PLAY15

Creative Gaming award – these are the nominees
PLAY15 – 8th creative video gaming festival

More than 150 submissions from 20 countries were played and put to the acid test by the intiative Creative Gaming. The decision was not an easy one to make. However, the team, lead by curators Valentina Birke and Matthias Löwe, managed to nominate three games each for the categories “Most Creative Game” and “Most Innovative Newcomer Game”.

Nominated in the category “Most Creative Game” are:

“Lumino City” by State of Play Games from the UK. “Lumino City” is a lovingly designed point and click adventure, in which the hero Lumi moves through a set made by hand instead of computer graphics. Looking for her kidnapped grandfather, she solves numerous diverse riddles. “Lumino City” is very atmospheric and regarding warmth and charme hard to top.

“Among The Sleep” by Krillbite Studios from Norway. This is a horror adventure that lets the player view the world through toddler eyes. After strange noises suddenly woke up the child, it searches the gloomy darkness for concealment and shelter. Vulnerability and fear are the main emotions that transform the game into a horror experience and which capture the player throughout the whole game.

“Face It!” By Navel Games from Germany. “Face It!” is a local multiplayer party game in which the players try to imitate different facial expressions, take photos and embarrass themselves the best possible way. Unconscious communication by facial expressions is one of the distinguishing features of mankind. They are experts in interpret a person’s feelings by recognizing the smallest changes of face muscles. This talent is the basis for “Face It!”, a very creative game, which concept is unique.

Nominated in the category “Most Innovative Newcomer” are:

“Orwell” has been developed by Osmotic Studios in Germany and is a narrative game, which plot is only narrated through digital documents. In the near future there will be a fictional state introduced by the government of the “Orwell”-project. This allows for surveillance of trustworthy citizens by the means of the eponymous software, digital data and communication in order to detect and prevent dangers.

“LUCID” by C.Anziger, P. Sonnleitner, D. Winter, B. Zankl, F. from Austria. “LUCID” is an adventure that is played by using eyetrackers. The player awakes in a white room without any clues. Suddenly he hears a voice. She is friendly and promises that they could escape together frm this surreal world. The voice already seems to know the secrets…

“Whateverland – Art Exploration mobile VR app”, a game by Sara Lisa Vogl from Germany, “Whateverland” is the first planet in the dream universe of Lucid Trips. The virtual art gallery with three dimensional objects (for instance, by the artist Neo Rauch or the graffiti artist DAIM) invites the player to lose themselves. The player flies over a lovingly designed planet, where one can experience and discover art from new perspectives and dimensions.

With these six lavish and very creative games it is not easy for the jury to choose the winners of the 1st Creatve Gamung award. The winners will be announced at the final event on the 19th September in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe.

Background:

For eight years the initiative Creative Gaming e.V. is hosting PLAY15 – creative video gaming festival. The initiative is engaged in the creative, competent and critical contact with computer gaming regarding cultural and educational contexts. The Creative Gaming award shows that games have also a tremendous artisitic potential.

PLAY15 is directed towards pupils, teacher, students, scientists, people from the games industry and people interested in games and the culture surrounding them. Everyone is invited to discover and test the various possibilities that digital games offer.

Since 2007 the initiative Creative Gaming e.V. hosts further educations, workshops and the annual national festival that stresses media pedagogical and artistic aspects of digital games. The initiative supports an alternative and artistic handling with digital games and thus offers concrete opportunities for actions for students, teachers and parents so that a creative and critical involvement can be achieved. At the same time they offer events that give exciting insights in the world of work of games industry and cultural elements.

Further information
If you have questions or photo inquiries, please contact Tina Ziegler
telephone: 0174-4440454 or 04521-84899-45
tina.ziegler@creative-gaming.eu / www.PLAY15.de