Sights from Japanese indie festival BitSummit

Snapshots from Kyoto

_{Doujin Dojo is a sporadic column dedicated to spotlighting independent games from Japan and the people that make them.}

This weekend, Kyoto played host to BitSummit, Japan’s top independent games festival. Now in its third year, the event shows no signs of slowing down. After welcoming just 200 attendees in 2013, BitSummit has grown substantially, uniting the country’s nascent indie game community under one roof to welcome thousands upon thousands of visitors and share their passion with the world.

Here’s a brief photo-tour of the event, which should hopefully give you an idea what BitSummit is all about. Stay tuned for more coverage on the event, specifically highlighting the games themselves.

BitSummit takes place at Miyako Messe, located in Kyoto’s museum district.

Thousands of people attend annually. Here, the crowds pour into the show day one.

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Koji Igarashi, Inti Creates CEO Takuya Aizu, and Keiji Inafune among a star-studded panel lineup.

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Kyoto’s mascot Mayumaro poses with D4 director Hidetaka “Swery” Suehiro and Playism staff.

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Pixeljunk Eden composer Baiyon performs for a live crowd.

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Western-developed projects Octodad and Fez on display at the PlayStation booth.

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Any Japanese video game expo worth its salt has at least a samurai or two.

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Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Lumines, Rez, Space Channel 5) and Kazutoshi Iida (Doshin the Giant).

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Please remember to take your shoes off before entering the Unity game space.

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Mayumaro finds Chulip and Little King’s Story director Yoshiro Kimura’s new crew Onion Games.

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More crowds!

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Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida with La-Mulana 2 designer Takumi Naramura.

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BitSummit founder James Mielke enjoying the show with his daughter.

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P.S. This past week, Yatagarasu Attack on Catacylsm, a doujin fighting game developed by a trio of former King of Fighters veterans, launched on Steam. If you’re interested in checking out some of the latest and greatest indie games from Japan, this would be a good place to start.