A MAZE./ Johannesburg 2015 Submissions!
A MAZE./ Johannesburg 2015 – Calling all Africa based Game Designers and Playful Digital Artists! Proposal submissions now open.
A MAZE./ Johannesburg is South Africa’s premier Independent Games and Playful Media Festival. Running from the 9th to the 12th of September 2015 in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, the festival celebrates all things playful.
A MAZE./ Johannesburg is specifically interested in experimental and subversive work, but all playful projects will be considered. The A MAZE. / Johannesburg is part of Fak’ugesi - Digital Africa Festival.
Join us and submit your proposal. Submissions are open to all!
Areas for submission include:
Game – eg. experimental, digital, mobile, physical, tabletop, or any other
Installation – eg. interactive digital with a playful ethos
Workshop – eg game design, technical, professional, experimental
Talk – any inspiring game or play related topics (no money talks or pitches)
These are guidelines, the only limit to what you can propose is your imagination!
Submit your games and playful installations here.
Students submit your works here.
Ready for a talk or workshop? Go submit your inspiring content here.
Submissions close on Friday 31 July.
Website: www.amaze-johannesburg.co.za (will be updated soon)
FB: https://www.facebook.com/amaze.festival
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/678642362279725/
Twitter: @AMazeFest #AMaze2015
Final Main Exhibition Selection:
Arcade Finger Twister
Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan
Beat Attack
Bionic Bliss
Clutchfighter
Criquette
Dead Run T-Shirt Game
Desperation
Error Prone
Invader Crush
Ludum Dare Simulator
Luminare
Mergazerds
Pawn of The Dead
Phase Edge
Pizza Quest
Polygenics
SAD CAT
Snow Cones
Spell-Caster
Super Massive Crate Dash
Symmetric Torpedo
The Maker's Eden
Trip the Light Fantastic
Wizard's Revenge
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1051 x 554 - 527K
Comments
http://www.ivosissolak.com/#!aMAZE-Berlin-2015/c5wi/555461280cf23d016494dabb
a teaser for those who haven't been to an aMAZE festival yet!
@dammit Yay!
@Kobusvdwalt9 As most are from the looks of it so far! :P
Wondering if maybe it's worth heading up there for AMAZE, however. I'm not sure what it's all about though, so any enlightenment would be great, if ya'll with experience don't mind? :)
Amaze for me was valuable because you get to talk to all sorts of developers (both international and South African) instead of talking to mostly players like at rAge.
I would say that AMAZE is like the mini GDC compared to rAge which is the mini Gamescom / E3.
Like @Kobusvdwalt9 said, Amaze is a developers conference. It's not for consumers. Having your game there will result in close to zero sales or exposure.
But that's also what is nice about it. It's not about competing for crowds and exposure. It's not about working the event. It's about meeting other developers, being exposed to new ideas by other developers, and having a good time.
I really really enjoy Amaze. It's not nearly as focussed as GDC is on making money. It's almost all about exploring this artform and expressing yourself in it, and to some extent, living a good life while doing those things. I find the internet has got me covered for most of the ideas I encounter at GDC, but Amaze promotes ideas that don't look like conventional success, and so are rarer.
I'm not going to say Amaze is for everyone, and that everyone would be better off going to Amaze. But I think for someone in my position, where I do worry about making money out of video games every day of my life, it reconnects me with why I got into video games to begin with.
Even if Amaze wasn't the only developer-centric games festival in South Africa, I would still be recommending it with all my heart.
@SkobbejakGames Great, thanks for submitting! :D
Below is the list of games selected for the main exhibition at A MAZE Johannesburg. This is based on those submitted for consideration to the Main Exhibition curation. These do not form the totality of A MAZE Johannesburg 2015's exhibition, in fact the below list forms under half of this year's full exhibition.
Arcade Finger Twister
Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan
Beat Attack
Bionic Bliss
Clutchfighter
Criquette
Dead Run T-Shirt Game
Desperation
Error Prone
Invader Crush
Ludum Dare Simulator
Luminare
Mergazerds
Pawn of The Dead
Phase Edge
Pizza Quest
Polygenics
SAD CAT
Snow Cones
Spell-Caster
Super Massive Crate Dash
Symmetric Torpedo
The Maker's Eden
Trip the Light Fantastic
Wizard's Revenge
@SkobbejakGames: not sure about the rest of the exhibition, but last year there was an open machine where anyone could put any game
EDIT: added in some numbers cause numbers > words. word.
Corporate turnout? Like corporations looking to partner/network/sign deals? Pretty much zero. A MAZE is not really a consumer-facing event, it's much more like GDC than PAX, but also much less formal than GDC, so there aren't really "big wigs" walking around scouting things out or stuff like that.
From my perspective it's an event where game devs can hang out, network, learn, and generally just be the awesome people they normally are, but it's also so much more. A MAZE is not somewhere to sign funding from a publisher or get loads of publicity, but perhaps I'm wrong and YMMV.
Hope that helps! :)
As @francoisvn says, there is definitely an Open Machine. We haven't discussed logistics of it yet, but I think we'll restrict each game to about 1-2 hours on the Open Machine :).
Also not sure what you mean by Corporate turn out :). The focus of the festival is about learning from other guests; playing their interesting games; meeting other game developers. While this is not 'Corporate', it is about as close as Independent Game Makers get to networking :P.
Not sure about a programme. I hear it might be available some time today :)
very exciting stuff
Here's to next year, I hope!
But best of luck with the VCD stuff!
Have fun up there everyone!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1490666051226270/
There will be an afterparty free to SFA MAZE attendees:
https://www.facebook.com/events/730302463782056/
Check out this awesome promo video @Ben_Jets just put together:
Welcome to MGSA :)
I'll let people who're part of the selection process speak for themselves, but I'd like to say that the one/s I thought I would have liked to be in the show wasn't. A MAZE is a very specific show with very specific goals in its selection, and space is always limited.
So if you thought there were "better" games to show, it's unfortunate that they weren't selected. If you think the games on show were bad, well, that's unfortunate too. If you think the games were selected out of this community, well duh of course it is. And you named 7 games, did you miss the other, I don't know (does a quick count) 18? I think I saw more than that at the show.) If you don't want to be part of a community, don't blame it for not knowing you.
Well of course we don't know you... This is your first and only out of two posts :)
@T_trick, here are some ideas that you might not have considered in your outlook:
Firstly, you can only be selected if you submit, and those outside the selection process have no way of knowing who the entries were and thus if the selection was biased.
Secondly, established development houses are the most likely to produce exhibit-able entries. They have more time, resources and experience with which to create games, and thus are more likely to produce more quality games in less time. For this reason, the large number of entries from these sources is not necessarily nepotism.
Thirdly, I was not part of the selection process, but I feel that the quicker a game was to learn, the more likely it was to be chosen. So small, quick experiences were likely selected for over slower experiences. Flappy Bird would likely have won out over Civilization.
Fourthly, although there is a need to provide exposure for those who are less exposed, the show was also a showcase for South African development, which means there was a need to display exemplars as evidence to our proficiency as a group. This is, I imagine, a difficult balance to strike, and I don't envy the curators their task of culling huge swathes of applicants.
I'm really curious as to what you, @T_trick, would have chosen to exhibit.
If you would be so kind as to curate a list of up to 25 games from the South African development scene I would appreciate the effort, and love to see it.
First off, thanks for the feedback! Although, it is quite abrasive :).
As a curator, let me say that this year's curation was very difficult. We had a lot of content to choose from, and the overall quality was quite high. For me personally, it forced me to really think on what A MAZE is and is trying to do as a festival. Ultimately, A MAZE has a very broad and vague goal of exploring games and playful media, focusing particularly on experimental and subversive work. Even within this goal it's hard to curate content. What is experimental? To who? It's totally subjective. So I apologise if the festival's curation didn't meet your expectations - we grappled for a long time with the selections, looking at several wildly different overall selections. It was hard. I am literally no one to be holding power/making decisions about what work should be shown, at the festival so many locally treasure as a marker for the quality of their work.
Just some side notes: Tuism submitted 5 games in total, while Clockwork Acorn members submitted around 7 games. Free Lives members submitted around 10 games. That makes up a large proportion of the overall submissions, so it's tricky to not have a significant number of those teams' games. The conversion rate for submission >>> selection for these teams is quite low actually. Only Free Lives games have a high conversion rate, and many of those Free Lives games have only one Free Lives member, with many other collaborators working on the project.
Having said that, I would like to see less games at A MAZE coming from the same people. "Unfortunately", those three teams have been very much inspired by A MAZE over the years, and so make games that suit A MAZE very well :). Although I shiver at the thought of curating for A MAZE getting any harder, I would love to have so many more games from a wide range of people to choose from.
You pointed out that there is much better talent in South Africa. This is a contentious point which I won't deal with. However, I will say that I agree there is talent and work missing from A MAZE. My work as a curator is not merely about sifting through submitted content, but also about actively seeking out content for the festival. There are a great number of games locally that did not submit to the festival, despite my pestering. Some didn't even respond to my messages. For example, I would adore to exhibit more of Miltage's work -- but he has a terrible bout of impostor syndrome :P. Simply, while I try my best to get all the best work to participate in A MAZE, some choose not to. So yes, there is a lot of local talent not participating in A MAZE, sadly.
Your point about the mediocrity of the games is also tricky, and a point I personally struggled with a lot while curating. Quality is of course a subjective term. However, of course a certain level of 'polish' and 'juice' suggets a higher level of 'quality'. Each year, some submitted games have much higher in polish and 'quality' than certain games that end up in the final selection. However, as a curator, I also need to see past the polish/juice and assess the quality of the game's other elements: mechanics; message; meaning; representation; coherence; self-awareness; theming etc. All of these elements are seen through the lens of A MAZE: seeking experimental and subversive work. Even when you have two experimental games, it is a tricky choice to make: high polish vs. high experimentation. However, as A MAZE focuses on the experimental, and does not require games to be finished, the more experimental, although perhaps "lower quality" games, are usually selected.
This is the crisis and battle of curation. You decide which games to curate based on quality; experimentation; quantity; and several other organisation-based elements. It's impossible to curate every "good" game too - there just isn't enough space. I'm sorry that you don't agree with this year's selection, but I hope I drew some light on why the selection was made. If you feel I made any grievous errors leaving certain games out, please mention them so I might put them at the top of the list for next year.
P.S. Personally, I don't want A MAZE to remain the only games festival in South Africa. While I personally prefer more experimental games, I don't like how innately exclusionary the festival is (in terms of it's impact on the industry). I want to see a space where very commercial and 'traditional' work can be exhibited and talked about. We have a wealth of talent in South Africa that doesn't focus on the type of games/work that A MAZE does, and I feel it's a terrible tragedy that we're not giving them space to show and talk about their work. Stasis for example, is not a good A MAZE game for me, but it's absolutely incredible and a beacon of good game development in SA. We need a space to celebrate these works.
As for the stasis example I agree that it doesn't really fit in at AMAZE but thats ok IMHO. I mean we can have differant festivals for different kinds of games right ? So maybe instead of trying to make AMAZE more inclusive to different games and perhaps loosing what makes it so cool we can have a greater variety of festivals ?
For me, seeing polished, well-produced commercial game products is as inspiring as seeing the typical AMAZE crazy creative experimental games. Of course AMAZE doesn't have a responsibility towards anyone, but it does feel like there's something missing if there is no Stasis/Ginjah/VCD/Broforce/Shark Deathmatch/DD etc at amaze. Perhaps even if there was just a MGSA curated SA-showcase booth? It doesn't solve the problem of there being more games to show than there is space, but it does give room for greater variety.
Although what you are talking about would be a great fit in the Country Pavillion at Gamescom...
However, from this year onwards (it seems), there will be a lot of high quality experimental work, meaning there's less chance of more commercial stuff slipping into the festival. At the end of the day, exhibiting commercial work means exhibiting less experimental stuff. It's just a logistical thing of space and computers as A MAZE's primary goal is exhibiting experimental/subversive/artistic work, this would be taking away from the festival's vision. I think the organisers of A MAZE do feel a small responsiblity to the general industry, which is why things like the Swedish thing last year happened.
I think a better idea is to have a separate event. In my head, I've been playing around with having an event under the Faku'gezi Festival (of which A MAZE is part of), that focuses on 'commercial' games/talks/workshops in the few days before A MAZE. However, finding funding for this sort of thing would be difficult. A MAZE is primarily an artistic intent, so theoretically (I have no real knowledge of this - it's just theorising) a lot of the funding is given without returns expected. It's pretty much impossible to find arts-funding for a few days of targeting commercial work and developers. On the other hand, you could go with a real exhibition model (like GDC) where the tickets are very expensive to cover the costs. However, you still need initial funding, plus you need to ensure that you have a significant number of people committed to attending. I dunno, though. I would like to see it happen. Will start investigating.
I think EGE and rAge (or Gamescom even) kind of miss the mark for what we're talking about. A MAZE works so well because you have all the great games, and most of the developers of those games are there to talk about their games/ share their experience. Expos kind of miss that when you're too busy exhibiting your own game - expos are for consumers - not developers.