Fantasy Basel

During the last few months the SGDA (mostly Matthias and me) prepared the indie game exhibition at Fantasy Basel.
I want to thank the Fantasy Basel at this point for providing us with 20 great booth spaces!
On Wednesday evening the setup began. Most of the exhibiting studios were from Zurich, but I’m happy some peps from the Romandie joined us as well. You can find a full list of the exhibiting studios + links to their websites here.
We also welcomed two special guest from Germany who are part of our fellow organisation Indie Arena.
(If you are a game developer from Switzerland and you are not part of the Indie Arena community yet: Go join NOW)

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During all three days of the festival our booth was full of people, trying out all the games :D

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Niche, Tower Offense and Koboldgames were part of the exhibition.
There was a teenage boy who literally never stopped playing Tower Offense. We almost had to drag him away to allow other people to try the game :D

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On Thursday evening Markus Rossé and me had the honor to join the panel discussion with Simon Otto (Lead Animator of How to train your dragon 2).

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And on Friday evening: Game Talks! About 200 people came to listen to the various talks from Swiss game developers :)

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Thanks to my team members who took over my place at the exhibition for a while, I got to wander around at the festival. Here are some impressions :D

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The three days were over in a blink of the eye. We all had a great time and are super happy with the event! We really hope to be back next year.
Also: Thanks to everyone who helped dismanteling! You guys rock :)

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Press coverage about the festival, mentioning our booth:
indiegames.ch
games.ch
telebasel.ch
watson.ch

Let me know if you find more :D

PS: Personal lesson learned for organizing festivals: Don’t forget to gather information about parking slots early xD

A week in my life

This week was a rather calm one. So I’ll just recap everything in one post.

Monday:
Boring theory lesson. I almost fell asleep, seriously.
Isa and me headed over to the ETH to prepare our game for the upcoming presentations.
The working session was “interrupted” by a SGDA planning event. I really really love sitting at this table with these great and hardworking people!

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Tuesday:
The input about News Games by Margarete Jahrmann was interesting.
Afternoon ETH presentations. Our game didn’t receive as much reaction from the audience as I hoped. We have to improve the “fun to watch” part :)
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Wednesday:
News Games workshop with Marcus Bösch.
Nobody wanted to make a mobbing cardgame with me *sob* so I had to join another team.

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Thursday:
Film Noir story input by Beat Suter, cool stuff!
A normal afternoon at Capsule Games. I did community/organisation stuff and Robin had a life or dead Tower Offense battle with his arch enemy Gian. Also, we decided to use Slack as a communication tool and setup a timetracking sheet. Very business, much professional.
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Friday:
I visited Kobold Games at their new office, like it a lot!
We talked about the story, setting and art style of their upcoming game, but that’s a story for another day ;)

Tower Offense & Incubator Scouting

A regular day at your local Capsule Games office ;)
Robin & Gian visited the University Basel in the morning to talk about a cooperation. More infos about that next Tuesday :D
I spent the day signing up for festivals, managing our playtester group, answering mails, preparing for the Fantasy Basel exhibition and so on.
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Also: The ZHdK Incubator wants to run a pitching session together with Swisscom. I’ve been running around looking for interesting projects all week. Stay tunned!

Balcony studying & Getting ready for Games Week Berlin!

Ahhhh, doing homework on the balcony during a nice spring day is just THE BEST. Even the most boring texts can’t spoil that. Nah, the text was actually quite alright. Not the kind of thing I choose to read voluntarily, but ok :)
It was about the comparision of different innovation methodes.

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In the afternoon we analyzed the text together.
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After finishing up some SGDA and Capsule game tasks I can noooow….
pack for the International Games Week in Berlin :D!

Pro Helvetia Pitch

The finale of the Call for projects Swiss Games by Pro Helvetia had come. A big day for both Niche and Tower Offense.
I was quite nervous before our pitch and therefore forgot to take any pictures xD
The finale (consisting of a 5min pitch & 10min question and answer round) took place at the Colab in Zurich. Both our presentations went quite well I think and I can’t wait so receive the results! Our pitches were filmed and I will share them with you soon.
Cool: I got to meet Jana Reinhardt from Rat King :D

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After the pitches, the Niche team went over to Severins (our 3D artist) place. We worked on the game all day and had lots of cool ideas.

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Pitch training

In the morning we analysed the mechanics of Tennis for Two, the first videogame of history. I was a bit too quick to say that I understand how the mechanics work and our teacher René punished me by making me the others playball ;)
(Pictures says it all)

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After that we analysed the ETH game projects. Taking on another groups project, we had to come up with level designs and alternative concepts and present them.

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After the pitch training for the “Call for projects” last week, we decided that we want to run a second round. The ZHdK Incubator was so kind to offer us their office space, listen to our presentations and provide us with feedback. The event was entierly open to the public and we had quite a few guests. Now I feel well prepared!

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PolyLAN

Let’s start with a confession: In the morning I wasn’t very keen to leave my bed and travel all the way from Zurich to Lausanne to attend the PolyLAN. I have never been there before and in the train I constantly asked myself: Is it really worth the 2 x 3h trainride? Markus accompanied me and helped carrying all the equipment, thank you again ^^!

So, the plan was to get there and exhibit Tower Offense, two games made by Kobold Games and Niche who are all part of my “Game Promotion” master thesis. There was a mail floating around that invited indie game developers to the event. I signed up for it, because Tower Offense has a strong E-Sports aspect and Switzerlands biggest LAN is definetly the place to be!
We arrived at the infodesk and were immediately welcomed warmhearted with: “Ah yes, the developers, so nice that you’re here”. First impression: This event is bigger than we expected and the people are really nice!

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Stéphane (who is organizing the PolyLAN together with Niels) showed us our exhibition space. It was pretty much in the heart of the event and there was a HUGE TV standing there, waiting for us. Overwhelmed we started setting up the games. People started gathering around our booth and asked us lots of questions about the games and what being an indie game developer is like. A lot of people joined our Tower Offense Alpha Tester base.

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Stéphane hurried to and fro to assist us in every possible way and also offered us to join the PolyLAN tournament system. We wanted to run a little Tower Offense tournament anyways so this was perfect! The tournament was quickly added to the schedule and players could compete to earn points. All the points from all tournaments are added up in the end and the winner gets a big price.
And so it started!

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The battles where fierce and fun! And here we have our winners! Congrats!!
From left to right:
2. ZabZab
3. Blueur
1. Torrix
4. 69th

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The PolyLAN even sponsored prices for them. Sooo nice :D

Well, let’s come to a conclusion:
The PolyLAN is totally, absolutely, incredibly AWESOME! If I had known what a great day was waiting for me, I would have jumped out of bed in the morning.  Thank you so much for having us and all your time and effort to help us!
We will definitely be back and hope that we can build up a whole “Swiss Games corner” next year.

Good news: The PolyLAN is still running!
You can head over and exhibit your games until MO, 06.04.2015.
Let me know if you’d like to get the contact email :)

Fantasy Basel & Pro Helvetia pitch preparation

Spring is coming. It’s so warm and sunny lately. A great way to start a day full of things to do!
After finishing all kinds of organizational stuff in the morning I headed over to the Fantasy Basel office for a meeting. René Bauer, my teacher at the ZHdK, joined us aswell. Swiss Games at the Fantasy Basel, it’s going to be awesome! Stay tuned :D

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After the meeting, I headed over to the Tower Offense office. We worked on our pitch for the Pro Helvetia “Call for projects” presentation. Did lots of research and discovered this Steam tracking site. Have to do the same thing for Niche too…
Let’s hope this will work out!

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Grafik15

Theory lesson again in the morning…
I’d REALLY prefer to just work on my project. I mean input is good and all, but it’s too much. The good side: I got the idea to shape my master thesis into an interactive pdf instead of a printed booklet today. The longer I think about it, the more I get to the conclusion that my product needs to be completely digital.

After lunch we headed over the Maag Halle to setup our booths for the Grafik15. Niche, Tower Offense, Koboldgames and many many other Swiss games are exhibiting their games there (13. – 15.3). LOTS of visitors attended the Vernissage :)

 

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Tower Offense Tournament!

The printers shop seems to become my second home. Went there in the morning to fetch some Tower Offense material.

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After a quick lunch I headed over to the Inkubator to discuss my goals and milestones for the coming semester. Here they are:

01.05: Research Swiss Game Industry – list of studios, individuals, activists, possible investores, sales numbers…
01.06: Research German & Austrian games industry – possible learnings
01.08: Analyse successful games and develop marketing startegies for Niche, Tower Offense and Koboldgames

Back the the ZHdK we had a meeting and long discussion about the future of the gameZfestival and possible cooperations. The meeting was so long I actually was late for our exhibition at the Spielhalle Oslo in Basel. Luckily, Robin went ahead and prepared everything. Thanks Robin :D
Our friends from Team Schlicht were also presenting their game, Schlicht.

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Actually, we weren’t just exhibiting, we also hosted a Tower Offense Tournament! The first and second place received a card, signed by our team and a gift coupon for a game shop. Watching the tournament was great fun. Even completely new players can have very exiting matches, as long as they’re leveled evenly. We definetly have to do this again soon!

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The Spielhalle Oslo will be open from March – May, everyday from 14:00 – 19:00.
Every Friday they host an event. Here are the next ones:

Fr. 14. March: Webilea@Spielhalle Oslo
Game Design Workshop. Sign up on webilea.ch

Fr. 20. March: Winters letzte Tage, interactive concert with Dragica Kahlina (Eigenharp / Livecoding)

Fr. 27. March: Bring and play your own video games / consoles

And! You can also host your own events there! So let them know if you have any ideas :)

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