Game Design Work Grants: Selected Projects Spring 2023

The jury was composed of the following experts: Dajana Dimovska, Astrid Refstrup, Alberto Torgano, and Faviana Vangelius von Heijne. The jury met online for two days to discuss all applications and award the selected projects. 

The jury stated: “The Swiss game developer scene is getting more and more mature. There is an increasing number of smaller projects with a bigger focus on innovative gameplay mechanics and spanning a greater variety of genres. This shows that the teams understand the challenges involved in developing a game project, like budget constraints. Another important trend is that games made in Switzerland tend to target a broader, more diverse audience.” 

Full line-up of awarded projects: 

Twin Earth: QubiQuest: Castle Craft  

In Castle Craft players can build huge castles in an ancient war-torn world and must defend them against hordes of enemies in siege battles of epic proportions. Castle Craft is a game of ever-evolving tactics, where each round offers a fresh opportunity for triumph or defeat.  

Mylène Dreyer, Anaïs Voirol: Disorder  

Through animated puzzles, Disorder tells a story about self-perception and body dysmorphia. In the context of a bathroom, the player is embarked in the thoughts and reflections of the main character, confronting their deconstructed self in front of a mirror.  

Oneira Games: Echo of the Waves  

Echo of the Waves is a watercolor-textured, 2.5D observational adventure game in which the player takes on the role of Zephyr, a young cartographer-musician from a distant ocean. On a journey with an altruistic goal – to discover and preserve an ancestral link with a powerful and wondrous nature in order to maintain the balance of the archipelagos – Zephyr will ultimately be led to discover himself as a musician.  

Naraven Games: Heist Schoolers  

Heist Schoolers is a slasher game where your friends can’t be trusted. Six teens embark on a heist at their high school to steal their exams’ solutions – but their high school does not intend it that way.  

Moritz Göldi, Dominik Würsch: Limbs  

Limbs is a one to two-player dexterity game where you take control over the limbs of a string puppet. Immerse yourself in a handcrafted world where moving each limb individually makes for challenging but rewarding and hilarious gameplay. 

Mac n Cheese Games: Munch  

Munch is a 3D action rogue-lite where you evolve by eating. In a brutal fight for dominance, you control a creature munching its way to becoming the ultimate apex predator. Battle enemies, feast on their remains and master countless new forms and abilities unlocked by your diet. Fight, feed, mutate, repeat! 

Diditopia Games: Plank Builders  

Plank Builders is a peaceful construction game which takes the players on a journey back to their childhood. Magical marbles have the ability to make stuffed toys come alive. Together with the stuffed animals, the player plans and constructs different buildings made from small wooden planks. 

Knit’n’purl Game Studio: Pocket Oasis  

Pocket Oasis is a gardening simulator that is completely hand drawn with watercolor. Players can play short sessions or lose themselves in hours of gardening. The game uses a system that utilizes real-life weather and plant-growing data. We can build a new balcony in a city around the world in a matter of weeks at minimum cost. 

Flawberry Studio: Projected Dreams  

Projected Dreams is a cozy, nostalgic puzzle game. Fulfill the shadow girl’s dreams by dragging the toys from the shelves and dropping them onto the table to create shadow play. As the shadows you cast become real objects and the environment around you changes and evolves, the lines between reality and fantasy blur.  

Zeitglas, Sanatorium  

Set in a fictionalized version of the 1920s where the lines between modern psychiatric treatment and pseudoscience are still muddy at best, Sanatorium is a card-based workplace adventure where you test, diagnose and treat patients.