Since 2012 he is CEO and Creative Director of waza!, for which he creates and produces games about journalism and serious games. He is especially interested in ethics in games, which is why he became involved with the GameOverHate campaign of the European Council against discrimination in interactive media.

Winner of the Creative Gaming Award 2016 in the category Most Creative Game is FRU by Through Games. David Oppenberg and Christian Kokott accepted the award from Valentina Birke from the PLAY team.

Jury member Melanie Taylor read the laudatio:

“This game impressed us through its beautifully polished animation and gameplay. To us, it was especially interesting because of its amazingly creative puzzles that even encouraged the player’s own creativity. But what particularly impressed us about this game, was how we all experienced a very close bond to the main character. This game used a technology that has been around for a few years and used it in a completely new and very creative way.“

Winner of the Creative Gaming Award 2016 in the category Most Innovative Newcomer is FAR: Lone Sails by Mr Whale’s Game Service and Mixtvision. Rainer Schmidt (Mixtvision) accepted the award from Thorsten Hamdorf (BIU). Besides the prize money of 1500 Euro, the team of FAR won a mentorship from Mareike Ottrand (Studio Fizbin/HAW Hamburg).

Jury member Amelie Künstler read the laudatio:

“The game has a simple but very immersive gameplay. It’s like nothing we, as the jury, have ever seen before. You get hooked very easily and want to know what comes next. The game is beautifully designed and we are all looking forward to the finished game. It’s a very impressive work.”

The Most Innovative Newcomer Award is sponsored by BIU.Dev

Sebastian Kalemba is Animation Director at CD Projekt RED with 10 years experience in the industry. At the same time he is tutor at iAnimate – animation online school. 

During over 10 years of work as a professional animator he participated in production of adverts, cinematics and movies to finally settle on directing animation in AAA games. For him, as he often says, story is the most defining thing in the animation. He always puts the strongest focus on the concept, that the way the character moves is defined by his (or her) backstory, motivation, and the role he or she has in the plot. The second thing is the quality – he has an ambition to provide the same quality which is known from cinematic animation to gameplay animation. Right now he focuses mainly on directing and that’s what fascinates him the most in the animation process. Apart from that he loves leading and managing teams, it helps him a lot in making right production decisions.