of games or interactive art, it actively uses play as a means to engage in the difficult discussions we urgently need to have in times of polarisation.

One could argue that, as specialised in video games and virtual spaces, Sickhouse could gather online and again free itself from the burden of a physical space. That’s something Sickhouse definitely explored, in the times of the pandemic and when hosting hybrid events. It has been challenging, it has been fun, it needs time, it needs courage and it needs a solid base.

Sickhouse continues to work on such online spaces, trying to find the right balance between the gathering and the playground open to our (international) community. But when our ambition is to support the construction of bridges between virtual and physical, such space can not live alone. The ways to inhabit the world are neither online or offline anymore but in hybrid and layered realities. As an experimental space, Sickhouse is actively reflecting, supporting and creating new navigation systems.

But what physical room, alternative organisations, artists based communities or experimental programs can find, in a realty market at the hand of private owners, rich real estate developers, multinational retail companies? Confronted with this reality, Sickhouse is wondering what impact eternal temporality would have? When we want to create rooms from the glitches, what is stability? Not forgetting that the struggles inherent to alternative, critical, queer, underground spaces are political choices, we are creating our path of resistance. When our societies are dealing with one crisis after another, symptoms of hurtful politics and an economy based on inequality, Sickhouse creates critical and caring programs supporting deeper transformations.

At the time of writing this editorial, Sickhouse is working on its next temporary situation and it will be fine and it will open soon. In 2024 the city is implementing the new “culture nota” and if we believe culture needs more fundamental support, these steps, that many of us worked on with the Gemeente, are promising and hopeful. Finishing this editorial on a positive note is not a way to ignore the situation the world is in, it is an invitation to consider resilience, hope, care, patience as significant tools in a movement that demands a lot of endurance.

SICKHOUSE 6

SICKPROD 2024 - OPEN CALL INDIE / ARTHOUSE GAME STUDIO

In 2024 Sickhouse follows up on its program ”SickProd” to support the creative process of local* independent and/or arthouse gaming makers/studios!** We are looking for indie/arthouse game maker(s) interested to work with us in exchange for :

 from our mentor, Zuraida Buter, including brainstorm sessions, interviews with other professionals, studio visits and festival/exhibition tours

 with a young public. 
(A group of young gamers and art curious will be associated to this trajectory as a first community around the, to be developed, game experience.)

 of 250€ between March and November 2024

 (tbd) to present the gaming experience at The Overkill Festival 2024

between April and November, meaning selecting indie games to present at Sickhouse for the public to play and hosting the event together with the Sickhouse team.
The selection obviously is expected to support the research of the gaming studio. (from local makers to international creatives. Our mentor will help the studio invite these guests and the Sickhouse team will produce the events).

present a gaming experience at The Overkill Festival

Participate in workshops, network and presentation

To apply for this trajectory, please send Marie (

A CV with your game maker experience (if you apply as a studio please mention all the team)

A motivation letter explaining how this trajectory could support your creative process

A portfolio with links to projects you are proud of

If you have a question don’t hesitate to send an email to ask.

* Local means working in Overijssel or close enough and able to work from Sickhouse and join our events on a regular basis.

** If you are not a professional game maker but you are interested in this field and your experience and knowledge would allow you to create a gaming experience, we are interested too. Joining the Jam is also recommended to discuss the possibilities.

If you are interested in this trajectory you are highly recommended to participate in the global game jam hosted from the 

During the Global Game Jam you will be able to meet the team, find out how we work and what our space can facilitate.

Zuraida Buter is an award-winning playful culture and playful arts curator based in the Netherlands. She curates, initiates, consults and documents events focused on playful culture and games. With her international network she brings people together for creation and playful experiences.

 she is involved in curating talks, play and game exhibitions at different festivals, events and institutes such as Incubate,

(WiGNL) she aims to stimulate diversity in the game industry.

 in the Netherlands as well as the popular DGG network lunches as project manager at Dutch Game Garden (2008-2010). She was worldwide Executive Director of the 

 (2010-2014) and founding board member of Global Game Jam, Inc. In the past she has been a lecturer at different universities. For 8 years she taught game design theory at Interactive Performance Design at the Utrecht School of Arts (HKU).

In 2020 she received the IndieCade Game Changer award, which is given to "an individual whose extraordinary contributions to games deserve special acknowledgement". In 2013 she won the EA Award for Achievement and Innovation (London). In 2014 she was nominated for the Ambassador Award at Microsoft's Women in Gaming Awards (San Francisco, GDC).

Shaman Garage is a narrative studio which aims to brew the essence of storytelling and explore new experimental ways of expression. Pablo San Gragorio and Ivan McGill from Shaman Garage followed our first Sick Prod trajectory in 2023. Together we hosted 5 game nights, we started Colliders our new game maker monthly meet-up, we went to AMAZE in Berlin, to INDIGO and Dutch Game Garden network lunch in Utrecht, to Dutch Game Day in Hilversum, and we presented the new one button game “

To discover their work check their website : 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2644670/Data_Garden/

Make your game with Sickhouse

End of November, we officially heard that the building of the former fire station on Hengelosestraat 77, where we moved at the end of September, is not fit to welcome public events due to concrete rot in the basement. This means Sickhouse can not settle in this building and is again looking for a new location. With this statement we want to inform everyone of the consequences for Sickhouse and its  community.

The Gemeente Enschede together with Jeroen Diepemaat apologised about the situation and we are now conjointly and actively looking for fitting spaces for Sickhouse, Grens Frequentie and Blackbrick. At the same time, Saxion, as an external party, has been asked by the city to evaluate how the whole process went and will conduct interviews with everyone to create a report.

For Sickhouse and our community it means that we will not be able to reopen in February like we wanted to. We are aware that this is difficult for our community that will not be able to gather as regularly as before and might find itself isolated. We also realise that the cultural sector of Enschede is greatly fragilised and the artists, makers, organisations are again under the pressure of uncertainties.

The program of 2024, for which Sickhouse received support from Stimulering Fonds and the city of Enschede, will have to be adjusted and hybridised. It means for Sickhouse and its community that we will have, once again, to adapt, be strong together and invent new ways to exist. In all honesty this is all a great disappointment after we set many steps to professionalise, strengthen our focus, and participate in the development of a better cultural climate for the city.

But Sickhouse is also surrounded by many caring partners and with their help we believe we’ll be able to carry on until we can be our own physical space again. From January on we will be collaborating closely with Concordia, Tankstation, Rijksmuseum Twenthe and Tetem to be able to host, rethink and develop our programs. We are very thankful for the very supportive cultural sector of Enschede.

We are starting the year with the Global Game Jam, hosted in Concordia and we will share more information about our programs in January.

We hope the end of year will bring some peaceful moments to everyone and we believe next year will bring many new and beautiful experiments that we are so fond of! In these challenging times, we will keep doing our best to create a safe space for our community and visitors.


Marie Janin & Aike Lütkemöller, Co-directors and the team of Sickhouse.

Statement Sickhouse Space

 is an annual festival where we combine arthouse games, playful art, films and music together in a beautiful blend to research challenging topics. This year curated in collaboration with 

Rather than evading the (digital) wetlands, The Overkill wishes to design a route through

its muddy paths. Artists navigating the Postdigital constellation think of the swamps as a playground to hybridise, as material under transformation and a womb for monstrous mutation. Today the swamp is reconsidered as a space for agency, it is inhabited by amphibious entities and exiled varieties of the self, the swamp is a liquefying space expanding on the different ecosystems.



The Overkill festival will showcases interactive and participative art installations, indie/arthouse games, an alternative film program, experimental musical performances and activities such as workshops, network meetups, D&D sessions, talks and more. Follow the newsletter, our website and our social media to get updates about the artists, games, programs etcetera!

The program of the festival is created with the support of playful curator 

Unique for this edition, The Overkill will also host a LARP: ‘

A LARP is a live action role playing game. You choose a character that you want to become within the story, with their own magical powers, appearance and backstory! You are becoming this character for the weekend, try to think like them, feel how they would feel, and find new ideas for our future together. You will join one of four ‘clans’, the Boho Elves, Swamp Goons, Carbon Knights or Anarchistic Goblins, and then you’re ready to go on your adventures!

Step into a post-climate change realm, where a once-neoliberal dystopia has given rise to pandemics, mass extinction, and social unrest. Prepare to navigate the eternal grey skies caused by large-scale solar radiation management gone awry, as sulphuric mist clouds the horizon. It’s a realm where the failure of green capitalism has left a power vacuum, paving the way for new factions to rise and claim their destiny.

Join us together with the designers of the LARP, 

 in this adventure that defies conventions, immerses you in a world of enthralling possibilities, and sparks your wild spirit. Experience the synergy of environmental consciousness and thrilling gameplay as you journey through “

” Are you ready to rewrite the fate of the realm?

The LARP will be at the heart of the festival connecting the art and games installations, disturbing the programs and inviting every visitors to take on playful challenges, but there’s of course more to see, do and experience!

As a sneak peak, we’re highlighting a few amazing participants already here! Keep an eye out for our

and the coming newsletters to get to know more artists, games, films and events!


We will be showing the video installation 

 It depicts a slow, aquatic journey to a fictional brine lake at the bottom of an unnamed ocean. Protagonists float in and out of the story, semi fictionalised versions of invertebrates, hybridised and constantly shifting.


The Paris based, Cookie Collective is bringing a new playful installation specifically created for The Overkill! Inspired by the theme of the festival, Leon Denise, Emilie Breslavetz and Rémi Georges created 

 an interactive installation with a dedicated custom controller and procedural generative audio. Imagine you control a group of tadpoles surfing the web!

FRIDAY PLAYFUL PROGRAM WITH TALKS AND WORKSHOPS


New this year is a full program of talks , panel discussions and demos, curated with

! On Friday the 17th we welcome professionals of the game industry and the art world to dive into their multiple practices. With 

 about world building and more to be announced soon. Friday is a day to get inspired, might the makers and discover new perspectives!

There will be much, much more to come! For now, here you can read what will happen on which days during the festival, so you know when to take your days off and come celebrate with us!


Official Playful Opening 19:30 with the curators and programmers of the festival
Launch of the LARP with Kostis Stafylakis and Theo Triantafyllidis
EXPO - LIVE PERFORMANCES - LARP - FILM




Playful Talks and workshops curated together with Zuraida Buter.
EXPO - LIVE PERFORMANCES - LARP - FILM - LIVE CODING NIGHT curated by Cookie Collective




NK Chillen, Dutch Finals competitive leisuring presented by Derk Over
LARP Final Assembly
EXPO - LIVE PERFORMANCES - LARP - FILM - GAME SESSIONS - WORKSHOPS - FLUID- MODULAR NIGHT


EXPO - LIVE PERFORMANCES - FILM - WORKSHOPS - GAME SESSIONS


The Overkill festival - 2023

Tuesday 4th of July we’ve been informed by the board of Planetart that they are stopping with their role of facility administrator and leaving the building of Stationsplein, per 1 October. In this statement we are presenting the consequences for Sickhouse’s organisation, programs and community.

The building of Stationsplein, that we are in at the moment, was always meant to be demolished, to give space for the new square the city wants to develop for the station. Aware of this situation, we have been looking for a new location and solutions for a few years already. As we were not part of the WARP Technopolis project anymore since January 2022, we started, independently, in April of the same year to look for a new place for Sickhouse. With the support of the gemeente and our partners we have been studying different options. 

For a few months, we have been working on the possibility of moving into the old fire station of Enschede on the brandweer straat, together with 2 other cultural organisations, BlackBrick, a media art platform and GrensFrequentie, a musical breeding ground. We are making great progress and we are optimistic.

The new deadline of 1st of October, is definitely tight for a smooth transition and disturbs the last quarter of Sickhouse’s programs and The Overkill festival plans (15 to 19 November). We will be looking for the best options in the coming weeks and will announce the definitive plans for the end of the year shortly.

We hope Planetart and the WARP technopolis community will find ways to recover from this situation and develop their projects further.

For now Sickhouse is open the whole month of July with an open air Cinema, performances and our first Summer Film Camp. In August we take a summer break and we reopen the 1st of September with a gaming event and on the 2nd of September our short film festival Ko(o)rts is back. We will work on making September a month to celebrate the crazy years we had on Stationsplein!


For the rest of the year, we’ll share some updates as soon as we can. In these challenging times, we will keep doing our best to create a safe space for our community and visitors.

Marie Janin and Aike Lütkemöller, co-directors of Sickhouse and the team.

Statement future of Sickhouse

Do you want to make your own movie with professionals and learn how to write a scenario, draw a storyboard, build a decor, film, act, edit and present ? Summer Film Camp is a fun, 2 weeks program, welcoming young and curious minds in the world of filmmaking. It will be experimental, it will be collective, it will be DIY and full of surprises and improvisation.

The Summer camp is hosted from the 24th of July to the 4th of august.

If you want to learn in a playful way how to tell stories this is for you!

If you like to work together with a team and explore new things, this might be for you!

If you don’t have money for holidays this could be the solution!

To take part in the camp you only need to send your motivation letter to Aike from Sickhouse. In your mail explain what you like in movies, what is your favourite movie ever and what you would love to do in the camp. 

Film Camp summer 2023

We are starting a local game maker meetup! 

 is a professional gamemaker-meetup, welcoming any creative, regardless of the engine they are working in. At colliders we talk, present, introduce, play, give feedback and enjoy creations and ideas. Colliders aim is to develop a strong network for the indie/arthouse/serious game industry in the east of the Netherlands. With this meetup we want to support each other and create more opportunities for collaborations and exchange. The meetups are open to makers, enthusiasts, producers, artist, curators, etc.

Depending on the input of everyone, colliders will invite guests for talks, workshops, feedback sessions and more!



The first COLLIDERS MEETUP X GAME NIGHT is the 19th of May!



Colliders will be back every month in combination with the game night, curated by Shaman Garage, meaning after the meetup you can play a cool selection of games together!

News

KO(O)RTS Short Film Festival OPEN CALL

The Ultimate IndieMash Open Call is now closed :)

Arcade Mayhem

The Overkill Festival '24 Aftermovie

GLOBAL GAME JAM 2025 (RECAP)

Theme 2025 : Return to Dreamland

GOOD BYE 2024 (NEWSLETTER)

SICKPROD OPEN CALL 2025

Saxion-CMGT new multiplayer games reflecting on activism

The Ultimate IndieMash : Playful Contest

SICKHOUSE 6

Make your game with Sickhouse

Statement Sickhouse Space

The Overkill festival - 2023

Statement future of Sickhouse

Film Camp summer 2023

Colliders - Game makers meet up

Creatieve Broedplaats funding

Sick Gaming trajectory

March to the Sick

Open call Indie/arthouse game makers

NEWSLETTER February 2023

Theme 2023 The Outburst of the digital Swamp

Job Opening: Online communication person

Reflecting on our multiSINsorial program

Join our Sickhouse Family!

Looking back at Bona with Nkhensani Mkhari

An incredible Week At Sickhouse, this is what we want to be

Queerdoh 2022 Press Release

Newsletter: June 2022

Sickhouse Spring 2022 Report

Meet contestants for Sickhouse EuroGaming Vision festival 2022

Take over Piet & Philipp