A MAZE. / Johannesburg 2017 - Official Games Selection
“The games we’ve selected for the festival are showing unforgettable experiences, immersive narratives and playful interaction, that describe a growing international and local movement of experimental and artistic game authorship.” - Thorsten S. Wiedemann, director of A MAZE.
All games in the official selection are competing for the glory of the 3rd A MAZE. Johannesburg Awards. On Saturday September 16, 2017 at 7pm - on the final day of A MAZE. / Johannesburg 2017 we will announce the winners of the three remarkable categories. The trophies are made and designed by the digital artist Rick Treweek.
2015
The Pinkest Game of Show Award
Boxer by Cukia Kimani and Ben Crooks (South Africa)
2016
The Pinkest Game Award
Wrestling with Emotions by TeamLazerBeam (South Africa)
The Most Thought Provoking Game of Show Award
Aurion: Legacy of the Kori - Odan by Kiro’o Games (Cameroon)
The Weirdest Game of Show Award
La Discipline du Rectangle by One Life Remains (France)
More about A MAZE. / Johannesburg 2017 progamme and ticketing - check our website: www.amaze-johannesburg.co.za
By Rohun Ranjith / @hi_rohun
2D puzzle platformer that uses a glitch mechanic to solve puzzles
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GAZE (United States of America)
By Molleindustria / @molleindustria
A Short History of the Gaze is an experiential essay for Virtual Reality about the relationship between gaze and violence. From the evolution of sight in a pre-cambrian sea creature to the dominance display of a primate, from a landscape of billboards begging for attention to an infinite panopticon, the player traverses and affects the virtual scenes by simply looking (or not looking) at things.
All YOU CAN EAT (Croatia)
By Gamechuck / @gamechuck
“All You Can Eat" is an interactive comic that gives you control over a modern hero of our times, a man so lazy he decided to quit his job and just spend his life inside an All-you-can-eat diner. As years go by, his freeloading nature becomes legend, but then a tragedy occurs - the diner is about to close down! Will our hero finally settle down and ...?
By Jason Sutherland and Richard Pieterse / @driftprism and @nekropants
Alone is an experience of patience and self reflection.
By Kimard Studio / @kimardamina
Armel is a 2D mini puzzle platformer game where the character has been reduced is in a music sheet world and is living composed music. Avoid various obstacles to reach to the music notes that help you move forward by building the next music lines of the world. The character runs, jumps and can push a rock to get the puzzle right and move to end a level. Armel was sent in exile by the evil queen on his world because he refused to play for her as he was the best musician. For this, she threw a curse on him and sent him to go and make compositions before he returns.
By Lo-Fi People / @blinddrivegame
Blind Drive is an audio-based, arcade-style driving game with a dark and humorous narrative. You're blindfolded and driving against traffic as a mysterious voice gives you suicidal commands on the phone. Swerve away from on-rushing vehicles using only your hearing to guide you.
By Mary Claire Flanagan / @omarieclaire
Closer is a game for two people: to start you must stand close together, and to succeed you must work together.
COURAGE, DEAR HEART (South Africa)
By Bahiyya Khan and Claire Meekel / @breakinbahiyya
Courage, Dear Heart is a vignette fmv game that explores the life of Lilith Grey who was molested as a child and how it informs her present life. It also explores what it's like to live with Borderline Personality Disorder (which comes as a result of her molestation) and aims to educate people on how these issues may affect young women.
CRICKET THROUGH THE AGES (South Africa)
By Evan Greenwood and Jason Sutherland / @CodeOfTheVoid
The grand history of the fabled sport of cricket, as it evolved through the ages, and as humankind evolved alongside it. Played out as a two player, two button, video game.
DRESS TO EXPRESS DANCING SUCCESS (South Africa)
By Team Lazerbeam / @teamlazerbeam
Dress To Express Dancing Success is dating sim and dancing sim hybrid that explores personal identity, social anxiety and shaking your limbs in front of strangers.
FROG SMASHERS (South Africa)
By Mike Scott and Ruan Rothman / @rrza and @mikescottiskiff
Frog Smashers is a local multiplayer game about hitting frogs with baseball bats. It tells the tragic tale of the downfall of frog civilization following a tragic misunderstanding at a bus stop.
By gold extra / @extra_gold
The documentary single-player experience FROM DARKNESS (currently in alpha 0.6) takes you to the streets of Eastern Africa. It’s a compelling interactive journey. Nairobi, capital of Kenya and sprawling power hub of Africa’s East, becomes the starting point of an intense investigation exploring the lives of journalists, shop owners, community workers, and urban refugees.
GENITAL JOUSTING - THE STORY OF JOHN (South Africa)
By Free Lives / @Free_Lives
Play through the narrated life of a penis named John. Struggle with him, as he escapes corporate life, masters materialism, travels the world and, eventually, overcomes his greatest enemy: himself.
By Free Lives / @Free_Lives
GORN is a ludicrously violent VR gladiator simulator, made by Free Lives, the developers of Broforce and Genital Jousting. Featuring a unique, fully physics driven combat engine, GORN combatants will be able to creatively execute their most violent gladiatorial fantasies in virtual reality. The most brutal and savage VR face-smashing game ever produced by man.
HENKA TWIST CAPER (United States of America)
By OriGaminc / @shawnpierre
Twist your body. Twist the controller. Stay in the box. Find the sweet spot. Stop everyone else.
ISOMETRIC EPILEPSY (GERMANY)
Isometric Epilepsy (IE) is a rhythm based 3d platformer with an isometric view. The players have to overcome various obstacles to proceed in the game.These obstacles change in sync with the music. The players have to memorize patterns and solve environment-specific riddles while playing to the beat of the music.
Keanu Texiera, Rohun Ranjith and Kirsten-Lee Naidoo / @kirsty_lee0
A game where players interact with 'Johannesburg' in order to make weird music and accompanying visuals. The game is a kind of audio visualizer that uses low poly art assets. It was made for a second year exam project that was based on the topic 'Urban' with a setting of Johannesburg and the group decided to focus on the sounds of Joburg.
LIFE, LOVE & Tentacles (Germany)
By Firepunchd Games / @firepunchd
Life, Love & Tentacles (VR Tech demo) is the story of a giant monster who falls in love with a human and the ensuing complications of living in a unfortunately scaled environment. The story unravels in a set of mini games in which the player tries not to wreck total havoc while attempting to lead a human-like everyday life. The game will be in full time development later this year, but this early demo let you sneak a glimpse at basic gameplay and tentacles' physics.
MOLOCH (ZERO) (United States of America)
By Seemingly Pointless / @just404it
MOLOCH (Zero) is a narrative game that puts the player through a shift manager job interview. The player must control the flow and speed of workers as they progress down hallways. MOLOCH (Zero) has the player question and balance their own personal in-game ambitions against the health and safety of their workers. Fast is efficient, yet it risks the lives of the workers. How badly do you want this job?
MOSH PIT SIMULATOR (Poland)
Mosh Pit Simulator is a game about punching, stretching and throwing wobbly humans in an unrealistic sandbox setting. The game takes place in a number of locations (city, in a helicopter, on a train, in space). And it's all about fight people off and funny things.
By slampunks / @nialltl and @slampunks
Muddledash is a couch-competitive octopus racing game. You are a wriggly little octopus, trying to get to the most bopping party of the year with a gift in hand before all your friends. Just one catch - there's only one gift. Fashionably late is now out of season.
NIDHOGG 2 (United States of America)
The wurm has returned and it must feed! Shed your garments and paint the walls with the flesh of your enemies, for only one can be worthy of sacrifice.
By Brainwash Gang / @SindiecateArts
Nongünz is a nihilistic action platformer which combines hectic shootouts with the management of a mysterious idle game.
NOUR (United States of America)
By Terrifying Jellyfish / @sd
In a post-soylent world, we tend to forget how much of a luxury food is. Nour is an experimental food art game with no goals or objectives, just have fun while you play with your food as if you're a kid again. You are presented with scenes full of ramen noodles, boba tea, popcorn etc, and you mash buttons to interact with the food in curious and unconventional ways.
By Paloma Dawkins / @PalomaDawkins
Welcome to the castle of Palmystery where the spirit of a princess guards the entrance into the the realm of hands. Once you enter, you will find that Palmystery is more of a surreal psychedelic trip through a never ending imaginary world of cartoony hands and anxiety inducing techno music than a videogame. This is a game that was made with an emotional tone in mind; the experience lasts about 15 minutes and is meant to leave you feeling shocked, disturbed, and in awe (like IRL life).
PLUSH PUNCH ( South Africa)
By DoubleDate (Ben McInnes, Adoné Kitching, Daoyi Lui, Pieter Roodt) / @bsmcinnes
Plush Punch is an alternative controller game that lets the player be the villain. In an attempt to join the Ministry of Miscreants, you stomp through the plush forest punching cute critters right in the face! With every hit your pesky soul is depleted, and you get one step closer to proving yourself to your fellow scoundrels. But beware, the plushes fight back with hugs (sis) and love (yuck)! Every cute cuddle increases the count on your soul meter, and gets you further away from your nefarious dreams.
By Coastlebyte Games / @PuppetFever
Puppet Fever is about acting, shouting and peeking inside of your friends' heads. It's a new kind of local multiplayer VR game developed by Swedish game developer Coastalbyte Games. In Puppet Fever players are taking turns to be the puppet master of a virtual puppet theatre. The puppet master serves as game show host, judge and actor as the other players guess the hidden word, much like a game of charades.
By Gregory Kogos / @aronegal
RotoRing is circular puzzle platformer with pretty lights and clicky knobs. More here: https://goo.gl/FBJeSm
By Ludipe & Celer / @lupide
A game about voices and oppression made for #resistjam
By VRUnicorns / @VRunicorns
#SkiJump - jump like a unicorn in VR! Ski the slopes like a pro and jump higher that you would ever be capable of IRL. #SkiJump has it all (including snow balls).
SKY (United States of America)
Sky is a slow paced, atmospheric sound-explorer that allows the player to create relationships of sound, line and image by navigating an open world of clouds and constellations. These relationships unfold gradually as the player discovers constellations to identify areas and collects letters of cuneiform to develop the character.
SMILE WHILE (United States of America)
By Matthew Keff / @matthewkeff
Rule and order can be considered necessary to communicate ideas successfully. Many forms of communication need a structure to share information. If an experience is absent of rules, the individual is left to implement their own. Smile While is a game you can play by yourself or with others by looking for your own goals, or ignoring them altogether. There are many attributes in simulated environments that mimic physical space. By pulling those attributes out of alignment, this work aims to examine silly chaos and absurdity, building upon the imagination of the viewer.
SPACE KITTY (United States of America)
By Karina Popp and Alex Duncan / @knarniapop
Space Kitty is an infi-player zap-em-up that uses your computer's webcam and any flashlight to shoot on screen dogliens.
This is an action-platform game. The titular protagonist uses the cosmic powers to stop the evil forces from taking over the Solar system. The game is actually tough and the controls for the playable character are slightly buggy. Passion, enthusiasm, inspiration and determination.
By Gattai Games / @thatjustinng
TEMPORALITY (United States of America)
By James Earl Cox III and Julie Buchanan / @just404it
Temporality is a music experience that encourages narrative interpretation. The controls are simple: “A” to move your soldier forward through time, “D” to move backwards. Besides the title and credits, there is no in-game text. This allows for a music centered experience, where the visuals supplement the audio and where the player can reflect and ponder.
THE CATACOMBS OF SOLARIS (Australia)
By Ian MacLarty / @muclorty
Explore a colourful maze, but not too quickly. Take your time and soon something strange and unexpected will happen…
By Broken Helmet Entertainment / @BrokenHelmet and @DavidKamunyu
This is a role playing, first person view, adventure game, set in a sand box, open world with simulation, survival, puzzle and crafting mechanics.
THE LAMP OF TRUTH (Algeria)
By Diaa ElHak Guedouari / @diaaxstudios
A puzzle platformer game about existential illusions. Use the lanterns to illuminate the reality and your path to the next level. Remember, anything that you can't see, doesn't exist.
SOKPOP GAME SELECTION (NETHERLAND)
Video game collective includes @arankoning, @tijmentio, @tomboogaart and @rubna_ (Aran will be on-site)
By Laura Martorana, Leandro Estrella and Adrián Martínez Puente / @estrellaleandr
Tramp /tɹæmp/ - A long walk, possibly of more than one day, in a scenic or wilderness area.“We tramped through the woods for hours before we found the main path again”.
By Bracken Hall / @Count_Bracula
Triggered is a small local-multiplayer 2D action platformer that started with the question "Do players prefer shooting one big bullet that does 3 damage, or three small bullets that each do 1 damage?" Of course, JW already answered that in The Art of Screenshake, but TRIGGERED gives players the choice to play with both options, which makes for some pretty fun and interesting gameplay. NOW WITH BULLETJUMP.
VICIOUS ATTACK LLAMA APOCALYSE (South Africa)
By Bradley Hean, Jamo Taylor, Sashen Reddy and Matt Cavanagh / @roguecode
The world's best mass llama-slaughter roguelike-lite-ish couch co-op twin-stick top-down shooter.
WINDOW WASHERS (South Africa)
By Thomas Mathew, Annika Morris and Dan Park
This is a game about being a window washer in South Africa. It's very relatable and has very unique gameplay.
By Jonas Bo! and Josef Who? / @agentwell and @josefwho
vinylOS is an alternative controller (alt.ctrl) game console and media art installation based on a DJ turntable. The turntable is transformed into a screen by projecting onto it from above.
