Thursday:
On Thursday the ZHdK press apero and Sommerfest took place. After some walking around and listening we all enjoyed the various offers of free food.

Friday
On the very last day of the semester, the Incubator organised a pitching session. Swisscom and other big companies were present to listen to our pitches.

Well, that concludes the first semester of my master studies!
I’ll be spending the next weeks working on Niche – a genetics survival game intensively

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!

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.

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!

After the testing session I headed over to the Inkubator for our first monthly meetup. There were only few people present, so we discussed our progressions and gave each other feedback for improvements. I mostely talked with Ettore, who is building up his business ROBBIANI, about web design and brand identity.

Late at night the urge to work on Niche overcame me. I decided to try out a different approach for the movement inputs.

After lunch I metup with Cynthia at the ZHdK. Cynthia has worked in the advertising industry for several years and got bored with it recently. She now wants to find a job in game marketing and asked me for advise (as if I knew xD).
Alice joined us as Ubisoft came into discussion. We talked over different options together and found that staying in Switzerland was not one of them. Working at Blizzard would make Cynthias dream come true, but she’s also fine with starting smaller, with an internship at a medium-sized studio for example. Alice had the GREAT idea to just look all the contacts up in the latest Keyplayers magazine. Now Cynthia has a LOT of emails to write

*Random page of Keyplayers magazine*

Later in the afternoon I headed over to the Inkubator for a lesson in marketing & communication. Daniel Frei joined the event as an external mentor. We had to pitch our concepts again, this times focusing on the lesson topic. It went quite well and motivated me to work on the game even harder >=)

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
Our friends from Team Schlicht were also presenting their game, Schlicht.

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!

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

In the afternoon I flited over to the Inkubator to join my very first lesson. I was expecting a chilled afternoon, quietly listening to an input about Businessmodels. I was wrong. All the Incubatees had to present their projects and answer the following questions:
– What am I doing?
– Who is my customer and what is my USP?
– How do I achieve my goal?
– How do I earn money?
– Who is my team?
– What’s the current state of the project?
“Ok people, 10 minutes to prepare your presentation, then we’ll start”. Just sitting there, completly unprepared, trying not to freak out, I decided to just talk and explain my project a bit. The resonance was pretty good (to my relief) and we kept discussing the Swiss (games) industry for quite a while.
Here you see two  of the other project pitches of Konzertschneiderei and WormUp. I’m a big fan of OpinionGames, a game series for political opinion making.

I was also running around, organizing stuff for the Tower Offense tournament tomorrow at the Spielhalle Oslo in Basel. You’re all very welcome to join and participate in the tournament! You’ll see more of that tomorrow

In the afternoon I headed over to the Inkubator for our Kick-Off meeting. All the Incubatees gathered to welcome the newcomers (including me) and everyone explained their projects briefly. My first semester in the Inkubator will be spent on gathering data about the Swiss games industry. Let me know if you want to help with that

I almost missed the deadline for the “Call for Transmedia Projects“.
There is an idea that has been floating around in my head for a while. If you take Niche and add a functionality to trade animals, you could simulate a fictional species, living in the internet. In the beginning only a few animals will be given to players (ex. 100 total). The players can then breed them and send them to friends. Animals can die (as they do in Niche) because of hunger, events, old age and so on. If all animals die, the game is over, FOR EVER! The species has become extinct and the game can never be played again.

The 1. semster had to present their ideas and goals. Andis master topic is… SEX! OMG! Sex in games to be more precise. If you want to follow this project, head over to his blog.

I had to leave early (Sorry!) and head over to the ZHdK Inkubator for a meeting. The entry ceremony for the new “Incubatees” (including me) will take place next week. I’m really looking forward to all the business inputs/lessons and hope they will be a solid foundation for my master thesis.