As much as GGC is the university’s conference, it’s also the island’s. Every year we throw our doors open to the people of Gotland so they can see what we get up to. And, as part of this, we invite the local media to come and talk to our students.
We were graced with 3 reporters, and coverage of the conference and our, frankly, brilliant students.
We’re 7 days out, and are closing in on 500 attendees. Click any of the links and see how our teams are preparing and then grab yourself a ticket and come and see for yourself. It’s “pay what you want” and you can listen to some top class presentations, play some amazing games (and vote for them!), and stay for the award show and see if your favorite wins. Get your visitors pass here!
Swedish Radio: “Playful games to train both collaboration and body” (click to open link)Swedish Television: “The students are preparing for the game exhibition” (click to open link)
We just came back from a week in Malmö and the Nordic Game Conference. This will just be a brief recap of some of the highlights for us.
We attended Kate Edwards‘ session “The Path to Impact: How to Advocate for Change in the Games Industry” and found ourselves the figurehead of our next Gotland Game Conference. Kate is a creator advocate with nearly three decades in the industry and related fields. She spoke about advocacy and taking control of the public narrative around games and our craft.
“The Path to Impact: How to Advocate for Change in the Games Industry” This talk was amazing – Kate Edwards is FIERCE!
Other potential GGC recruitments were Charlie Edmunds and Tabea Iseli. Edmunds is a British programmer at CD PROJEKT RED (The Witcher), whom we met in a workshop about promoting inclusive and diverse company cultures (hosted by none other than our alumni Albertina Sparrhult). We always need more coders for the jury and Charlie will be a great resource to pull from.
Tabea Iseli is an indie-developer with a bend towards local community and networking. Local, in Tabea’s case, means Zürich. Her presentation was literally on the same topic as GGC 2017 and 2018 – how to let players experience complex topics like racism, sexism or global warming without resorting to making not-games. She dealt specifically with emotional design and empathy as design principle.
ENTIRELY within our wheelhouse. We met up on the show floor to talk more after her presentation, and we might arrange for us to speak at their GamezFestival, and we’ll have her on the island to return the favor. 🙂
We also spent a bit of time with the Greek enclave of developers – ever since Adam was invited to speak in Athens we’ve been keeping an eye on the nascent games scene there. What they brought to NGC was thoroughly charming. Keep an eye out for Happyland Entertainment’sGO HEROES: Prometheus, which plays like a wonderfully executed and expanded Lara Croft GO. We spoke mostly with Vasiliki Tsiftsian, their lead artist and co-founder. She was so incredibly enthusiastic and open for feedback. We’ll try and keep an eye out for her post release to see if perhaps we want to bring her in for a Game Jam or talk at some point.
The best part of the Nordic Game Conference, though, was meeting up with all our peoples! Old alumni and recent graduates all congregated in a shared chat – Malin Lövenberg, Albertina, Nayomi, Peter Stråhle, Sebastian Larsson, Danielle Unéus, and the department gang of course – Jakob, Mariam, Mika, Camilla och Adam. We had lunches at the conf together and went out for dinners in the evenings, catching up on what everyone had seen and heard throughout the days. It was great. 🙂
Albertina lives in Malmö invited us all over to her place for snacks in her garden before we went out for food and dance!
Minutes to Mayhem is a one versus four asymmetric multiplayer game where Mrs. Margaret Hatchet has to chase out the ghosts haunting her house. Wielding her hatchet her task is to axe the possessed furniture to death. But beware! She has to be careful not to destroy objects that aren’t possessed. She still needs a house to spend her final days in after all! Can you stay sane long enough as Margaret? Minutes to Mayhem on the Gotland Game Conference 2018 show floor.
The ghosts can possess almost everything in the house. It is up to them to wreak as much havoc as they can before Margaret finds them and kills them. Different objects have different characteristics. You want to play as the super fast and slippery soap? No problem! Want to crash the oven into Margaret? No problem! Want to try and blend in in plain sight? Be careful not to get caught! With all these different possibilities, can the ghosts cause enough damage to drive Margaret insane?
Team:
Alexander Sjöberg – Artist
Elina Marjomaa – Artist
Chantal Blokker – Artist
Jacob Lindberg – Programmer
Leevi Hakala – Programmer
Alexandru Capșa – Programmer/PR
Raoul Man – Producer
Olof Pettersson – Sound www.facebook.com/krakenuppsala/
Minutes to Mayhem was developed for PC in Unreal using 3DSMax, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Motion Builder, Photoshop and Visual Studio.
