Gamescom 2025 proved to be a true highlight – and SwissGames was on site with a strong delegation of 14 studios that were able to showcase their games and forge new contacts. In this two-part review, they describe their experiences.
Gamescom is one of the world’s largest consumer fairs for video games and a leading professional trade fair for promotion, networking, and matchmaking. As in previous years, Pro Helvetia was on site with its SwissGames initiative that aims to present the Swiss games sector and its creations to an international audience. The large SwissGames booth in the business area of Hall 4.1 proved to be a popular and highly frequented meeting point for industry professionals, partners, and friends of the Swiss games development sector. Besides Swiss studios, the booth also hosted representatives of She Got Game — an international mentoring and networking programme for women in game design that aims to promote equal opportunities in the video game sector.
The SwissGames booth in the fair’s public area also attracted many aficionados. At the Indie Arena Booth in Hall 10.2, numerous games fans eagerly took up the offer to try out five selected Swiss games.
Focus on networking
Luca Cannellotto considers the presence of Swiss studios under the SwissGames brand a big win for several reasons: ‘We offer the Swiss games studios a platform with high recognition value. They can use this platform to present their creations to both industry professionals and to gamer audiences.’ The focus clearly lies on networking with industry representatives in general and potential financing partners in particular. ‘Gamescom is one of the biggest trade fairs of its kind in the world. Due also to the venue’s proximity to Switzerland, it is a key event in our annual support programme,’ Luca Cannellotto adds. Devcom, a game developers’ conference held immediately before Gamescom, also represents an excellent opportunity for networking and exchanging experiences.
SwissGames offered an extensive programme for visitors in Cologne. Over the three days reserved for professionals, the booth in the business area hosted regular meetings between developers, publishers, and investors. Programme highlights included events such as All you can coffee and SwissDrinks, each attracting a particularly large number of industry representatives. In addition to the booths in the business and consumer zones, SwissGames was also present at events by other participants. Luca Cannellotto highlights the European Game Night, ‘which was staged by our partner SpielFabrique and specifically enabled Swiss studios to pitch their projects to an audience of professionals.’ Several Swiss game developers were also guests at the Devcom party CourageCologne. Luca Cannellotto happily concludes: ‘The visibility of Swiss games was ensured.’
For the participating Swiss studios, attending Gamescom was an ideal opportunity to present their games and forge contacts. The Zurich-based studio obleak games showcased two games in Cologne that are both still in development. The first was In Full Bloom, in which players have to feed a constantly ravenous and steadily growing creature — in Tamagotchi style — with ever larger components of the game’s world. The second was the stylish and fast-moving ABSCONDER, in which players are required to escape from a huge prison complex from a top-down perspective. ‘We presented vertical slices of our projects,’ explains the studio’s co-founder and game designer Lisa Bach. This meant that the audience could get a feel for the essence of the games at their current development stage. Pro Helvetia not only supported the studio’s participation at trade fairs, but also provided the studio with a game design work grant for the pre-production of In Full Bloom.
Talks with Scouts
‘Provided you are well prepared, Gamescom is a place where you can have valuable meetings to pave the way for potential collaboration with publishers,’ says Lisa Bach. Publisher scouts are roaming the premises all the time, so it is possible to spontaneously strike up a conversation with them at the SwissGames booth. Moreover, the reactions and feedback from visitors at the demo sessions can be very helpful. ‘Especially gratifying is the possibility to share experiences and simply talk shop with other game designers,’ adds Lisa Bach.
Amberbite Games, another studio based Zurich, presented Shoe it All!, a physics-based game of skill where players sit on a swing and fling their shoes to humorously designed levels. According to the developers, the fun of the matter lies in creating chaos with the throwing of the shoes, and at the same time, solving puzzles in a creative manner. Shoe it All! received a pre-production grant from Pro Helvetia. Its team of developers had already been part of last year’s SwissGames delegation at Gamescom and at the Tokyo Game Show 2024.
‘We presented the public Steam demo in Cologne this year, which was published shortly before Gamescom — with 17 specially selected levels and two out of the three unique shoe mechanisms,’ explains game designer and co-founder Jan Hobi. Amberbite’s primary goal at Gamescom was to establish contacts with publishers and pitch the game to them. ‘Compared to last year, publishers were more open and showed greater interest,’ said Jan Hobi. ‘As a result, we managed to sign Bright Gambit as our co-publishing partner.’ According to him, the trade fair’s major advantage is that it provides a platform for valuable international visibility. Amberbite was also able to benefit from players’ feedback at the SwissGames booth. ‘It was fascinating to experience the reactions to our demo in real life. It helps us to improve our product,’ the developer concludes.
Worldpremiere at SwissGames booth
Naraven Games based in Lausanne is currently working on The Dropouts. This eerie mystery game is set in a fictitious Swiss boarding school Noirmont High, where all sorts of mysterious things happen. Protagonist Lou tries to get to the bottom of these matters. Players move in a 3D world, while the dialogues take place in original 2D comic sequences. ‘In Cologne, we presented a new demo of our game that had never been shown before, neither digitally nor in real life at a trade fair,’ reports the script writer Julia Jeanneret. ‘The demo comprised chapter one of our game. The remainder is still in alpha.’ Naraven received a pre-production grant from Pro Helvetia for the development of The Dropouts. The studio’s first creation, entitled backfirewall and published in 2023, had been supported with a pre-production and a production grant.
Since Naraven Games already had a publisher, the Swedish Spelkollektivet, the studio came to Gamescom pursuing other goals. The team’s main aim was to make the most of the playtesting opportunities and collect feedback from potential players. ‘That’s why we were only present at the Indie Arena Booth and not in the business area at the SwissGames booth,’ explains Julia Jeanneret. Naraven also took part in the Steam event organised by Gamescom to generate new Wishlist entries. Meetings with press representatives in the SwissGames zone of the Indie Arena Booth were also on the agenda. ‘We had several interviews and forged some promising contacts with influencers.’
Supported by She Got Game
Plaid Games from Basel with their game Skyfarm were also present at the SwissGames booth. The studio is part of Pro Helvetia’s internationally oriented support programme She Got Game, which was launched in 2022 with the aim of promoting talented female game developers and thus enhancing equality in the games sector. After a three-year pilot phase, Pro Helvetia has now integrated the programme into its regular support activities. Besides financial support, She Got Game offers individual mentoring, lectures and pitch training. In the words of Lena Frei, the founder of Plaid Games, participating in Gamescom was ‘extremely helpful for expanding our network. Our goals were to establish initial contacts with publishers and platforms and to have open conversations with various representatives of the games industry.’
Particularly gratifying for Lena Frei was the direct feedback from the gameplay. She was happy that players found the game interesting and that the vision resonated with them. The game Skyfarm offers an enjoyable garden building simulation. Players live on the roof of a skyscraper in a flooded megacity, cultivating fruits and vegetables according to permaculture principles. They create self-regulating ecosystems, foster biodiversity, store energy as efficiently as possible and recycle commodities. This was Lena Frei’s first time as a developer at an event like Gamescom. ‘That’s why it was a great, but also a very intensive experience.’
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.
