Welcome to the Cologne Game Haus (CGH), the new epicenter of Cologne’s game development scene: On 29th June we finally opened our doors with an official big bang, together with our studios, politicians and many representatives of the game industry.
Cologne’s mayor Henriette Reker during the opening
At the official opening event, our studios amazed the invited guests with presentations of their current projects and development processes. A unique mix of genres and approaches to business and art showed off the wide range of different people the CGH provides a home for.
Flying Sheep Studios presented their game “Serien WM”, which – thanks to HTML5 – can be run on all devices, especially mobile ones. The two wo/man team of Ducks On The Water presented the range of their work with the interactive text adventure “No Money, Dude!” about the hardships of an indie game developer and “Shiggys Takoyaki“, a fast paced action game about the art of cooking.
A fast pace is also the main ingredient of Ludopium’s stylishly minimalistic “Isometric Epilepsy”, a music game with hard beats and rhythmic gameplay. The game already won the German Computer Game Award in 2017 and has become even more fun to play since then.
Engaging play session of Massive Miniteam’s “Spitlings”
Likewise focused on intense gameplay, Massive Miniteam presented their game “Spitlings”, which they plan to publish this summer for the Nintendo Switch and PC with an option of more platforms to come in the future. Both “Spitlings” and “Isometric Epilepsy” bring the love for integrate and decisive level design to the forefront.
With N-Gon Entertainment’s “Viking Rage”, VRketing’s “Walk the Plank” and Senselab’s “Escape Room” we also have a range of cutting edge Virtual Reality developers in the house. Their mission is to further expand on the immersive power of virtual worlds not only in gaming, but also in marketing and other entertainment applications which can be boosted by playful experiences.
Fully immersed in N-Gon’s “Viking Rage”
Apart from N-Gon’s “Viking Rage”, encurio’s “Valnir Rok” is also set in a medieval setting inspired by Vikings. The Massive Multiplayer Onlinegame (MMO) was impressively designed by only two developers and has a loyal fan base on Steam. The developers gave our guests honest insights in the challenges of developing and maintaining an MMO with a big open world setting.
The teams of Slow Bros and Goodwolf approach their design work completely differently. Slow Bros presented “Harold Halibut”, a classic Point&Click adventure game. However, instead of relying on digital models, the Bros model all their assets out of real materials and use stop motion animation to bring life to their scenes. This creates a unique haptic game feel that has been unseen until now.
Slow Bros’ Ilja Burzev presents Harold Halibut to the guests
Goodwolf takes a more serious path with their hacking game “Code 7”, which not only broaches the issue of the perception of reality in contemporary times but also reinvents the genre of the classic text adventure for modern times. Like Ludopium, they also won a German Computer Game Award in 2017 among many other awards and nominations.
In addition to our own studios, also Microsoft and Kaasa Health presented two of their most interesting products. While Microsoft gave our guests the possibility to get an impression of their brilliant mixed reality smart glasses “HoloLens”, Kaasa Health offered relaxation for tense backs with their Virtual Reality massage chairs.
We have to thank our many supporters, sponsors and participants of the official opening of the Cologne Game Haus.
Especially: Mayor of Cologne Henriette Reker, State Secretary Nathanael Liminski, Ulf Reichardt (Chamber of Commerce Cologne), Michael Müller-Berg (Deutsche Telekom), Gerald Böse (CEO Koelnmesse), Katharina Hamma (CEO Koelnmesse), Kristin Schwarz (Chamber of Commerce Cologne), Roland Berger (City of Cologne), Beate Stefer (City of Cologne), David Oldfield (Koelnmesse), Sarah Nakic (Singer), Martin Lorber (Contrabass), Sebastian Scobel (Pianist), the whole bar team and many many more.
Thanks to our sponsors and supporters: IHK Köln, Digital Cologne, Deutsche Telekom AG, Koelnmesse, Netgear Deutschland, dB Technologies, Speedlink, Beck’s, Gaffel Kölsch, SAE Institute Koeln, Wallczka, afri cola, Cologne Game Lab and Niels Freidel for the great fotos.
Proud opening photo: (left to right) Johannes Brauckmann (Co-Founder CGH), Roland Berger (City of Cologne), Ulf C. Reichardt (IHK Köln), Gerald Böse (koelnmesse), Nathanael Liminski (State Secretary NRW), Henriette Reker (Mayor of Cologne), Michael Müller-Berg (Deutsche Telekom), Thomas Rössig (Co-Founder CGH), Margret von Medem (Projectmanager, CGH)
- http://senselab.io
- https://flying-sheep.com
- http://www.ducks-on-the-water.com
- http://ludopium.com
- http://www.n-gon.cologne
- https://vrketing.de
- http://slow-bros.tumblr.com
- https://www.encurio.com
- http://www.goodwolf-studio.com
- https://massiveminiteam.com
- http://gamebros-studio.com
- https://nerd.cologne
- http://edfvr.org
- https://dico4u.comde
- https://alyme.de
- http://winningstreakgames.de/