“I have good news for you!” – Telling Positive News Through Games

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Back in the times, everything was better! Contrary to the felt trend that the world is coming to an end, a lot of good things happen, such as higher life […]
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 16:00-18:00 Uhr

(Building) Game Controllers as Live Art

Photo: Margaux Weiß (edited)

Amtliche Helden

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Mad About Pandas / BA (GER, 2018) Take a seat! Become manager of the federal office for labour and build your own labour agency. As a “federal hero” you can […]

ART GAMES – An International Game Jam Network meets PLAY Festival

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Feat. Christina Chrysanthopoulou (Athen) and Wellington Fattori (São Paulo) as well as Riad Djemili and Johannes Kristmann (Maschinen-Mensch) and Lisa Mayerhöfer (Goethe-Institut) Mexico City,  ...

Artist Talk: Alineaire

Sorry, this entry is only available in German.
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 16:30-17:30 Uhr

Artist Talk: OddNina

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018 12:00-13:00 Uhr

Artist Talk: Sabine Harrer

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  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 12:00-13:00 Uhr

Artist Talk: Wolf Lang

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018 16:30-17:30 Uhr

Baba Is You

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Arvi Teikari (FIN, 2018) Baba Is You is a puzzle game where the rules you have to follow are present as physical objects in the game world. By manipulating the […]

Can’t Drive This

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Pixel Maniacs (GER, 2016) One player drives WHILE the other builds the racing track. Spoiler alert: The car explodes if you go too slow! Originally created in just 72 hours […]

Character Design

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How do characters from the future look like? Which skills and characteristics do they have in order to change the world? At the Character Design station, you can create your […]

Character Design: Game Characters of Tomorrow

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Which heroines and heroes are needed for tomorrow’s computer games? What traits and abilities do they have to have to save our world? And above all: What do they look […]
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 10:00-12:00 Uhr

Creative Gaming Award Show

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Again, the awarding ceremony on Saturday is the celebratory ending to the festival. By then, the jury had had several days to play the nominees and talk to the developers […]
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 20:00-21:30 Uhr

Creative Gaming Camp

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018
  • Sunday, 04.11.2018

Design Game Environments

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Here, you create the game world of the future. Where do the characters live, which objects and people surround them? You work on collages and with the help of the […]

Epistory – Typing Chronicles

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Fishing Cactus (BEL, 2016) Epistory immerses you in an atmospheric action/adventure game that tells the story of a writer lacking inspiration who asks her muse to help write her latest […]

From the Beginning of Work and the City of the Future – a World of Play

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Cities and especially their centers are built around the idea of work. Let’s assume it’s ending soon. How will the cityscape be changed by our new acts? After a short […]
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 13:00-15:00 Uhr

Fuir la guerre

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Alineaire (FRA, 2015) “Fuir la guerre” or “Fleeing war” is a diptycal game. The experience is a solo asymmetric platform game in which two families have to flee the war  ...

Further Education: Games into the School

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Approaches to literary and creative work with video games in class This course discusses how games can be used in school. Instead of using them as a tool to measure […]
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 16:00-18:00 Uhr

Further Education: With Creative Gaming to a Better World

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After a short introduction to the basics of media pedagogy, the relevance of games in pedagogy will be discussed. How can digital games be used? What are the creative ways […]
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 16:00-18:00 Uhr

Game Changer. Groundbreaker Art

Foto: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hanna Lenz
Change the world while playing: Looking back becomes a vision of the future. The history of art is also a history of game changer, innovations and seminal reforms. How do […]
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 12:00-13:30 Uhr

Game Changer. Groundbreaker Art (for professional audience)

Foto: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hanna Lenz
Change the world while playing: Looking back becomes a vision of the future. The history of art is also a history of game changer, innovations and seminal reforms. How do […]
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 12:00-13:30 Uhr

Game Changer. Groundbreaker Art (no registration required!)

Foto: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hanna Lenz
Change the world while playing: Looking back becomes a vision of the future. The history of art is also a history of game changer, innovations and seminal reforms. How do […]
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 10:00-11:30 Uhr

Game Design

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Get Bad News

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DROG (NLD, 2018) Take on the role of fake news-monger. Drop all pretense of ethics and choose the path that builds your persona as an unscrupulous media magnate. But keep […]

Höme Improvisation

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The Stork Burnt Down (USA, 2016) Höme Improvisation is a furniture-building simulator that lets you decorate an entire house. The only catch: none of the furniture comes with instructions!  ...

Imagine Earth

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Serious Brothers (GER, 2014) Imagine Earth is a build up strategy game, a planet simulation and climate survival thriller. Your job as a space colony manager is to explore and […]

Impulse: About the (Im)possible Representation of Sexism in Video Games

Bild: Assemble Entertainment
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 15:00-16:00 Uhr

Impulse: Play and the End of a World.

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It is not easy not to feel despair in these times. We live on a dying planet, we vote for politicians who encourage division and further agendas of inequality. We […]
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 15:00-16:00 Uhr

Insert Moin Podcast Sofa

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Insert Moin – probably the most daily video game podcast in the world – has been broadcasting a new episode about video games and game culture every day since 2010. […]
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 09:00-19:00 Uhr
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 09:00-19:00 Uhr

Interactive Storytelling: Rewrite the Future

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According to this year’s topic “Ready Game Change – Create a New Tomorrow”, this workshop is about “speculative fiction”. Participants become authors of interactive  ...
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 10:00-12:00 Uhr

Let’s Play, seriously!

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Let’s Plays have become a very popular form of entertainment, with which Let’s Players like Gronkh, Paluten or GermanLetsPlay can reach millions of people. The commented game  ...
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 13:00-15:00 Uhr

Level Design: Playfully Travel to Tanzania

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In the game app “Kawaida’s Journey” you have to master numerous challenges by jump and run and at the same time explore Tanzania. The serious game was developed participatively  ...
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 10:00-12:00 Uhr

Live Random Play

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018 20:00-22:00 Uhr

Machinima Cinema

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Let’s mix “machine”, “animation” and “cinema” and get “machinima”! In our little cinema, guests of PLAY18 can relax and watch the newest and  ...
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 09:00-20:00 Uhr
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 09:00-20:00 Uhr

Micro Game Factory

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Papertronics (FRA, 2016) Back from the 80’s and further, Micro Game Factory allows you to design games in the likes of Game & Watch, the handheld video games based on […]

Minetest Hero Theatre

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Use “Minetest”, the open source version of “Minecraft”, to invent an unjust world and play heroes on the digital stage to defeat the injustice! In this workshop you learn  ...
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 13:00-15:00 Uhr

Not Tonight

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Panic Barn (GBR, 2018) What would happen, if you as a EU-citizen suddenly become a foreigner? ++Person of European Heritage #112: Welcome to Relocation Block B, your new home. Your […]

Oddly Assorted

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Ramona Meier, Malika Widmayer, Daria Varfolomeeva, Marian Brinkmann (GER, 2018) As the owner of a single story house you cannot cope with the ever increasing taxes anymore and you try […]

Opening and Vernissage

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Grand opening of the eleventh PLAY – Creative Gaming Festival. Live art by the FUNDUS THEATER, greetings by the partners of the festival and a PLAY18 preview given by the […]
  • Thursday, 01.11.2018 19:00 Uhr

Planetarium

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Daniel Linssen (AUS, 2016) Planetarium is a planet generator with creatures and secrets. Type in a name and press enter to visit that planet. Change the temperature, shoot things in […]

PLAY Couch: Play with Emotions: How Games Encourage Empathy

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  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 18:00-19:00 Uhr

PLAY Couch: Ready Game Change – Change the World with Games

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018 18:00-19:00 Uhr

Puppet Fever

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Coastalbyte Games (SWE, 2018) Act like a freak, play with your friends and discover the magic of the virtual puppet theater! While the VR-player controls the puppets, the audience can […]

Radical Game Design with Bitsy

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Note: This workshop is held in English and German!
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 16:00-18:00 Uhr

re:PLAY and re:ACT – Strategies of Play in the Productions of Rimini Protokoll

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018 16:00-18:00 Uhr

Remembrance Culture in Video Games

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018 18:00-19:00 Uhr

RIOT – Civil Unrest

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Leonard Menchiari (ITA, 2017) RIOT – Civil Unrest is a real-time riot simulator that places the player right in the heart of some of the world’s most fractious clashes. What […]

Speakers’ Corner

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In the Speakers’ Corner at PLAY18 everyone will be heard! We are looking for your ideas, projects and topics around the digital gaming culture. You have something to tell and […]
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 10:00-19:00 Uhr
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 10:00-19:00 Uhr

spielbar-Jugendredaktion

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  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 09:00-19:00 Uhr

Storytelling

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What kind of stories do you want to tell in digital games? Here, these stories can be written and later programmed into textadventures with the open source software “Twine”. This […]

The Incredible Playable Show

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An interactive comedy show where the audience is invited on-stage to play video games with unusual physical items! Zap each other with barcode scanners, dance around in WiFi-connected power  ...
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 13:00-14:00 Uhr

The Incredible Playable Show

playonstage
An interactive comedy show where the audience is invited on-stage to play video games with unusual physical items! Zap each other with barcode scanners, dance around in WiFi-connected power  ...
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 10:00-11:00 Uhr

Thinkers’ Corner

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018 10:00-19:00 Uhr
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 10:00-19:00 Uhr

TinkerBib – Making with Games

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018 09:00-18:00 Uhr
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 09:00-18:00 Uhr

Tomorrowland: Game Design with Bloxels

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  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 10:00-12:00 Uhr

Tooth and Tail

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Pocketwatch Games (USA, 2017) Winter is coming – and food is rare. The animals seem to have a dispute over it – Lead the revolution with an army of bold […]

Utopia Game Jam – Fifty Years of ’68 Protests

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  • Friday, 02.11.2018
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  • Sunday, 04.11.2018

Vandals

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Cosmografik / ARTE (FRA, 2018) In this turn-based infiltration game, players need to sneak past police, cameras and dogs to successfully paint their latest work. As a tribute to street-art, […]

We Become What We Behold

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Nicky Case (USA, 2016) A game about news cycles, vicious cycles, infinite cycles. Point your camera, shoot, and change the world with your news. ncase.itch.io/wbwwb

What Would God Play? Games and Religion (Workshop is Canceled!)

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What would God play? An interesting question that is impossible to answer – but we can try nonetheless. After a crash course about the charged interrelation between God, religion, and […]
  • Friday, 02.11.2018 16:00-18:00 Uhr

What‘s that Noise? – A Glimpse into the World of Foley

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Doing Foley (aka recreating sounds to picture) is an incredible source of sonic inspiration, a great means to sharpen ones ears & perception and an excellent way to spice up […]
  • Saturday, 03.11.2018 13:00-15:00 Uhr