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INDIE GAMES & IMMERSIVE ARTS FESTIVAL | 05 – 07 DECEMBER | THE CASTLE | CAPE TOWN
WHAT TO EXPECT!!
Talks | Exhibits | Music | Games
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40+ Indie Games, digital adventures & interactive experiments!
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Super Friendship Arcade exhibition of multiplayer games & DIY controllers
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Immersive arts exhibition with SA's top tech artists!
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Playtopia Talks: "The Art Of Games" (Playtopia and MGA delegate ticket holders only)
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MGA B2B Talks with international and African speakers (MGA delegate ticket holders only)
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3 nights of awesome music and visuals!
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Beer garden!
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Food trucks!
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Hours and hours of playful fun!
(PLEASE TAKE NOTE: NO UNDER 18'S ALLOWED DUE TO THE CONTENT OF THE GAMES)
INSTALLATION ARTISTS
INSTALLATION ARTISTS
PLAYTOPIA SPEAKERS
Mitu Khandaker | NYU | USA
Dr Mitu Khandaker holds a PhD on the aesthetics of interactivity in video-games. She is an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU Game Center and CEO and co-founder at Glow Up Games
Andrew Parsons | Devolver Digital | UK
Andrew Parsons is the head of production at Indie publishing label Devolver Digital. His continuing mission is to support the talented devs of the Devolver family and to help bring Indie greatness to the unwashed masses.
Nicole He | USA
Works in voice technology. Ex creative technologist at Google and an adjunct faculty member at ITP at NYU.
Johan Gjestland | Fugl | Norway
Johan Gjestland is an artist/programmer known for his work on “Fugl”,a bird flying simulator.
Kamina Vincent | Mountains | AUS
Kamina is the Producer at Mountains, Australian games company with a BAFTA & Apple Design Award for the best mobile game, ‘Florence’, and has been included in museum exhibitions such as ACMI in Melbourne and MAAS in Sydney.
Armel Gibson | Klondike | FRA
Armel Gibson is a game designer and developer from France. He co-founded the game/art collective Klondike a few years ago and now run Skeleton Business, with which he released Vignettes, his first commercial game.
Sithe Ncube | Ubongo Game Lab | ZAMBIA
Sithe is a community organizer, developer and loves getting her hands into the game dev scene in Africa. She currently runs Ubongo Game Lab through which she hosts her favorite event, an annual all girls game development bootcamp called Games Plus Girls.
Maize Wallin | AUS
Maize Wallin is a Melbourne based composer, sound designer, and audio programmer. Their focus is in 3D spatialised audio, and dynamic music, using cutting edge techniques. Maize consults in Australia and around the world on these topics, and is heavily engaged in the game development community, and in activism and representation within it.
Ree Treweek | Tulips & Chimneys
Ree Treweek is a world builder, a sculptor, painter, illustrator, animator and director. Co-founder of The Blackheart Gang, Shy the Sun and Tulips & Chimneys, Ree is one of Africa’s most watched animation directors.
Rick Treweek | Eden Labs
Rick Treweek, owner of Eden Labs, speaks regularly on emerging technologies at conferences around the world, including VR Days in Amsterdam and Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference in Munich.
Delphine Fourneau | Klondike | FRA
Delphine Fourneau (aka Dziff) is an independent art director & illustrator who's been working in video games for about 9 years. She’s part of the Klondike Collective, and casually work on soothing & personal game experiences.
Robin Baumgarten | Interactive Artist |GER
After studying AI, Robin creates playable installations that straddle the divide of games and art.
Hanna Fogelberg | Landfall | SWE
Hanna Fogelberg is the community manager/peasant handler at Landfall Games. She also runs communication for Wings Interactive - an unconventional publisher focusing on funding diverse teams.
Evan Greenwood | Creative Director |Free Lives
Evan Greenwood is the founder of the South African game studio Free Lives. Evan is best known for Broforce (an explosive satire of Hollywood hyper-violence and American foreign policy) and Genital Jousting (a flaccid assault on toxic masculinity).
Lars Espeter | Academy of Digital Arts
Lars developed the Game Graphics & Multimedia Entertainment Higher Certificate course for the Friends of Design - Academy of Digital Arts in Cape Town which started in 2014 and helped students start successful careers in applied game technology and game development.
Ingrid Kopp | Electric South
Ingrid Kopp is a co-founder of Electric South, a non-profit initiative to develop virtual reality and interactive storytelling projects across Africa. She also curates the Tribeca Storyscapes programme for interactive and immersive work at the Tribeca Film Festival. Along with MIT’s Open DocLab and Dot Connector Studio, she produces Immerse, a publication for Medium on emerging storytelling.
Adone Kitching | Producer | Free Lives
Adoné Kitching is a producer at independent game studio, Free Lives. She works on Cricket Through the Ages, Second Earth, GORN and Broforce, as well as a bunch of miscellaneous things that may or may not be part of her job description. With an MA in Social Anthropology, Adoné is interested in identifying and making sense of patterns in human behaviour.
Wilhelm Nylund | Landfall | SWE
Game designer and CEO at Landfall. I started making games in high school four years ago. For the last two years, I’ve been exploring physics-driven game design.
Bahiyya Khan | Game Designer | JHB
Bahiyya is a multi-award winning game designer. She is currently doing her Masters in Experimental Storytelling. Right now, she is finishing up work on her latest game, after HOURS, which tells the story of a young woman that was molested as a child and has Borderline Personality Disorder as a result.
Phumlani Pikoli
Phumlani Pikoli is a multidisciplinary artist who describes his writing as ‘a generational ode’. He is currently working on a multi-sensory exhibition with the British Council in South Africa, based on his acclaimed debut collection of short stories, The Fatuous State of Severity.
Ben Rausch | Team Lazerbeam
Ben’s primary creative focus has orbited around games,
how they can disrupt status quos, bring people together, positively rewire
players, and The World around them. He is one third of the punk game band
Team Lazerbeam, an organizer of the alternative games party Super
Friendship Arcade, and programme director of Playtopia.
how they can disrupt status quos, bring people together, positively rewire
players, and The World around them. He is one third of the punk game band
Team Lazerbeam, an organizer of the alternative games party Super
Friendship Arcade, and programme director of Playtopia.
Limpho Moeti | Playtopia
Limpho Moeti is the Deputy Festival Director for Playtopia and previously worked for Free Lives (BROFORCE, GORN, GENITAL JOUSTING) and she has spoken at festivals such A MAZE./ Berlin, Nordic Gam Jam and the Game Developers of Color.
Mike Scott | Animator
Mike started his animation career at Red Pepper in Joburg, animating episodes of 'Jozi Zoo' and some stuff for 'Cool Catz' on eTV. Then, he moved to Plettenberg Bay and did some music videos for Goldfish, then worked on his show 'Moosebox' for Nickelodeon. He's worked with David O'Reilly for [adult swim], Cartuna, College Humor, Vice, Anamanaguchi, Free Lives, Disney, The Kiffness, Triggerfish and some others.
Peter Cardwell- Gardner | Game Designer
Peter works in the Mental Health industry, developing VR apps in London. By night he's also an indie developer and co-founder of Cape Town's Super Friendship Arcade
Tim Flusk | WITS
Using games as tools for change, Tim Flusk sets the status quo ablaze and levels the playing field for all marginalised groups. Formerly a software developer at 24 Bit Games he is currently a Game Design lecturer at Wits University.
Inka Kendzia
with Noel Labridy and Jason Stapleton present "The Forrest Inhales You" a never before seen VR and visual mapping experience.
The Lost Botanist
VR collaboration with Tulips & Chimneys and Eden labs. An installation like no other, the world of The Lost Botanist enters the real world, a sculpture exhibit and custom designed scene from the game.
Robin Baumgarten
Giant Wobble Garden, Wobble Garden is a hand-crafted arrangement of sensing springs combined with reactive lighting. Players wobble springs to interact with the installation and play games
Method Lab
From the creators of the AI Oil Painting mirror from Playtopia 2018, comes a new mindblowing face editing experience!
Egbert Westra
Presents LUME an interactive graffiti light painting experience.
Emma Wrigley
presents "Poolish" a giant ball installation for you to lose yourself in.
Ben Mcinnes
Together with Simon Cross, Francois van Niekerk and David Sharpe bring us a collaboration between game design and interactive light design.
Phumlani Pikoli
An immerisve live painting and audio piece.
David Sharpe
Together with Simon Cross, Francois van Niekerk and Ben McInnes bring us a collaboration between game design and interactive light design.
Francois Van Niekerk
Together with Simon Cross, ,Ben Mcinnes and David Sharpe bring us a collaboration between game design and interactive light design.
Simon Cross
Together with Ben Mcinnes, Francois van Niekerk and David Sharpe bring us a collaboration between game design and interactive light design.
Sean Devonport | Audio designer
together with Cameron Lowry a set designer and artist present a surround sound audio visual experience.
Noel Labridy
'The Forrest Inhales You' a VR and visual mapping experience.
Jason Stapleton
'The Forrest Inhales You' a VR and visual mapping experience.
NATCHE (Belgium)
Natalie Meeusen aka Natche is a visual artist based in Antwerp, Belgium.
Her visuals and digital artwork are inspired by patterns and structures out of nature and bringing a connection between the real world and the virtual reality.
In life performances this translates in creating organic small micro/macro worlds in relation to the music.
An exploration between the connection sound & image.
Her visuals and digital artwork are inspired by patterns and structures out of nature and bringing a connection between the real world and the virtual reality.
In life performances this translates in creating organic small micro/macro worlds in relation to the music.
An exploration between the connection sound & image.
MUSIC
MUSIC
