1. – 2. April 2016 :: Seifenfabrik Graz
On 1-2 April 2016, the button Festival will return to Graz for 2 days of gaming culture.
This year with Game Dev Days organized by Game Development Graz:
- Meet’n’Play :: Local Indie Exhibitions -Talk to Local Developers
- Indie Insights :: Get insights in the game development process (+ daily dev-run: Friday & Saturday at 16:00 at Game Development Graz booth)
- Special Event :: Dev-Talks (Extra-Ticket, please write a mail to contact@gamedevgraz.at)
Program:
Meet’n’Play:: Local Indie Exhibitions: Friday & Saturday
Meet and talk to local developers and play their games! Find them in the Game Dev Graz area!
Mad Gear Games presenting
A Hole New World:
Mad Gear Games is born out of a group of Go players who met in tournaments and discovered they also shared the passion for old good pixelated games. While developing their first game in 2014 they made A Hole New World for Ludum Dare 30, got a quite good reception (got to be 50th out of 1000 in overall scores) and decided to make the game bigger and better. We like games like Megaman, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and Castlevania and we are trying to bring the classic and instant fun style of games back. Awesome pixel art, chiptune music and great playability nonstop!
A Hole New World: A Hole New World is a 2D platform arcade game with NES aesthetics and today’s playability. Play as the Potion Master and his companion Fäy through different worlds in their quest to send all the demons back to their own dimension as they gain new powers and discover the ultimate fate of their lives.
– Unique gameplay mechanic that will let you play like never before. Upside down!
– 48 different colors and Ultra High 240p resolution!
– 5 sound channels orchestration.
– Challenging Bosses.
– Multiple Weapons and super powers to gain.
– Several different endings.
– Nintendo classic looks, today’s gameplay!
Rarebyte is an established and ambitious game development company from Austria, mainly focused on creating games that are hig
hly entertaining, well-designed and outstanding due to their smart gameplay. The people behind the company originally met as a team of enthusiastic game programmers and artists back in 1999, officially forming the company in 2006, after having gained a lot of experience from both contract work and realization of their own ideas. The first game, Waterstorm, a submarine multiplayer shooter, was released in early 2008. Additionally, Rarebyte was contracted to lead the Macintosh port of the backcountry snowboarding game Drop Point: Alaska, which was released in February 2008. Furthermore, the company has also been developing games for coin-operated touchscreen entertainment machines as well as technology for recent video game consoles. With 10 years in the gaming industry and 25+ titles released we are a reliable partner for game development on all major platforms.
Elementary Minute is a trivia game, where you will be 
confronted with statements regarding to topics like Math, Geographie or Famous People. It is up to you to distinguish whether these statements are correct or incorrect by swiping up or down. The game has to modes: Classic and Rush. The first one gives you one minute to get as many answers correct as possible. If you get one wrong, you loose a couple of seconds Playing Rush puts you to a stress test. Here, you get only 5 seconds per question and four lifes. While a correct answer gives you a point, a wrong one takes away one life. Elementary Minute is already released for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch and was awarded with the Apple Design Award at the WWDC 2015.
Asymmetric is a puzzle game for iOS. 
You play as Groopert and Groopine, two poor creatures who where trapped and torn apart. You have to help them escape by navigating them through different stages of a labyrinth via swiping. Since they are deeply connected, they always move at the same time, but contrary to each other. This doesn’t seem like a problem at first, but gets pretty tricky when obstacles like stones, holes, portals or accelerator-pads come into play. The game is currently in development and will be released this year for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.
Indie Insights and Play-Time:: Friday & Saturday
This happens at the Game Dev Graz Booth:
- “Play-time“: Play local early but brilliant games! Developers will present their earliest prototypes in two hour slots. Make sure to play all of them!
- “Development Insights“: Learn about the game development process and talk to the Game Dev Graz team. Once a day the Game Development Graz team will present the entire development process and cover specific topics for each field.
Schedule:
Friday:
- 15:00 – 16:00 PLAY: The great Journey of Paperman && Geo Heroes
- 16:00 – 18:00 Development Insights
- 18:00 – 19:00 PLAY: The great Journey of Paperman && Geo Heroes && Monsterkill! + Tooth Attack
- 19:00 – 22:00 SPECIAL EVENT DEV TALKs (s.u.)
- 23:00 – 03:00 PLAY: The JAM GAME && Monsterkill
Saturday:
- 10:00 – 12:00 PLAY & CREATE: Pocket Code && The great Journey of Paperman
- 12:00 – 14:00 PLAY: Don’t bug me
- 14:00 – 16:00 PLAY: The great Journey of Paperman
- 16:00 – 18:00 Development Insights
- 18:00 – 20:00 PLAY: The JAM GAME, The great Journey of Paperman, Monsterkill! + Tooth Attack
- 20:00 – 22:00 PLAY: Creepy Castle (Fangen!)
The great Journey of Paperman is a 2D puzzle adventure game, where you play Paperman and want to get back home. This game was made for the lecture “Game Design and Development” at Graz University of Technology, considering the diversifier “hatespeech”.
Geo Heroes is a medieval-fantasy adventure on our Earth. Turn on your GPS on your m
obile device and start your adventure. Choose your class and walk through your city…and yes, YOU have to walk :-). But take care, your environment has changed: skeletons, vampires, mighty dragons and many other creatures are now in the near. Your hero can battle against those in tactical turn-based battles and receive epic loot. Level-up and learn new abilities with your character to beat the final boss. More features: tactical turn-based battles, user-generated content, resources, boss-fights, crafting system
Pocket Code is a free Android app that allows you to create your own game apps in a visual, “LEGO-style” programming environment. Pocket Code is inspired by MIT’s Scratch but independently developed and entirely running on smartphones and tablets – no Laptop or PC whatsoever is needed to create or execute your games. With Pocket Code you can super easily create games, animations, or music videos, taking advantage of multi-touch, built-in sensors such as face detection or inclination sensors, and the full display resolution of your device. It also allows wirelessly controlling external hardware such as Arduino boards, Lego Mindstorms robots, or Parrot’s AR.Drone. Pocket Code allows you to download programs that others have made and upload programs to the Web, all under free open source licenses to foster learning, sharing, and remixing. Thus Pocket Code encourages tinkering and allows you to iteratively and cooperatively create your own apps, either alone or together with your friends. And your own first app can be running in less than one minute!
The JAM GAME: JELLY. ACTION. MADNESS. Jump in and start running! It’s only you, your friend and loads of jelly. Who can stay on the table the longest? In this fast-paced arcade game for two players on one tablet, each player controls a jar of jam and must try to be the last one on the breakfast table. Collect fruits, leave slippery jam trails, and push the other player’s jar over the edge. Lovingly crafted with hand-drawn graphics and joyous music, this is a game for all ages, providing short rounds of fun.
Don’t bug me is a local multiplayer racing game. Up to 5 people gather around one keyboard at the same time and try to be just that little bit faster than the other 4. The game is fast paced and funnily confusing when all the players try to hit keys arranged far too close to the opponents keys and fight for their space and rank in the bug race. In the game you choose a bug and try to reach the goal by pressing the key displayed for your bug to make it run faster.
Creepy Castle is a stunning creepy catch game for two players. It is a traditional local multi-
player for two players playing with a splitscreen. You need to find and catch the other player in this creepy castle
Special Event: Friday, 1.4. 19:00 – 22:00: Dev-Talks (extra registration)
You need a button ticket (VVK: 12€/15€ on-site) + extra limited ticket for the special event (2€)
Reserve a ticket now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gamedevdays-talk-tickets-24251825864 :: GAME DEV SPECIAL:: button-VVK ticket + talk registration for only 12€; you can get your tickets now at TU Graz or at the button festival (only with Eventbrite registration!).
Schedule changed!
- 19:00 – Start
- 19:30 – Son of Nor Post Mortem :: Alexander Grenus, stillalive studios
- 20:15 – Carreer Path in Digital Art :: Hector Moran
- 21:00 – Long road to ruin – and how to take a detour :: Christian Weinmüllner, Head of Crafty Studios
- Long road to ruin – and how to take a detour :: Christian Weinmüllner, Head of Crafty Studios
- Have you ever wanted to get into „Making Games“ by founding your own game studio? Starting off into the glorious realm of living your dream and creating games with your own team, free from external constraints, “making your own thing”? But aside from the glorious work on optimizing user experiences, creating high end models and improving on visual quality, there is also a “dark side” in doing so: Business plans, contract negotiations, paying bills and wages and in the end, earning your next meal. This talk will try to give you a glimpse into what you are actually getting yourself into, preparing you for the confrontation with terms like “recoupability”, “double-tax agreement” and “stegosaurus tail”.
- Short Bio: Christian Weinmüllner has been coding for more than two dozen years. After completing the HTL Kaindorf/Sulm and trying to study IT in Vienna, he founded Crafty Studios in 2006 together with his long term friend Ronald Haider and has been one half of the studio lead ever since.
- Crafty Studios: Crafty Studios first set out to make browserbased games, was one of the first studios to implement “free to play” in browsergames. They transitioned into the boxed market in 2013 with their debut title “Realms of Arkania – Blade of Destiny HD”, remake of a german RPG of 1992. Currently Crafty Studios is working on the successor “Startrail HD”.
- Career Path in Digital Art :: Hector Moran, freelance artist
- I this talk Hector will cover some of the turning points of his career and talk about some of the different options and resources to forge a career path in digital art in relation to video game graphics, toys, collectibles and some of the areas where both of these meet through technologies like 3D printing.
- Short Bio: Hector Moran is a digital artist from Mexico based in Vienna. He is a freelancer for video games, collectibles, toys and other graphic fields. As part time teacherhe has taught digital sculpture for over five years. He has over a decade of experience making graphics; a large portion of that time as Lead Artist and Head of Art at European game studios. Some of the video game projects he has contributed to include League of Legends, Saints Row, Overlord, Asterix and Friends, and Skyrama. Some of his 3D-print-related projects include Kingdom Death and Mega Man The Board Game. His clients include Hasbro Inc, Schleich, Soda Pop Miniatures, Nocturna Models, and many others. He has also recently started venturing into creating his own original collectible mini figures starting with Black Betty and is working hard at creating his own intellectual properties.
- Son of Nor Post Mortem :: Alexander Grenus, stillalive studios
- Alexander Grenus will give you in this post mortem an overview of the development of the action adventure Son of Nor. He will talk about what went well, what went wrong and give you some tips to not make the same mistakes.
- Short Bio: Alexander got involved with game development in 2002. In 2007 he released his first game. Currently he is working for stillalive studios, as project manager and designer. In 2015 the studio released their first game Son of Nor on Steam.
- stillalive: We are an ambitions game development team that got together in early 2010 in Innsbruck (Austria). Over the years we mastered the distributed nature of our team and since 2015 there even is an office in Innsbruck housing half of members. We focus on exciting core games for PC/Mac/Linux, and have experience with Unity, Steam, VR, Eyetracking, BCI and much more.
