Games festival | Poznań, 27.05 – 2.06.2013
The 2nd International Game Festival “Let’s play Poznań” was our first major task in the framework of the festival. Although we participated in the first project a year earlier, but it was more local one.
The festival began with master classes in which game designers from all over Europe participated, including one held by Hilary O’Shaughnessy, a practicing theatre theorist, speaker, writer and game designer of the city games with theatrical elements. Later there were days full of city games in which the inhabitants of Poznań and the “game designers” participated! They came from Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, Belarus and, of course, from Poland. They presented their projects, previously implemented in their countries, and now adapted to the topography of Poznań. The heart of the festival was Poznań Castle, as well as a market square with nearby streets, parks and squares.
Game designers and animators:
Poland: Michał Grelewski, Piotr Wiśnioch, Joanna Ufnalska, Natalia Matheis;
UK: Vee Uye, Tricia Coleman, Greg Foster;
Germany: Jana Wendler, Sebastian Quack, Jennifer Aksu; Gwen Lamping,
Denmark Jakob la Cour;
Ireland: Hilary O’Shaughnessy;
Italy: Matteo Uguzzoni, Augusto Pirovano, Sara Ferrarese;
Belarus: Lena Mech
Sharing experience with the European game designers is an extremely valuable experience for developers, mainly because of the different philosophy of games in different countries, various mechanics or views on games. The expectations of the players and their knowledge are also different, so the experience of the Polish participants was especially interesting for designers.
During the festival, we divided the games into four categories: classic city games, tourist games (which you can play at any time), entertainment and board games (this section was reflected in the city space in the XXL version). Thanks to the energy brought to the city, the Festival received a very warm welcome from all the participants, the contacts created by the participants at that time led to numerous joint projects in the following years, because the game developers environment is truly creative and generates many ideas indeed.
Organizer: Local Tourism Organization in Poznań
Project implemented by: Gramiejska.pl. (Szymon Dąbrowski, Michał Domżalski, Milena Krzyżan)
The project “Everything works – development and promotion of tourism products of the Poznań agglomeration” is funded by the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund as part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship regional program for 2007-2013.
Project coordination: Michał Grelewski, Piotr Wiśnioch
Photo: Ewa Ronewicz
