At PLAY15 Anne is a member of the jury for the Creative Gaming award and leads workshops.

Creative Gaming Award – Categories:

Most Creative Game Games are honored that give the player the possibility to interact creatively in and with the game. This award is endowed with 3.000 €.

Most Innovative Newcomer Game It is possible to submit prototypes, beta-versions, alpha-versions and finished projects. The focus is on the game idea and the innovation that is connected with the development of the game. This can be showcased by a special gameplay, transmediality, unknown possibilities of interaction within the game, essential graphic innovations, new interfaces, uncommon at-mospheres, visual breakthroughs or new topics that are being dealt with in the game. This price is endowed with 1.500 €, furthermore the developers will be supported by Kai Fiebig from Daedalic Entertainment for 1 year who will help them with the development of the game.

With over 150 Submissions from 20 different countries made the decision for the nominees for the Creative Gaming Award pretty hard. But finally we made it: 6 Nominees for the two Categories Most Creative Game and Most Innovative Newcomer Game.

Michel Koch started his career in 2003 as a freelance illustrator for various collectible card games, role playing games and book covers. Since then, he has worked on many well-known franchises such as Call of Cthulhu, Game of Thrones and Vampire: the Masquerade. In 2006 he began working in the video game industry as a freelance concept artist for projects such as EVE Online, Sonic Unleashed, R.U.S.E and World of Darkness Online. In 2008 he joined DONTNOD Entertainment as a lead concept artist, then as the co-art director alongside art director Aleksi Briclot. They worked together on building the visual universe of the game Remember Me (published by Capcom). He also worked heavily on the environmental storytelling of the game’s universe, collaborating closely with the lead writer. He is now the co-game director and art director of Life Is Strange, an episodic modern adventure game, developed by DONTNOD Entertainment and published by Square Enix. His favorite video game is Silent Hill 2.

Among the Sleep by Krillbite Studios won the first Creative Gaming Award in the category Most Creative Game. On behalf of the whole team Kristina Halvorsen and Karoline Aske accepted the award from Valentina Birke and Jakob Kopzcynski from the PLAY-team.

Jury member Mareike Ottrand read the jury’s eulogy, in which the emotional narration was stressed.

“As a game developer you have to be creative in order to produce a game standing out from others, and surely every nominee has achieved that. As a player you experience games as a whole world and face creative challenges within the gameplay. We as the jury struggled to find the “most creative game“ and discussed about the nominated games for 4 hours. You probably guessed it, I wouldn’t be standing here if we hadn’t found one in the end.
The winning team came out with a game that not only puts the player in the perspective of a protagonist with a difficult subject. They also went further and managed to merge an uncomforting emotion with the game world by distorting the perception of the environment. For all these reasons, the winner in the category „Most Creative Game“ is Among the Sleep by Krillbite Studio.”

LUCID, a project by students, won an award in the category Most Innovative Newcomer Game. The team of five from Austria won 1500€ and mentoring for one year with Kai Fiebig. The junior-award was sponsored by BIU – Bundesverband Interaktive Unterhaltungssoftware. Carina Anziger, Philip Sonnleitner, Dominik Winter, Bianca Zankl and Florian Peinsold accepted the award from Wolf Lang (Threaks).

Jury member Leif Rumbke read the eulogy and emphasized the smart use of new technologies:

“Each of the nominated games is based on an innovative element. The three entries show technological innovation, conceptual innovation (with political focus) and new ways to experience artworks transferred into a virtual world.
But innovation does not always have to be directly visible. It may not only be apparent in new technology, or only in an original concept. It may also take shape during the path of development. And it may even be located in a masterly orchestration of all senses that leads to a gaming experience which was formerly unknown.
The jury decided to award a game that offered an experience that none of us had encountered before. It combines all the ways in which innovation can become manifest in a game.
So the winners of the Most Innovative Newcomer Award are:
Carina Anziger, Philip Sonnleitner, Dominik Winter, Bianca Zankl and Florian Peinsold for LUCID.”

After studying engineering, he specialized in project management and production pipeline, particularly in cultural and audiovisual fields. He worked for festivals in Canada and France and as technical coordinator for the Bophana Audiovisual Resources Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. His first videogame work was for Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain, working two years on motion capture and scene game design. He joined then Illumination Mac Guff animation studio (Despicable Me series) as a layout artist for the animated feature film The Lorax and then DONTNOD Entertainment to work on the cinematic and narrative elements of the game Remember Me. He’s now the co-Game Director of Life is Strange, an episodic modern adventure game, developed by DONTNOD Entertainment and published by Square Enix. One of his favorite recent video games was Spec Ops The Line.