SENSE OF WONDER NIGHT 2015 / AWARD WINNERS / [Mirage / Mario von Rickenbach]

sense of wonder night

Cooperation by：International Game Developers Association Japan Chapter(IDGA Japan)

SENSE OF WONDER NIGHT 2015

Mirage

Mario von Rickenbach

|2013 Best Experimental Game Awards

1What's your background in making games?

I've been making games for a few years now, as an independent developer. Before that, I studied Game Design at the Zurich University of the Arts.

2How much time did you spend working on the game?

I didn't have much time for it until now, but I will soon focus on it.

3How did you come up with the concept?

Mirage was first of all an experiment with the goal to create an interesting character. From that starting point I started developing the world and the visual style around it.

4What development tools did you use?

Unity, Photoshop, a video camera and Final Cut

5Have you sold or released the game of your presentation? How did it go?
Let us know what it has gone since then.

Not yet.

6What is your goal as a game developer?

I want to create unique and memorable interactive experiences. If it's a game at the end is not so important. Sometimes I find it's useful to leave it open what the product at the end will be exactly, to stay open-minded about it in the development process. When thinking about games, it's easy to fall into the trap to compare too much what you're doing with what already exists, by either doing the same or the opposite of it. By not putting it into a genre, or not even calling it a game, you can avoid this comparison, to be able to create something unique and "new", away from the existing notions of games.
Of course in the end, it's useful to say that it's a "game" when you want to distribute it through channels where people are mainly interested in games. But for me it's important to not be too much influenced by this during development of the project, especially not in the first phase of prototyping and concept development.

Word from SOWN Presenters

Kyoto: by Eddie Lee|2013 Best Arts Award

The game "Kyoto" was a homage to the beautiful city that I've lived in. When I first moved there, I was so in awe of the beauty and majesty of the city that I wanted to pay homage to it in the only way I knew how -- which was to make a interactive game experience out of it!

Miegakure: by Marc ten Bosch|2014 Best Experimental Game Award

I had the idea for a hyper-dimensional game in college, maybe around 2005? When you program a 3D game, every object’s position is represented using three numbers (usually called x, y and z), but that concept easily generalizes.

8BitMMO: by Robby Zinchak|2014 Best Technological Game Award

Ultima Online was the first MMO I played when I grew up. It was very impressive to see so many players all across the world play the same game! I wanted to be able to build the world together with my friends. I began building early builds of a game that allowed multiple people to build in the world together. It was very basic, but even early on it was fun to build together.

PICOLECITTA: by TECO|2014 Best Presentation Award

I frequently played video games with my friends and family. In that setting, the question that was always in the back of my mind was whether there was a game that more people could enjoy playing together.