A MAZE. / Berlin 2026: Full Schedule

Welcome to the A MAZE. / Berlin 2026 program! Add sessions to your profile to get an easy overview of your own schedule!

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10:30 CEST

As Long As You're Here: Designing Around a Feeling

Friday May 15, 2026 10:30 - 11:00 CEST

Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green]

"As Long As You're Here" is a family drama seen through the eyes of an elderly woman with Alzheimer's disease. In this talk, co-developers Marlène Delrive and Ryan Wright discuss how the game was inspired by personal stories and is carefully designed around evoking a specific feeling of forgetfulness. They describe how a subtle design approach was necessary to blend player experience with the protagonist's perspective.

Content warning
This talk will discuss death and illness within families, particularly the deaths of siblings and elderly family members.

Artists

Marlène Delrive (she/her)

Marlène Delrive is a game and narrative designer passionate about games that make you feel something. She has experience with the full range of emotion – from award-winning comedy games like WHAT THE GOLF? and WHAT THE CAR?, to emotional games. She’s a co-founder of Autoscopia... Read More →

Ryan Wright (they/them & he/him)

Ryan is a game and narrative designer at Autoscopia Interactive, and a PhD candidate at the University of California, Davis. Ryan is affiliated with the English and Science and Technology Studies departments. His research concerns how games have been historically used to represent... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 10:30 - 11:00 CEST
Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

10:30 CEST

Why Computer Games are Puppet Shows

Friday May 15, 2026 10:30 - 11:00 CEST

Kuppelhalle [Silent Green]

Puppet shows are one of the oldest forms of entertainment and computer games are among the newest, but they have much in common!

Running a puppet show? Put up a booth and ready your puppets, your props and your backcloths. You have a story in mind, maybe even a script, and you play it. Making any kind of game with characters? Make your character assets, your props, your backgrounds. You’ve created a world. There may be narrative and pieces of script, but you set the player off with their puppet and tell them: have fun with it.

If you ever play with your toys and send them on adventures you’re playing a game and you’re giving yourself a puppet show. (And if you never send toys on adventures, you’re missing a treat!)

Content warning
A brief mention of mortality, but nothing grizzly or shocking.

Artists

Ben Swithen (she/they)

Ben Swithen is a writer, music-maker and indie game developer who made the game ‘Buy Hyacinths’ (about one of the first sheep to go to a human university) and ‘Trans Theft Horso’ (about gender gladness in the feverish west). They do work for Geeks for Social Change, and in... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 10:30 - 11:00 CEST
Kuppelhalle [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

11:00 CEST

10 things i wish i knew 10 years ago

Friday May 15, 2026 11:00 - 11:30 CEST

Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green]

i wrote this talk for my younger self.

i gave a talk at A MAZE. in 2017--almost a decade ago. Last week i turned 32. i spent nearly my entire twenties working on same project, and for the next 20 minutes i will share the most valuable lessons i learned along the way.

this talk will NOT cover technical details. instead, it will focus on the wisdom i accumulated while painfully making this semi-autobiographical role-playing game about my life in high school.

if you're an indie developer who has already sold a million copies of your video game: congratulations. you probably do not need to listen to my advice.

Content Warning
substance abuse, mental health challenges

Artists

Jenny Jiao Hsia (she/her)

Independent

Jenny Jiao Hsia spent almost a decade making this one award-winning video game called Consume Me and now she posts one video a day until that same game sells one million copies. She is the mother of two pomeranians ( Zwergspitz in German) and attends ballet class 6 days of out of... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 11:00 - 11:30 CEST
Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

about <br>

11:30 CEST

Experimental comics, hybrid languages and mutant realities

Friday May 15, 2026 11:30 - 12:00 CEST

Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green]

A talk about how experimental comics can act as a space where different languages, media, and narrative forms meet, opening the door to projects that move across diverse creative territories. It is also a personal journey through key milestones and projects, both solo and as a member of the Shaman Garage studio.

Artists

Iván McGill (he/him)

Shaman Garage

Understanding comics as a vessel for multiple formats and media, Iván McGill experiments in his work with a blend of languages, animation, video games, and illustration, to address new paradigms such as digital identity, dataism, and information overload. For Iván, experimental... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 11:30 - 12:00 CEST
Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

about <br>

12:00 CEST

Experiential Game Design

Friday May 15, 2026 12:00 - 12:30 CEST

Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green]

In this talk, Farfama explores games as experiential art: evocative spaces of atmosphere, awe, and emotional resonance that bring the player's conscious and unconscious experience to the surface. His games city::ephemera and ocean::ephemera will be examined alongside other games, artists, art forms, and experiences where meaning comes not from explanation, but individual perception.

Artists

Farfama (he/they)

Farfama

Farfama (he/they) is an artist, games curator, and experimental game creator currently based in Japan. His work explores themes of awe, wonder, and playful joy, drawing inspiration from nature, ritual, and everyday observation. He helps run GÆMZ Tokyo, a monthly experimental games... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 12:00 - 12:30 CEST
Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

12:00 CEST

Your Body Is the Controller: Designing Physical Play through How To Pet Your Cat and InSync XR

Friday May 15, 2026 12:00 - 12:30 CEST

Kuppelhalle [Silent Green]

Most controllers are designed to disappear. These ones are designed to be touched, watched, and cared for.
In this talk, Quinn Liu reflects on the making of How To Pet Your Cat and InSync XR — two physical-digital works that turn interaction into a tactile encounter between body and object. A giant plush cat becomes public comedy and a social magnet. A responsive animatronic creature in XR becomes something quieter: a presence that notices how you move, and asks to be approached with care. Across these projects, the talk explores how material, sensors, sound, feedback, and movement shape the way we read — and come to trust — machines that feel almost alive.

Artists

Quinn "Qingyun" Liu (she/her)

Quinn "Qingyun" Liu is a Los Angeles-based creative technologist and interaction designer working between games, XR, and physical installation. Her work explores physical interfaces that feel alive, rethinking our relationship with machines through touch-based play and soft responsive... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 12:00 - 12:30 CEST
Kuppelhalle [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

14:00 CEST

PlayLabs: Reimagining Creative Space Through Play

Friday May 15, 2026 14:00 - 14:30 CEST

Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green]

PlayLabs was born from a lack of space to play, experiment, and create without pressure. This talk explores how PlayLabs builds inclusive, African-centred spaces across games, art, and interactive media. As a lab, failure becomes research, and play becomes process. From game jams to workshops, PlayLabs empowers people to create freely, amplifying voices and redefining who gets to belong in game development.

Content warning
Discrimination

Artists

Kamogelo Makhoba (she/her)

I’m Kamogelo Makhoba, a game designer, game writer, and creative technologist whose work centers African storytelling through games, interactive media, and XR experiences. My focus is on designing games that tell African stories and explore real, relatable experiences stories we... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 14:00 - 14:30 CEST
Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

14:00 CEST

CLIPPED HORIZON

Friday May 15, 2026 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

Kuppelhalle [Silent Green]

This talk explores Alice Bucknell’s work through the lens of clipping: the moment in a video game when the player slips through a wall or falls beyond the map. Often treated as a technical error, clipping becomes a method for breaking open systems and exposing their ecological, political, and epistemic structures. Across video games such as The Alluvials (2024), Small Void (2025), Nihghtcrawlers (2025), and Earth Engine (2026), Bucknell uses gamespace as a site for speculative experimentation, blurring boundaries between human and nonhuman, natural and synthetic intelligence, self and world. In this framework, play offers an affective encounter with the world that’s grounded in total feeling rather than totalized knowledge.

Artists

Alice Bucknell (they/them)

Alice Bucknell is an artist, writer and educator based in Los Angeles. Their work explores the aﬀective dimensions of video games as interfaces for understanding complex systems, relationships, and forms of knowledge. Bucknell is interested in the ecological dimensions of play as... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 14:00 - 14:45 CEST
Kuppelhalle [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

14:30 CEST

When the internet is dead where do we go? Here ( •ᴗ•)⸝🥂⸜(•ᴗ• )!

Friday May 15, 2026 14:30 - 15:00 CEST

Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green]

- ways of social gathering popularized after the launch of ChatGPT's first public release on November 30, 2022.
- ways to experience low-latency, in-person gaming with people.
- irl play/experiments/events hosted by [[rect*]]repair, an art game collective based in Asia.

Artists

Joanna Lyu (she/her)

China, ([[rect*]]repair)

Joanna game designer, media artist and event organizer. She co-runs [[rect*]]repair, an art-game collective on public-facing experimental games, community events and playful media.

Friday May 15, 2026 14:30 - 15:00 CEST
Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

16:00 CEST

Sybil Sybil Sybil

Friday May 15, 2026 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green]

Alex Declino and Beth von Undall introduce Sybil, a Berlin based R&D center for weird gaming. They will present the aims and interest of the organisation, as well as play and talk through a series of resident projects by Jira Duguid, Martix Navrot, and dmstfctn.

Content warning
This talk might contain flashing imagery that may affect people with photosensitive epilepsy

Artists

Alex Declino (he/him)

Sybil

Alex Declino is a game designer exploring authority and control in digital and online systems. His works are fueled by themes of tech-driven espionage, CEO meltdowns, the innovative exploitations of late-stage capitalism, and the almost Sisyphean tragicomedies of crypto. Alumni of... Read More →

Beth von Undall (she/her)

Sybil

Beth von Undall is an artist and writer based in Berlin. Alongside her solo practice, she is embedded in a range of collaborations within art, gaming and tech. Her work is concerned with questions around subjectivity and sexuality in the context of a world enveloped in existential... Read More →

Friday May 15, 2026 16:00 - 16:45 CEST
Betonhalle Stage [Silent Green] Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany

Talk

10:30 CEST

10:30 CEST

11:00 CEST

11:30 CEST

12:00 CEST

12:00 CEST

14:00 CEST

14:00 CEST

14:30 CEST

16:00 CEST

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