 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. 
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SICKPROD OPEN CALL 2025

 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

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