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Tag: A MAZE./ Johannesburg

  • A MAZE. // Gaming and Playful Media Festival

    For its 6th year A MAZE. is welcoming African and international game developers, digital activists and digital artists to Johannesburg in order to trade ideas and techniques related to indie game development and playful media. A MAZE. / Johannesburg forms a part of the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival and includes talks, workshops and a games arcade.

    The three day event will feature over 40 international and African artists, game designers, game creators, media artists, researchers, forward thinkers, coders, musicians and speakers who will exhibit their talents to the public in a dynamic and interactive way.

    Tim Flusk’s topic for the festival, ‘Lesbians and Apartheid: The stories that gameplay doesn’t tell’ is one of the talks at A MAZE. this year that grabbed my attention. Tim studied game design at Wits and is currently working as a programmer at 24 Bit Games. I asked Tim where the title of his talk originated from and he explained that he has had an eternal curiosity about how games convey emotion, stories and concepts to its players. Tim continues by saying that he has been prototyping in a group setup how to present other narratives and experiences in the gaming platform such as harassment targeted at femmes and the economic systems and policies of apartheid.

    “My title is possibly misleading. The talk that I am putting together is focused on the broader view on how to subvert certain tropes and mechanics in video games to tell marginalized and vulnerable people’s stories better.” Tim tells me that there are games tackling subjects about racism and sexual orientation such as Dys4ia and Ladykiller in a Bind.

    Another thought provoking talk at A MAZE. this year is ‘Studying game dev culture as an insider-outsider’ by Crystal Farmer. Crystal is a Social Anthropology Masters Student from Stellenbosch who centered her masters around game development culture. When asked why this peaked her interest she responded by saying that she was in a focus group in a research methods class in which the group consisted of a few people who enjoyed playing video games. She discovered the complexity of this world that she did not have much background on and was intrigued. Finding out about the fast-growing game development scene in Cape Town, she jumped into the field and made it her topic of research. “I wanted to study something that was playful, but also foreign to me so that I could maximize learning and stretch myself beyond what was comfortable.”

    Crystal explains that game development culture is relevant to social anthropology as it meets with new forms of commerce,communication, creativity, and social interaction due to the rapid development of technological innovation. “Video game development culture’s complexity gives me insight into a rich variety of social phenomena. It provides an interesting angle from which to observe and understand different manifestations of social issues.”

    Crystal’s talk will focus on her being an outsider initially and then moving into an insider role in the culture as well as how it has provided her with different understandings of her own field of research.  Her talk will cover her findings during her study of game development culture and highlight how her own subjectivities and sensitivity may have had an influence on her conclusions with a keen focus on inclusivity and identity.

    A peculiar topic to approach is the talk by Ben Rausch this year titled ‘Videomancers: Bending Reality with the Magic of Games’. Ben is a game developer, illustrator, animator and event designer based in Cape Town. He is currently co-running the Cool Your Jets creative studio, making game trailers with Cowabunga Industries and helps creates DIY games for TeamLazerBeam. Ben’s talk will look at how game developers can become modern day sorcerers, alchemists and witches and with their craft, change the world positively. Ben continues to say that he will consider how the act of playing a game can be regarded as a magic ritual. Ben came up with the term videomancers that he explains refers to people who create change via channelling their intent and use interactive media in order to bend reality. Ben believes that games can bend reality as they are “one of our most emotive and immediate art forms” and have the ability to inform how people think and could lead to positive change in the world.

    A MAZE. will be showcasing a huge variety of indie games this year as a part of the festival. The South African games include ALONE by Jason Sutherland and Richard Pieterse about self reflection and patience and Dress To Express Dancing Success by TeamLazerBeam – a dating sim and dancing sim hybrid exploring identity, social anxiety and shaking your booty in front of strangers. Another exciting game that will be showcased this year is LAMP OF TRUTH from Algeria developed by Diaa ElHak Guedouari – a puzzle game about existential illusions where lanternsare used to illuminate reality and the player’s path to the next level. “Remember, anything that you can’t see, doesn’t exist.”

    A MAZE. gives to the public a different insight into games culture and highlights how technology can be used for artistic expression as well as experimental interaction with audiences. At A MAZE.expect to see games with serious narratives approached by its developers with new and playful viewpoints.The festival brings together international culture and unites playful media and games.

  • Cukia Kimani // making magic in the gaming world

    Having been captivated by the world of gaming from when he received a PlayStation for his 7th birthday, Cukia Kimani knew that he wanted to be part of that world. “From the moment I put it on and saw the magic on the screen, I knew I had to become one of those magicians making the magic,” Cukia explains. The Kenyan born game developer, spent primary school dreaming about how he could realize this desire but unfortunately did not have anyone close enough for him to learn from. “So, I just passively went through school waiting for some sign like ‘making games here’”.

    When he moved to South Africa his high school offered programming. This was the first step in the direction to becoming a game developer. Highlighting the difficulty of this journey, he was elated when he made it to university where he studied Computer Science and Maths. Beginning to see the world through numbers and code, the spirit of his seven year old self never left him. He decided that instead of going to work at a bank after graduating, he began to learn about game development in his spare time. After working on a few smaller projects he was invited to be part of the festival A MAZE./ Johannesburg. With the game Boxer which he created with his fellow final year student Ben Crooks won the inaugural A MAZE./ Johannesburg Award in 2015. Boxer is a top down boxing game played using only the analogue sticks. On his website the game is described as stripping out “all the boredom of boxing and gives you what you really wanted to see in any boxing match: juicy punches to the face. No hugs, no running – just boxing”. With the award as a recognition of his ability and vision, Cukia realized that he was well on his way to making his childhood dream a reality. “I was like ‘Shit, you can REALLY do this’. That festival in many ways kick started my career with access to international independent game developers to learn from,” Cukia explains.

    Curious about the indie gaming world and taking into account the way in which context influences the cultures that form from and around technology, I asked Cukia if there is a difference between African indie game development and those from other parts of the world. “Yes and No. Yes, we have a different outlook on life, different access to resources but at the end of the day with digital distribution and the internet you’re just as close to your customers as anyone else in other parts of the world.”

    Since then he started a digital art and indie games development studio called Nyamakop with Ben Myres. One of their big projects is a game titled Semblance which is described as a “puzzle platformer where your character and the world it inhabits is made of playdough.” Semblance is a game that makes the platformer, one of the most saturated and stale genres of games today, feel fresh and interesting again. Players are able to squish their character and the world they inhabit to solve puzzles in Semblance’s soft, bouncy world.

    Cukia has also been invited to be part of conferences, festivals and panel discussions focused on the thematic framework of gaming, including game design and game development as a whole. These kinds of spaces have influenced the way Cukia thinks about his own practice. “When I visit an international conference or festival I’m inspired by what everyone else is making. I just want to get back home and make cool stuff to show people. I’m motivated because other independent game developers are also struggling with the same issues I am. The more I attend you find people to collaborate with. Meaning more diverse games from all over the world!”

    He has spent time working with Yann Seznec on the project PAINTING W/ MUSIC. The idea behind this project is to create permanent visual artifacts – a digital painting – with music. Using MIDI data from the music and generative algorithms, together the two will create a digital painting.

    “We’ve developed an installation piece and performance for the Fak’ugesi festival. It’s funny to think that the original pitch of the project was 3 paintings and 3 songs on a website. Now, it’s blossomed to something that other people can interact with as well as be performed. So, developing it from that point of view has been about user experience. We developed sounds that can be tweaked at the same time as the visuals together,” Cukia explains about how the project has evolved.

    When asked about what direction he sees South Africa’s game industry going, he left me with these words: “I like to say it’s like when a star is being born. It’s small but it’s dense and HOT. It’s only going to get bigger and brighter.”