Blog | Philo Stuff

September 27, 2015 by Philo

Gamescom

Gamescom staaaarts!

The Swiss delegations are setting up their booths in the business area. We’re right next to the Koreans

The Niche booth. Tower Offense is right behind us.

The place is filling up fast. We’re busy showing the games to all kinds of people.

Featuring in a few magazines! Mostly thanks to Pro Helvetia.

We brought sheets for people to stay in touch with us. They’re filling up qickly

In my spare time I walked around a bit. The Gamescom is so huuuuge.

The coolest spot? The Indie Arena booth!

Hi Johannes ^^

I even got to play judge for the “Best of Indie Arena” price sponsored by InnoGames. So I spent a lot of time there, trying out all the games. The quality was super high and it was almost improssible to choose.

Aaaand there was also an Indie Arena meetup with nice people and great food <3

Let’s stick with the food for a sek. The Swiss delegation went to a classical German Brauhaus for dinner. I had spareribs. So. Many. Spareribs.
Another day we sneaked into the Nordic Game party xD

The week was over in no time. And the question I like to ask in the end is: Satisfied?
Satisfied!

Satisfied!
A huge thanks to the Pro Helvetia for making this possible for us!

The next adventure is already waiting for me, cu around!

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July 10, 2015 by Philo

Imaging the future symposium & Expert match making

Thanks to our nomination as a finalist of the Call for Project Swiss Games we were invited to attend the “Imaging the future symposium” in Neuchâtel this week.

Making our way through this beautiful city, we approached the Théâtre du Passage.

We were just in time to watch the last two presentations of the morning.

After that it was our (the Pro Helvetia finalists) turn to show what we got
Andi presented Tower Offense and I talked about Niche. Alongside us we got Domdom with Schlicht, Janina & Sebi with Shiny, Laura with Matter and Mario with MIKMA.

We then headed to the festival tent to have dinner.

Andi and me booked an airbnb room near the station. It was quite cheap (30.- for each of us) and the hosts were very nice!

Day 2 of our trip to Neuchâtel: The match making day
We got to meet different experts and talked about our projects with them. The inputs varied greatly and gave us a lot to think about.

We spent our breaks outside at the super windy lake coast.
Thoughtful Andi is thoughtful

Lunch time!

In the evening we went to the VIP tent for some drinks and then took the train back home. Had a great time & got lots of inputs

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July 3, 2015 by Philo

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Dominiks top priority: Ice cream!

Silly David!

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

And LOTS of other cool attractions / pavillions

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

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

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June 19, 2015 by Philo

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.

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.

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

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June 8, 2015 by Philo

Sunniest week ever

Monday:
Theory lesson, you know the story. In the afternoon we worked on the school rooftop.

Tuesday:
Spent the morning programming Niche on our balcony. Joined the “Multilinear storytelling” presentations of the 2. semester in the afternoon.

Wednesday:
After a short mentoring, I headed out and looked for a nice place to work on my Master Theory concept.

Thursday:
ZHdK vernissage! Let’s go play ALL the games. The exhibition is open until June 13th.
All the games can be found here
Join the Presseapréro
Read the 20Minuten article

Friday:
After listening to the short pitch presentation of the game master students I joined the Game Design barbecue. We played “Cards against Humanity” and it was hilarious!

Bonus:
Yield of this weekends comic market

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June 1, 2015 by Philo

Digital VS Analog

Tuesday:
All 6 game design master students had to present the current state of their projects. The teachers weren’t very satiesfied with mine. Mostly the fact that my research is too broad and doesn’t deliver any analysable results hit me right in the weak point. Guess I have to finally decide what I’ll actually be doing during the next year
After lunch, I met up with my childhood friend Jessica to produce buttons for her business Little Bitty Creatures.

Wednesday:
I already told you about the ETH final presentations. Head over here if you missed it.

Thursday:
In the morning Andi, Mela, Stefan and me had to help build up the master exhibition for our senpais. We had to even-up the uneven ground with little plastic sticks so that the screens were standing straight. Luckily we made a great team and were done quickly which left me some time to go work at the Capsule Games office.

Friday:
Working meetup for Niche! I really enjoy working on the game again, together with Beat and Severin

In the evening I went to the Gross.Stadt.Jagd event to pick up Markus. There were sooo many people there, staring at a small screen to stay up to date with the games progress.

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May 29, 2015 by Philo

ETH Game Programming Laboratory

On Wednesday evening about 300 people gathered in the ETH audi max.
Why? Well, for the final presentation of the ETH game programming laboratory of course! And me and my classmates where right in the middle of it all. This year the ZHdK cooperated with the ETH, allowing the students of both schools to create games together. Our group “Team 5″ has spent quite a lot of time working on our project “Evolution Party”, a cooperative multiplayer game. You can read all about the development process in my earlier posts.

After a short introduction by Bob Sumner, leader of the ETH gamelab program, the presentations started.

After all 6 teams had finished, it was time for the award ceremony!
Winners of the jury award: “Micro Wars”
Congrats!

The audience voted for their favorite game, deciding the winner of the audience award. And that was us O_o!
All winners received a goodie bag from Microsoft. Thank you!
After the award ceremony was over, everyone gathered to play the games and get some apéro.

We wanted to keep partying after the ETH had closed and went to the Safari bar

The ETH gamelab course was a great experience. And now they even opened a game technology center!
I want to thank my team members Isabel Schacher, Jascha Grübel and Renzo Roth. Do did a great job and I really enjoyed the time we spent together :D!

Aaand, some press articles related to the event:
Computerworld
Tagesanzeiger

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May 26, 2015 by Philo

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!

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

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

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

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May 18, 2015 by Philo

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)

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

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

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).

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

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

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

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

Let me know if you find more

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

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May 10, 2015 by Philo

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!

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

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

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.

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

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