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!
Ok, all set! The calm before the storm.
The Niche booth is also ready!
Friday morning: Time to open the doors. We were lucky with the weather.
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.
Booth the conference and the festival (including the exhibition) were completely free of charge and open to everyone.
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
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
Yay, people playing the new version of Niche 
Luke Whittaker (Lumino City) playing Journey of a Roach by Kobold Games with his son.
My hands down favorite game of this exhibiton: Some strange Tetris thing that insults you when you fail.
After all talks had ended we played Bigscreen Games on Airconsole
And we got some cool DJing by Dragica on Saturday evening
Saturday and Sunday continued with talks & panels from local and international speakers.
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.
At the open mic (short 5 minute talks) Patrick from indiegames.ch presented our collaboration project Indiecouch
I moderated the talk of Luke Whittaker about Lumio City
As well as the screening of the Swiss Games 2014/2015 Trailer, which you can watch here
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
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.
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
More SGDA work
Getting people to sign the “Volksinitiative Film-, Game- und Medienförderung”
And then suddenly, it was over.
After dismantling everything the team discussed the past days.
We’re super happy with how everything went
Thanks to everyone who helped making the GameZfestival possible and to everyone who paid us a visit!
Cu next year
