The only way is up for Ludicious, the Zurich Game Festival. Now in it’s forth year the boutique developer conference in the heart of Switzerland’s economic capital pulled all the right moves.
The days from January 18 – 21 showed at the Zurich Game Festival Ludicious once again, that Swiss game design is rich and unique at the same time. This fact and of course the beautiful city of Zurich drew an international crowd of approximately 500 people – not counting the public that streamed into the exhibitions on the weekend – to the Kasernenareal. There were speakers from around the world as well as projects presented that came from distant lands like Iran. When selecting Around Mars from Appinu Studio, the team that put together the shortlist, had little hope, that the developer could come to Switzerland and attend the festival, but he did! Kudos, my man, kudos!
International exchange is at the core of the festival, as Switzerland’s scene lacks proper mentors. Of course everybody gets older and hopefully wiser and can pass on experience and knowledge to a younger generation, but still getting inspiration and point of views from outside is extremely important for a young and developing creative industry. People like the bubbly Eric Zimmerman, the mysterious Dhaunae de Vir, the burly Jason Della Rocca, the savy Menno van Pelt-Deen, the inspired Lauren Carson, yours truely and many, many more brought different perspectives to the local scene.
Since it’s start four years ago Ludicious has come a long way. From a pretty humble insider get-together to a more and more professional looking and well organized event with a clear structure and an attractive roster of events, talks and of course games.
Change is good
After three years under the guidance of festival veteran Dominik Marosi, the festival found a new dynamic duo with managing director Mike Reaney and creative director Tobias Kopka. The latter being one of the top tier organizers of developer conferences in Germany and a pro when it comes to the indie scene. Together they divided the festival into three thematic chunks: Technology, interaction design and visual exploration on Thursday, business and creative systems on Friday and community, art & the awareness economy on Saturday.
Next to the talks in the conference hall, which was very well visited, when I was present, panels and talks were held as well in the exhibition hall. This set-up was a bit challenging for the participants as they had to for one thing compete with the games on display as well as the noise coming from the visitors playing the different titles.
A great selection, a good awards show
The focus on this year’s selection was innovation. There were games like Blind Drive that showed not much more than a black screen. The player had to rely on acoustic inputs to survive oncoming traffic. Rock of Ages II: Bigger and Boulder sported a Monty Python aesthetic and loads of fun in a hilarious tower defence scenario, whereas Do Not Feed the Monkeys wrestled with the difficult topic of voyeurism. The winner of the Innovation Award was Witchball, an artistically daring racing game, developed by the indie dev S.L. Clark.
Corine Mauch, mayor of the city of Zurich, opened the SGDA Award show at the festival Ludicious
In a well organized SGDA awards show – opened by Corine Mauch, mayor of the City of Zurich – accompanied by an excellent dinner the local game designers and developers were celebrated. Colorful Darkness, Piñata Punch’s slick looking cyberpunk title, hacked the Swiss Game Award. The Audience Choice Award went to Stray Fawn’s genetics fable Niche – no surprise here. Personally I was rooting for Retimed of Maniax Games – way less intellectual, but super fun.
Lots of fun for everyone
For the first time in the festival’s young history the interested public had to pay 10 francs for a ticket. Looking at the steady flow of visitors of different shapes and sizes on Saturday afternoon and Sunday late morning the sensible step certainly paid off. A great addition was Chris Solarski’s sketch workshop, where patient cosplayers struck a pose and had to be sketched by mainly young kids and some adult enthusiasts. Focussing for 90 minutes on the ladies in fantastic fantasy outfits proved to be too demanding for major part of the kids, who started drawing other stuff rather than stick-figures of the ladies on display. But next to getting a brief instruction in sketching the workshop also showed that traditional skills and knowledge about art feed into games.
The fourth edition of Ludicious was the best so far also thanks to a very passionate managing team with people like Ron and a handful of helping hands, that worked on voluntary basis. Even though some supporters and sponsors wont be around next year, new names like Steam have already appeared and I am pretty sure, more will come then the fifth anniversary show of Ludicious is certainly something nobody who knows anything about games wants to miss.
