A MAZE. / Berlin 2026

The talk focuses on the artistic process behind Cubature as a path from a physical experiment to a playable system. The presentation walks through the entire development process — from early concepts and the creation of the visual language, through hand-built scenography, working with wood and simple tools, and video production with actors, to music production and the implementation of these elements into the digital environment. Cubature is presented here as an IP with the potential to operate in different formats — as a digital game, a possible exhibition format, an educational tool, and a project open to collaboration with institutions, institutional partners and — importantly — also with business, with the potential to function within an international market.

Making personal games is hard. But it's also scary. What if people hate it? It of course means, they hate YOU. What if people love it? It means they have some sort of idea of what your art is about and can relate to it. But that doesn't mean they fully understand it as you intended.

How do I distance myself from my art if I've poured my heart and soul into it? How do I survive development if this is so important to me? How do I know it will ever be important to players? Is that even a good way to think of it?
A thoughtful analysis of making personal art, making commercial games, and my own journey of 7 years developing Blueberry, a game about intergenerational trauma.

Content warning
The presentation will contain mentions of trauma, family violence and suicide. It will also discuss other mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety.

Alongside several union members from across Europe, we want to discuss the recent cases of union-busting (or attempts thereof) and how cross-border collaboration can amplify union efforts. When Rockstar Games laid off a group of union organizers, it was a signal of how the gaming industry responds to the increased efforts of organizing game developers world-wide. Similar moves in Canada, France, Germany, Spain and the US have shown that the power-that-be of the games industry will not stand idly by while game developers finally find a voice.

Content warning
​Discussion of workplace harassment, mental health challenges, and labor rights in political contexts.

Enjoy the sun, play some games, eat some food, catch up with other people! See you after the break!

Goethe-Institut Sub-Sahara Africa has established GamesConnect AFRICA to cultivate a robust and unified video game ecosystem across the continent. This initiative addresses systemic obstacles like funding shortages, talent migration, and underdeveloped infrastructure by providing strategic support to mid-sized studios.

Through a variety of international collaborations, game jams, and networking events, the programme aims to elevate the global profile of African-developed games. The project also emphasises government advocacy and the professionalisation of the industry to ensure sustainable career pathways for local creators. Ultimately, these efforts seek to transform the continent’s youthful gaming demographic into a commercially successful and globally competitive creative force.

Iteration is usually a technical process, but for some, it’s a personal one. This talk is an honest look at a journey through development, art, and new experiences.
It’s about the friction of growth, the necessity of being a student, and the quiet work of becoming the artist you need to be.

What do you do when you don't see yourself, or the people around you represented in games? You make them anyway.

With Love From Kenya presents Joanna Oluoch's exploration of how to representing her culture through games in a still-developing games industry.

She draws from two of her projects: ARGO and Nyam3.
ARGO is an augmented reality game based on her childhood home in a forest, designed with accessibility in mind and built to run on low-end smartphones, prioritising a Kenyan audience first. Nyam3 was developed during the Playful Obscura residency under Games Connect Africa, and reimagines a traditional Kenyan children's game through Kinect motion capture, connected through the principle of using your body as a controller. Both games are love letters to her experiences expressed through play and interaction, founded in her practice as a game designer under Sike Studios.

She reflects on cross-cultural exchange, making games as accessible public art, and her learnings so far as an African game developer.

Please bring your questions and your competitive spirit.

Expanding OTHERWORLDS is a talk on a completed multi-user XR performance that bridges Ukrainian seasonal rituals with immersive technology. The project synchronises participants across virtual and physical layers, where VR environments, spatial sound, choreography, and scenography directly correspond, creating a communal experience rather than an isolated one.

In this session, Sophia Bulgakova reflects on building this correlation between digital and embodied space and what it reveals about designing collective presence in immersive art. She will also discuss how this research is now extending into her ongoing Malanka continuation, which carries the same inquiry into a new ritual cycle.

Enjoy the sun, play some games, eat some food, catch up with other people! See you after the break!

A talk on the creation of Plum Road Tea Dream: a multiformat project that takes shape as a videogame, performance and exhibition.

Content warning
Trauma, gaybashing, police violence and murder against people of color

On games that don't want to be games. Rules that refuse to function. Mechanics borrowed and then broken. Born from the friction of working with a medium that constantly pushes toward reward loops, player satisfaction, and dopamine hits. This talk proposes counterfeit games as a framework: works that sit on the spectrum of playable experiences, using the language of games while refusing to play by their rules, and finding a creative practice in that refusal.

TBA

The Line Is the Game is a short, comedy live-action role-playing game that turns the everyday frustration of waiting into something playful and a little chaotic. Get your role from the ticket machine and join the line — possibly for a bathroom, possibly for art. Complete your task and use your one-time superpower to change the line before the doors finally open. Tired of waiting? Step out, come back as someone new, and see whether how you wait is a more interesting story than what you’re waiting for.

Game design Jana Romanova
Graphic design Elisa Piazzi
Device artisan Pablo San Gregorio

The Line is the Game was originally created for No Quarter 2025 at NYU Game Center

This game is a standalone game that any festival visitor can join to play.
To make it even more exciting: The game will be played before the labRats performance, the queue that will form will define how you enter the space.

Content warning
We encourage everyone to play with respect and kindness to each other.

Limited number of Player Tickets available (see below for more info).

Despite all your rage, you are still just a rat in a cage. Luckily, you're also a rat who's been outfitted with a neural implant that allows you to communicate telepathically with the other rats in your cage. Maybe that'll help.

labRats is a digitally native interactive performance by the award-winning duo cirqueSaw. Pulling equally from classic games, silent films, and a generous helping of Lewis Carroll, the piece seeks to blur the line between reality and unreality, between wonder and horror. Audiences play as lab rats in an experiment beyond their control, who have to work together to take control of their lives. Whether they choose to escape, take over the lab, or deconstruct the fabric of the reality of their experience itself is entirely up to them.

There are two ways of experiencing this performance:
- As a player: please get your Player Ticket (limited number) from the ticket shop (only with valid festival ticket or pass): https://weeztix.shop/gteqvq9r
- As a viewer: just come to the Kuppelhalle!

Note: that Player Tickets are limited, so please only take one when you are dedicated to join, including bringing your own laptop or tablet with keyboard

There are two labRats performance dates:
Thursday 14 May: 20:00-21:30
Saturday 16 May: 12:00-13:30