40 speakers will deliver 60 presentations and workshops over three days at Ludicious during this year’s Zurich Game Festival.
Ludicious 2019 will take place at the Zeughaushof in Zurich, Switzerland, from January 31th to February 3rd.
The initial speaker line-up includes names like Feminist Frequency founder Anita Sarkeesian, Housemarque head of self-publishing Mikael Haveri, Funomena co-founder and CEO Robin Hunicke, Uncharted veteran Richard Lemarchand and ICO Partners’ Thomas Bideaux.
“They have an excellent worldwide reputation and between them cover the full spectrum of the game industry; from art and game design to PR, marketing and business; and from games culture to community work and self-publishing," said Ludicious artistic director Tobias Kopka.
“Our guests will share their experience and knowledge on stage, and - more importantly - directly with our audience in a variety of personal conversations, workshops and roundtables. That’s what Ludicious stands for - exchange of knowledge at eye level and building trust in professional relationships.”
Ludicious will also feature an exhibition, developer conference, matchmaking and networking opportunities.
In it to win it
The event will once again play host to the Ludicious Awards, with 18 games and developers from across the world nominated for awards in Innovation in Games or Emerging Talent.
The winner of each category will receive a prize of $12,131 (12,000CHF).
The nominees for the Innovation in Games Award category are:
- 0°N0°W by Colorfiction, USA
- Fire Escape by iNK Stories, USA
- Frost by kunabi brother, Austria
- G30 by Ivan Kovalov, Ukraine
- Orphan Age by Black Flag, France
- Pikuniku by Sectordub, UK
- Semblance by Nyamakop, South Africa
- Supertype by Philipp Stollenmayer, Germany
- TickTock: A Tale for Two by Other Tales Interactive, Denmark
- Unheard by NEXT Studio, China
- VR Giants by Wolfgang Tschauko, Austria
While the nominees for the Emerging Talen Award are:
- Anyball by Team Anyball, New York University (NYU) Game Center, USA
- Brownie Cove Express by Sand Gardeners, Plymouth College of Art, UK
- Drink Like a Pirate by Daniel Shapley, University of the Arts London (UAL), UK
- It’s Paper Guy by Paper Team, École nationale du jeu et médias interactifs numériques (Cnam-
- Enjmin), France
- Liff by ISART Digital, France
- Light Them All by Corentin Vignet, Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL), Switzerland
- One Hand Clapping by Bad Dream Games, University of Southern California (USC), USA
“Games are a cultural medium, and this year´s edition will celebrate this big-time," said Kopka.
"This year’s nominees show tremendous creativity and a unique angle of innovating in games - be it to hit a rarely heard positive tone, showing the unexpected in classic genres, exploring new platforms in AR and VR or messing with your awareness in fine-tuned mobile games and multiplayer collaborative experiences.”
“We are incredibly happy with the nominees joining us to demonstrate what our medium is capable of. “
PocketGamer.biz is a media partner for the event and our team will be in attendance at Ludicious, so be sure to reach out to either Natalie Clayton at natalie.clayton@steelmedia.co.uk or Stefan Metaxa at stefan.metaxa@steelmedia.co.uk if you want to set up a meeting. Our readers can receive a 15% discount on the ticket price to Ludicious 2019 with the following code: PocketGamerAtLudicious19
