NetGame

This weekend we went to the NetGame LAN in Thun to exhibit our game Tower Offense.
He heard about the event just a few days before it actually took place, but the organizers were super nice and allowed us to spontaneously put together a “Swiss Games” booth under the name of the SGDA.

netgame

Arriving in Thun. The weather is sooo nice, I don’t want to go insiiiide xD
IMG_5805

Setting up our booth next to Splash Blast Panic :)
IMG_5807

Other Swiss devs teams that were present:
Black Monday
Modsork
No Rest for the Wicked Ones
Crossbow Warrior – The Legend of William Tell

Walking around in the main hall was quite impressive. So many people! I was also surprised by the games they played which showed a richer variety than I had expected :)
IMG_5809 IMG_5812

In the evening we watched the cosplay contest. One of our fellow game design students (Sodiumcat) won the audience award :D
IMG_5832

We ended up staying too long and had to run back to the train station (carrying our heavy monitors). What a day :)

GameZfestival

Another GameZfestival has come to an end. After weeks of preparation, the 3 days of the actual event just flew by.
But let’s start at the beginning :)
We rented the Walcheturm a day early so we could build up the exhibition. The 5th semester game design students helped us a lot.
I can tell you it was a pain int the *** to get all this plastic film for the walls printed, so it was nice to finally see it in action!
IMG_5153IMG_5147

Ok, all set! The calm before the storm.
IMG_5169

The Niche booth is also ready!
IMG_5184

Friday morning: Time to open the doors. We were lucky with the weather.
_9994630

This years festival was a bit special since it was not just a festival, but also a conference. Initially the two events were planed to take place on different dates but then we decided to put them together. So on Friday and Saturday morning, we hosted the gameZ & ruleZ conference about game mechanics.
_9994645_9995229_9995182 _9995204

Booth the conference and the festival (including the exhibition) were completely free of charge and open to everyone.
_9994829

On Friday evening we opened our exhibition “RuleZ for the magic circle”. All the exhibited games are unique due to their special mechanics.
The floor was full of strange, red circles. These respresented the magic circle in games (like a football field) where special rules are in place. So to get into the exhibition everyone had to talk through the “Move in slow motion” circle. It took a while until they were all inside xD
_9995397_9995474_9995426_9995857_9996628

The exhibition makers :)
_9995442

If you played the ZHdK student games (on the white tables) and want to get in touch:
- Panda Lost in space
Niche – a genetics survival game
Panakeia
FAR
Monocular
Violet – Pale Noise
_9995869

Yay, people playing the new version of Niche :D
_9995721IMG_5194

Luke Whittaker (Lumino City) playing Journey of a Roach by Kobold Games with his son.
_9995863

My hands down favorite game of this exhibiton: Some strange Tetris thing that insults you when you fail.
_9995547

After all talks had ended we played Bigscreen Games on Airconsole
_9995653_9995655

And we got some cool DJing by Dragica on Saturday evening :D
_9996408

Saturday and Sunday continued with talks & panels from local and international speakers.
_9995302_9996255_9995697

The two highlights of the show: Jesper Juul about The Art of Failure in Games and Phillip Weber about the Quest Design of The Witcher.

_9995910_9996366_9995639

At the open mic (short 5 minute talks) Patrick from indiegames.ch presented our collaboration project Indiecouch
_9996134

I moderated the talk of Luke Whittaker about Lumio City :)
_9996313

As well as the screening of the Swiss Games 2014/2015 Trailer, which you can watch here
_9996670

Livio, our sponsor Lukas and me announced the winner of the new GameZfestival Creative Award for “Most innovative Game Mechanics”. The finalists were:
– The Swapper
– Life is strange
– This war of mine
– Cadence
– Perspective
– The Floor is Jelly
– Blek
– Line Wobbler
– There is no Game
_9996698

And the winner is: Line Wobbler!
This game managed to come up with great level design and different game elements despite the very limited space.
Robin Baumgartner, the creator of Line Wobbler will be invited to the next GameZfestival!
Nerdilicious GmbH (who organize the JapAniManga Night and the Beaumode) will sponsor his travelling and accommodation cost._9996699

On Sunday we hosted another award. The “Junior Swiss Game Award” by the SGDA.
Both finalists received 500.- price money. Well desevered, the projects are awesome!
Continent Conquest
The Glove
_9996425_9996517

More SGDA work :)
Getting people to sign the “Volksinitiative Film-, Game- und Medienförderung
_9995222

And then suddenly, it was over.
IMG_5209IMG_5211

After dismantling everything the team discussed the past days.
IMG_5218

We’re super happy with how everything went :D
Thanks to everyone who helped making the GameZfestival possible and to everyone who paid us a visit!
Cu next year :)

gameZ3ruleZ-logo

 


 

“Vacation”

Well my “vacation” started with an actual vacation :D
Right after Gamescom I traveled to Belgium to visit my family. Had a great time and went to the beach for the first time in 10 years!

IMG_4871IMG_4880IMG_4941

Ahhh sweet sweet home. Finally back in my “office” after two weeks.
IMG_4957

The start of the new semester approached quickly. In the meantime I visited a few events:
Swiss Game Academy” in Fribourg. A week to learn how to make videogames.
I gave a short SGDA introduction and took a look at the projects in the making.

IMG_4964IMG_4960
Fantoche in Baden.
Another SGDA job: Moderating the game talks.
I also checked out the adventure games exhibition and went to the industry talk.
IMG_5058

The SGDA Pop Quiz
IMG_4967

Isa invited me to the Swiss Emex marketing fair
IMG_4996 IMG_4998 IMG_4994

And lots of other things…

All in all the lecture free summer months were spread like this:
45% Niche
20% Master Thesis
10% SGDA
10% Tower Offense
5% Playful Oasis

IMG_5045IMG_5074

Aaaand we’re back to school.
IMG_5122

Game Conference: Zurich – Milan

The Ludicious – Zurich Game Festival invited me to be part of the delegation for the Game Conference Zurich – Milan.
That sounded like a great adventure! I gladly accepted the offer.
ExpoMilano_Bilder_940x300px_Game_Conference

Time jump!
When stepping out of the cool, climated train from Zurich to Milan a wave of heat washed over us. What a hot day!
First impression when entering the Expo: O my god this is HUGE! I never would have thought it would be this big.

IMG_4488

We made it to the Swiss Pavillion without melting (but it was close) just in time for the opening presentation.

IMG_4449 IMG_4451

After the introduction the GameJam teams presented their works. Last but not least different studios and developers from Switzerland and Italy gave an overview of their projects. I talked about the ZHdK, Niche, Elarooh, Tower Offense and my work for the SGDA.

IMG_4450

After lunch we had a panel discussion about the Swiss & Italien games industry.

IMG_4454 IMG_4456

The conference was over at around 15:00 and we had time to explore the Expo afterwards.

IMG_4466

Dominiks top priority: Ice cream!

IMG_4474

Silly David!

IMG_4481

Adventures on the shaky bridge at the Brasilian pavillion *shake*

IMG_4499

And LOTS of other cool attractions / pavillions

IMG_4493 IMG_4504

After a very enteraining trainride back to Zurich with Martin and Jan, I got home around 1 am.

IMG_4509

It was a super fun day and I got to meet lots of nice people. Thank you very much for having me!

Last week of the semester!

Monday / Tuesday:
On Monday, Tuesday as well as Wednesday, I attended the final presentations of the Game Design Bachelor and Master students.
IMG_4412
Wednesday:
After the presentations on Wednesday, I took the train to Lausanne to attend the local gamedev meetup. I talked briefly about the SGDA and our engagement at the Fantasy Basel.
IMG_4417

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.
IMG_4422
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.
IMG_4438

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 :)

End of semester is coming

I decided to write a weekly conclusion instead of daily updates. Slowly but surely, the daily routine of the master is kicking in so there’s not that much to report about :)

 

Tuesday:
In the morning I attended the 2. Semester Stroytelling analysis, great stuff! Then we got an input about politics which was quite strange -> Got the advice to buy a ferret for ma master thesis xD
And he had another input at ETH. The last one actually!
IMG_4211

Wednesday:
At the Stammtisch we played and analysed “Quartett”

IMG_4220

Thursday:
In the name of the SGDA I went to the ETH and awarded the best Matura Game of this year ^^

IMG_4222IMG_4227

Friday:
Niche working meetup! Lots of decisions have been made. Look at these milestones!
IMG_4241

 

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!

IMG_3865

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 :)
IMG_3867

Wednesday:
News Games workshop with Marcus Bösch.
Nobody wanted to make a mobbing cardgame with me *sob* so I had to join another team.

IMG_3871 IMG_3883
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.
IMG_3910 IMG_3926

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 ;)

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.

IMG_3618

In the afternoon we analyzed the text together.
IMG_3622

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

The List

Theory lesson today was quite alright. Topic was writting.

IMG_3351
The game design students keep skipping afternoon classes because of our collaboration with the ETH xD
Our presentation at the ETH went quite well, our game concept is taking shape.

During the theory input I had an idea. Lots of people are currently talking about or even already making lists of the Swiss Games Industry. Instead of just working all by ourselves and have many unfinished/outdated lists or survey that don’t contain all important questions, we should join together. So if you’re up to helping us, head over to the discussion group.

ETH game and SGDA work

No theory lessons today, horray :D
Instead we met up and worked on our ETH game.
Titelscreen_ETH_evolutionparty

The evening was spent mostely on SGDA organisation things aka Fantasy Basel and Swiss Online Marketing tasks :)
Bildschirmfoto 2015-03-30 um 22.37.10
Edit: Totally forgot to mention the awesome First Strike infographics that came out today! I had the pleasure to work on them during my internship and they have been tweaked and released now. Take a look at it: First Strike, year one in numbers

Bildschirmfoto 2015-03-31 um 22.55.19