PLAY19

The Monster Lab is the temporary PLAY19 Game Design studio for everyone! Six stations let you do everything monster-related.

From roundtables like the Artist Talks or the Insert Moin Podcast Sofa to interactive show programs – PLAY provides a stage for discussions, games, and, of course, lots of fun.

Established institutions of Hamburgs gaming scene open their doors to let you give you an exclusive look into the creative spectrum of professions revolving around video games. This year you can visit InnoGames, Tivola and VR Nerds at the VRHQ and experience game development first hand.

InnoGames is a developer and publisher. Here, visitors can learn about the fascination of browser games and how one idea can become an enterprise. Game Designers will offer unique insights in their work and answer questions about the studio’s action, strategy, online and role playing games.

Tivola is an itnernational publisher and developer of mobile games and apps from Hamburg, featuring animals as protagonists. In their apps, players can take care of wild animals, train dogs, ride horses and even build a tower with pixel cats.

VR Nerds are not only the #1 source for VR news, but also develop VR software and hardware, pruduce mixed reality content and aid enterprises or host virtual reality events. In addition, they exhibit Tower Tag at their VRHQ – a virtual reality multiplayer shooter.

Meeting point is Friday (November 15) at the Festival HQ at 12.30pm. Places for both excursions are limited to 20 people. You can only register for the excursions at the festival counter. Participants also require a ticket for public transport.

Impulses are entertaining talks by speakers from diverse backgrounds. They shift your view onto new aspects of games culture and encourage personal exchanges.

Since the beginning of time, the unknown and fearful is formed into something. From the symbolic black nothing of a frightening Night, we imagined the wildest fantastic figures: Monsters, representing the fears and sorrows of their generations, which tell their own stories, sometimes even stories of whole worlds. Thunder-gods and moral-driven mystic creatures, cute japanese ghosts, plague-vampires and rotten societies in the picture of Dorian Gray, the white shark, Skynet and nano-bees. Monsters are imaginations – but who decides their form or what or who a monster actually is?

In the exhibition you can control or defeat creative monsters, meet funny ones and strange creatures, learn about monsters, who are tangible metaphers and the ones who are not tangible at all, but still around. And if you look close enough you may encounter monsters who seem evil, but are not.

In the same space you can find and play the nominees of this year’s Creative Gaming Award. Use the time until the Award Show to guess which one takes the prize. The Audience Award is chosen by the audience itself – and every game in the exhibition can be selected by you!