This past January, teams worked at the Global Game Jam 2010 in Cedar Falls. Photos by godatplay via Flickr.

TIGJam Midwest, an innovative game development event, will take place in Des Moines Friday, June 4 through Sunday, June 6.

“It’s called TIGJam because our group is part of the TIGSource community, which is a developer community for indie games,” said organizer Josh Larson, an independent video game developer under the brand God at play.

Similar in structure to Startup Weekend, TIGJam unites “programmers, hackers, designers, artists, [and] musicians” in a defined space over a short time period to develop and produce independent video games under a common theme. This year’s theme is “Proverbs.”

“Participants will form teams, choose a specific proverb from a culture of their choice, and develop a game based on it,” Josh explained. “There could be games based on Chinese Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Christian proverbs, or more obscure cultures or religions.”

TIGJam Midwest kicks off Friday, June 4 at Foundry Coworking (1312 Locust St, Ste 204) with a keynote presentation by Alec Holowka, co-creator of the award-winning indie game Aquaria. The development continues through Friday evening and Sunday afternoon at Foundry and wraps up Sunday evening at Impromptu Studio (300 SW 5th St) where the games will be debuted to the public.

Participation in the development event is free and open to all who are interested but an RSVP is requested.

The public presentation is free, as well. “The local community is encouraged to attend the show-and-tell at Impromptu Studio, where they will experience the games and meet local game developers,” Josh said. “These won’t be your usual space marine shooters; expect raw and barely-finished games that explore satirical, brand new, or meaningful territory.”

The video below is a time lapse of a similar event, the Global Game Jam in Cedar Falls this past January.