Category: GGC Updates

This category holds posts that we otherwise only publish on the Gotland Game Conference website. To browse the games that were on each GGC showfloor, try the tag cloud!

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The Gotland Game Conference 2021 Awards

The votes have been counted and the Gotland Game Conference can announce its annual awards!

This year’s big winner is the first year student game Amelite, taking home Best Game Feel, Best Level Design, Best Presentation and the big one – Best in Show! 

Congratulations to all the students of Sealhorse Studios: Sabina Hallmén, Oliver Lincke, Frida Björnfot, Erik Börjesson, Amanda Östman, Cédric Le Therisien, Pontus Canholm, Fabian Larsson, Sander Wellmar!

Making games is not easy at the best of times and a pandemic can never be the best time. The titles on display this year were a testament to the ingenuity, motivation and creativity of the students who had to overcome working remotely, across time zones, and without ever physically meeting their faculty, to deliver a game in just under 10 weeks of production. 

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the 2021 event was a virtual one. The students are now out for summer but the virtual arcade remains open for anyone with a browser to visit and play all 29 titles here: https://gotlandgameconference.com/2021/ 

These are the winner of this year’s awards:

Best in Show: Amelite
Jury Motivation for Amelite: “With a heart of darkness and a bright yellow cap, this game rides the line between frustration and satisfaction, but always lands on the right side.”

You can play the Best in Show winner Amelite in your browser, right here!

Runners up for Best in Show: Daidala and Aescension
Jury Motivation for Daidala: “Stay a while and listen! With great charm, narration and clever gameplay, this is now my prefered version of the mythos!”

Jury Motivation for Aescension: “They use smoke and mirrors to dazzle their players, and this game does it at the caliber of a AAA studio. It conveys fear, mystery and adventure through all your senses”

  • Aescension
  • Daidala


The Innovation Award: Into the Dungeons
Jury Motivation: “Games usually make me play for the good side, and sometimes the bad side, but for the first time I got to puzzle my way through dungeons as an agent of destiny itself!”

Into the Dungeons. Also available in your browser. 🙂

Best Game Feel: Amelite
Runners up: Saving P.I.P.O, Daidala

Best Level Design: Amelite
Runners up: Saving P.I.P.O, Into the Dungeons

Best Storytelling: Daidala
Runners up: Welcome to the Moon, Aescension

Best Art Direction: Aescension
Runners up: Urskog, Amelite

Best Audio: Aescension
Runners up: Amelite, Styg’s Ascent

Best Presentation: Amelite
Runners up: Daidala, A Crow’s Quest to World Domination

The Public Choice (821 total votes)

  1. The Slappening (134 votes)
  2. Set in Stone (116 votes)
  3. A Crow’s Quest to World Domination (97 votes)
Team The Slappening
Team The Slappening – try their game here.

About the Gotland Game Conference:

Uppsala University campus Gotland has been teaching game design and development for twenty years. Since the very beginning this annual event has been an important part of their education, and a public celebration of their student’s work. In addition to making their games available for the public to play, the students get their games tested and evaluated by a panel of experts from the international games industry and academia.

The GGC is an intimate event where students, professional game developers, game design faculty and the public all gather in the same space; playtesting, discussing and learning together. To mimic that experience in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic we created a virtual show floor. We are going to keep it running as long as possible, so if you missed the show you can still play the games. Open a browser tab to https://gotlandgameconference.com/2021/ to drop in and visit our virtual arcade! 

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The Virtual Arcade is open!

Open a browser tab and drop straight into our virtual arcade and play some games!

It’s open 24/7, but you can meet the student-developers between 13:00-16:00 (Swedish time) this week. OH! And don’t forget to vote for your favorite titles in the Public Choice Award!

  • The virtual arcade includes a lovely park and a bar, and lots of hidden secrets. 🙂

Quick tutorial for Gather.town:

Posted on - Comments Off on Apply to the GGC 2021 Jury
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Apply to the GGC 2021 Jury

The jury application for Gotland Game Conference 2021 is officially open!

All game developers and designers are welcome to apply. This year we host entirely on Gather.town so you can join us live (in living color!) from any part of the globe! Be a part of the yearly celebration of our students achievements, help us playtest their games and provide feedback.

Gather.town is like a browser-based RPG with video chat. We’ve built an arcade hall in it. It is almost the same experience as the physical show floor, except we can all work comfortably from home in our pajamas and the games remain available 24/7

The jury attends May 31 – June 3. We schedule activities for ~3 hours a day to leave more time for playtesting and individual meetings. The games are, however, available 24/7!

Check the link for more info, and the application form. We look forward hearing from you!

Playtesting in Gather.town on 29/4, 12/5 & 21/5

We have scheduled 3 days for open playtesting in gather.town – 29/4, 12/5 and 21/5. Starting at 13:00. Feel free to join in and test the tech. No work required – it is fine to just come and hang out with us.

Apply to the Jury
Posted on - Comments Off on The Gotland Game Showcase 2020
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The Gotland Game Showcase 2020

The final 10 weeks of the academic year are our busiest. The campus is alive with students. In teams, they would be hard at work, creating magnificent games. Some of them would be building arcade boxes – the performative nature of the player being central to the game’s experience. Others would be building vertical slices of the games they’ve been burning to make – experiences that are greater than the sum of their parts. Even the third year students, sometimes find time to turn a game in – answering their research questions through game design. And then there are even more games – ones that were made during the year and updated and polished for our show floor.

As part of the Gotland Game Conference, students present these games to a jury of academics, alumni and industry luminaries. They also show it to their toughest audience: their peers and the public. For three days at the end of their spring semester, our students demonstrate, discuss, and present their games, taking feedback on their creations.

This takes them to the end of their academic year, and our conference: the award show where we recognize the hard work and talent that went into all the games.

This year, of course, was different. This year our show floor was at itch.io. This year the floor was open to everyone with an internet connection. 39 student teams choose to participate, and over the past 4 days they have received 524 comments with feedback and well over 1700 ratings of their games!

Big thanks to everyone who submitted games, and who took the time to play and provide feedback! Without further ado, we are proud to present the winners of the GGC 2020:

The Award Winners 2020

All 39 submissions are still available to play on the Itch.io Jam Page! You can also check out this live-stream of the games, hosted by the student union.

Finally: a big congrats to all the third year students who graduates today! We’ll see the rest of you again (on zoom) in September. Keep washing your hands, and have a great summer everybody!