As one of the world’s largest video game trade fairs, Gamescom is an ideal platform for presenting new creations. SwissGames made use of the opportunity to showcase an impressive array of Swiss productions. In part two of our review, further game studios describe their Gamescom impressions.
Promotion, networking, and matchmaking: Gamescom is an excellent venue for cultivating contacts in the gaming sector — and of course, for showcasing and discovering new games. Pro Helvetia was again present in Cologne this year with its SwissGames initiative, aiming to put the Swiss games scene firmly in the international spotlight. The central meeting point was the SwissGames booth in the business area of hall 4.1. The Indie Arena Booth in Hall 10.2 was another location where five Swiss studios were able to present their work and let visitors try their hand at the games. The SwissGames delegation comprised 14 studios that travelled to Cologne with their teams and games. In brief: SwissGames’ presence fully paid off, with several thousand game aficionados becoming acquainted with Swiss gaming products.
Meticulous selection
«SwissGames’ presence at Gamescom was a resounding success as the studios in the delegation greatly benefited from their direct contact with representatives from the gaming industry. ‘The studios are selected by our international jury,’ explains Adriana Garibay, Game Design Specialist at Pro Helvetia.
Based on many years of experience, the jury selects the studios and the games that best meet both general requirements and specific criteria. According to Adriana Garibay, studios that are chosen have clear targets for Gamescom. It is also important that their games are of a high quality and have reached the right stage of development for presentation at such a large and important trade fair.
‘To be eligible for the delegation and the associated support, numerous conditions have to be fulfilled,’ she adds. One of the prerequisites is that the project in question has already been co-financed by private or public funding. ‘Furthermore, the projects have to be characterised by originality, feasibility, a high degree of innovation, marketability, and a custom-made concept, and the copyright and usage rights must be in the hands of the project sponsor.’
One of the projects that met all these criteria this year was Kohlrabi Starship. This relaxing and enjoyable farming game is set in a distant future in which our planet’s ecosystems have been exploited and destroyed. The game’s heroine travels to faraway galaxies in her grandmother’s spaceship to create an ark for plants and animals — and to convert her native planet into a verdant oasis. Kohlrabi Starship is being developed by Katja Wolff from Zurich and her studio, Whimsical Wolff Games, and has already received multiple SwissGames grants. These enabled Katja Wolff to take part in various game fairs and, in 2024, won her a mentorship through the programme She Got Game.
Katja Wolff travelled to this year’s Gamescom with a specifically set-up demo version of the game. ‘The most important thing for me was the contact with publishers in order to find support for the development of Kohlrabi Starship – for the funding, the marketing, the translating, and the porting,’ she says. One can also learn a lot in discussions with the numerous experts at the fair. ‘But equally helpful and motivating are the talks with the fans there, and to watch them playing the game, which then enables me to make the product even better,’ she adds enthusiastically. ‘This is why I was again present this year with a stall at the Indie Arena Booth.’
Also from Zurich is the studio Ohnsinn, which was chosen with its game Monuments to Ruin. In this round-based tower defence game, players have to defend humanity’s last stronghold against an all-embracing fog, from which hordes of monsters emerge time and again. ‘We took along an exhibition version of our production build to Gamescom,’ reports Nino Coaz, game designer at Ohnsinn. ‘It was a slightly simplified version of the game as it stands at present.’
Just like Kohlrabi Starship, the game Monuments to Ruin was playable in the Indie Arena Booth area. Participating in Gamescom, according to Nino Coaz, rendered two great benefits. ‘First of all, we had several talks with publishers and investors that could, we hope, develop into a partnership,’ he says. Additionally, the event marked the first opportunity for Ohnsinn to give a public demonstration of its game. ‘People showed great interest, and we got a huge amount of feedback, which is very invigorating and motivating,’ remembers Nino Coaz. SwissGames had already supported Monuments to Ruin in the past, for example, with a pre-production and a production grant.
Zum nunmehr dritten Mal war natsha mit «Psychotic Bathtub» Teil der Schweizer Gamescom-Delegation. «Psychotic Bathtub» ist eine This was the third time already that natsha formed part of the Swiss Gamescom delegation with Psychotic Bathtub, a game that provides a narrative-based experience of psychological illness on an abstract and artistic level. Ophelia, the protagonist, suffers a bout of psychosis while in a bathtub. Players can influence her further development with their decisions. Zurich-based developer Natasha Sebben presented the game at the Indie Arena Booth: The exclusive demo version included five different endings and some previously unpublished narrative lines. ‘We were able to reconnect with our community, which means a lot to us,’ explains Natasha Sebben. ‘The community is an integral part of Psychotic Bathtub, as it closely follows and also influences the game’s development process.’ The team also managed to forge new professional contacts, cultivate existing ones, and hold on-site press meetings. To date, Pro Helvetia has supported this ambitious project with three work grants (pre-production, production, post-production) and enabled natsha to take part in several game fairs. It also set up contact with the experienced mentor Rufus Kubica (11 bit studios). ‘We’re simply very grateful for all this,’ says Natasha Sebben.
Also included in this year’s Gamescom delegation was She Got Game, a Pro Helvetia initiative to promote talented female game developers and thus enhance equality in the games sector. The programme was launched three years ago. After a three-year pilot phase, Pro Helvetia has now integrated the programme into its regular support activities. The range of support measures includes individual mentoring, lectures, and pitch training. Participants also receive a grant of CHF 3,000, which they can use to create a game prototype. Further financial assistance enables them to become part of an international delegation. So far, the programme’s beneficiaries have been able to attend Gamescom in Cologne, the Africa Games Week in Cape Town, and the Exposición de Videojuegos Argentina (EVA) in Buenos Aires.
She Got Game provides support not only for Swiss studios, but also for international game developers. This year’s Gamescom delegation, for example, included Nathaly Kalantar Cuellar from Lima. Her studio Inmerxia is developing Culture Party VR, a virtual reality creation where players can experience Peruvian dances. ‘We presented a pre-alpha version at Gamescom,’ recounts Kalantar Cuellar. ‘It comprises the central gameplay loop, a complete game environment and the central interaction system.’ The goal of the presentation was to collect early feedback on the playing experience, accessibility, and cultural representation before the project moves on to the vertical slice phase.
‘Being part of the SwissGames delegation enabled us to build connections with publishers, curators, and other creatives who share our passion for meaningful and culturally founded games,’ explains Kalantar Cuellar. The presentation of Culture Party VR provided the studio with valuable feedback from game aficionados, which can be used to finetune the interaction design and the narrative approach. The Peruvian game designer was also full of praise for the networking sessions and the mentoring organised by SwissGames. Both, she says, ‘gave Inmerxia greater visibility and more confidence for the planning of the next production milestones and future partnerships.’
Participating in the SwissGames showcase obviously proved highly rewarding for the invited studios. Further reports by the studios on their experience can be found in part one of our Gamescom review.
About SwissGames
Initiated by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, SwissGames presents the Swiss game cluster both in Switzerland and abroad. Our core mission is to help Swiss developers gain visibility, build connections within the global game industry, and access new markets. Under the SwissGames umbrella, we organize and support Swiss participation in key events throughout the year, with our main delegations attending Gamescom, GDC, and Nordic Game.
