I won’t even start ranting about the workshop lesson today.
The afternoon was quite alright, since we were allowed to work freely. Our group will build a Selecta vending machine which contains foreign snacks. Some impressions:
I left the ZHdK early to attend our usual course at the ETH. Look, we have a digital prototype now :D!
In the morning we were supposed to have another theory lession, but it was cancelled. So my fellow master students and me headed over to the game design bachelor classroom to check out what they’re up to. For the 6th semester students the bachelor exhibition is crawling closer and closer. It feels so strange that I was in the exact same situation only a year ago.
Well, I had a chat with Dodo and Fabian about the recent chances in their concept. And then played the prototype Martina and Alice are working on. It’s a roguelike about curing the inhabitants of a planet from a mysterious illness.
In the afternoon we headed over to the ETH again, like every Tuesday. We had to present the learnings from the paper prototyping session we did last week. After the presentations were finished we got to play the prototypes of all the other groups. Isa had to leave early. She’s flying to Hong Kong for the Workshop (not another wooorkshop, nooo!!) next week. Our team gathered in an empty room after the lesson and we started working on our digital prototype.
Haha, what a crazy day. We had to organize a “fake conference” in just 4 hours. Everything from talks to workshops to branding and social media documentation. I volunteered to take on the role as conference chair to practice my organisation skills for the next gameZfestival 
The whole event went smoothly. The highlight: I had a fight with my teacher. A PHYSICAL fight! In one of the workshops we had to play games against each other. And one the games was: Steal the opposite persons shoe! Well, she got mine, congrats Mela 
You can find the conference documentation here.
In the evening Isa and me headed over to the ETH to work on our game again. Well we ended up wasting all our time setting up Source Tree and it’s STILL not running on my Mac. Oh well…
So, as you already know we’re currently having a theory week. This includes lots of reading, listening to inputs and discussions.
During lunch, Andi and me metup with Dragica. We talked about the need for a proper list of Swiss game development studios. As a first step, we will setup a format with slots for all important information. The form will then discussed with the SGDA. If YOU have any inputs for us, let us know!
My head, almost blowing up from the amount of information, was so happy when we reached the ETH. We paper-prototyped our evolution party game with PLAYDOH! Hurray! I haven’t played with playdoh for AGES. Had so much fun building these little creatures with my team
The rest of the day was spent with preparations for the SGDA trip to the Nintendo Headquarter in San Francisco. I’m not going there myself. I only prepared a trailer video featuring some successful Swiss games.
In the afternoon I gave a quick interview for a magazine, will show you once it comes out 
After a short intro to blogging this morning, we headed over to the ETH again.
As you already know, the ZHdK Game Design Master student are collaborating with the ETH GameLab.
During the weekend, our group prepared a rough concept.
Our plan is to make a multiplayer party game about four animals that need to survive together.
The environment is constantly changing and confronts you with new dangers. Hmmm, sound kinda….familiar….
But but but! It’s all physics-based now! You can climb on top of each other and stuff. You’ll see!
Today, we had to pitch our ideas to the other teams and teachers.
Here we see team Andi / Diego / Manuel <- he worked on Overcoat
Please pay close attention to Andis faboulous presentation pose.
When I got home and started up my computer to play a relaxing round of Binding of Isacc, I suddenly became aware of something.
Cadence, a beautiful music puzzle game two friends of mine are making, went live on Kickstarter today!
After throwing in all my remaining money for this month, I started to write mails. Lots of mails. And tried to figure out different sites and people I could reach out to. Our teacher René Bauer was a great help, answering my spontaneous questions in the middle of the night! Thanks René.
Well now, if you’ve got an idea how to promote/push the game, please let me know
Please spread the word and if you have a cent to spare, please back their Kickstarter!
The second day of my game design master has come to an end.
In the morning we were introduced to the structures of our common design classes and saw a few presentation about potential projects to work on for our master thesis.
In the afternoon things got really interesting, when we headed over to the ETH.
This year, the game design master students are joining the ETH GameLab (for the first time). Which means that we will make games together in teams of four people.
A big public presentation and exhibition are awaiting us at the end of this collaboration.
I was especially happy about this years topic: Evolution. Yeeeeeah! Jackpot!
Can’t wait to start working on the prototype
After that we went back to the ZHdK to watch some Pecha Kucha (20 slides, each displayed 20 seconds) presentations from 3. semester master students.
The whole thing took place in the club Mehrspur which is a really nice spot right next to our school. There was an awesome apéro and after half of the presentations, they even figured out how to use the microphone
