The main exhibition features the nominees and the honorable mentions of the 14th International A MAZE. Award including some extra gems which we showcase out of competition.
Artistic and experimental games are often off the mainstream and allow for different experiences with forward-thinking and playful views, often not for entertainment only. Technology is used as playground for artistic expression and innovative interaction with audiences interested in critical reflection and meaningful interaction. Discover different experiences, local multiplayer games, interactive installations and many more of this versatile art-form.
For Festival Pass holders, One Night at A MAZE. Ticket holders, Public Play Day Ticket holders.
Friday May 16, 2025 09:30 - 23:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Plan the train route for the world’s spookiest theme park! All the passengers are all just dying to ride the Spooky Express. Pick up the creepy cryptids and drop them at their destinations around the park. But be careful! Don’t let them scare or bite the human passengers. Stay on track of the situation or you’ll have a grave problem.
Friday May 16, 2025 10:00 - 12:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Bearly News is a short, empathetic game from the newsgame genre, where facts and gaming experience merge into one narrative. Instead of telling a story, it allows you to play it and thus create your own relationship with the topic. You play as a bear living in a landscape shaped by human intervention. The game combines simple mechanics, stylized visuals and verified news to sensitively convey a complex issue: what does it mean to survive as a wild animal in a landscape dominated by humans?
Friday May 16, 2025 12:00 - 14:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
In a colorful duel for the light of an LED column, strategy and intuition are the keys to success, because only your own side of the cylindrical game screen is visible.
Friday May 16, 2025 12:00 - 14:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Mops & Mobs is a Visual Novel and Dungeon Crawler mix (with a bit of card game thrown in). You're the janitor of a dungeon, responsible for the well-being of the the various monsters. Decorate their rooms, fulfil tasks for the dungeon master, play some cards and maybe also try to find *the artifact*!
Friday May 16, 2025 12:00 - 14:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Rope Session is a cozy educational game about Japanese bondage, that provides players with deeper context about the Japanese art of Shibari, the BDSM community with which it is closely connected, and especially the importance of consent that accompanies these activities. It highlights its ethical and safety principles, which are mostly absent in games or other forms of (especially mainstream) media. The game presents Shibari as an art form and a consensual act, avoiding gender stereotypes and any sexualization of characters that would present them merely as sexual objects intended for personal gratification. On the contrary, the characters are portrayed as two equal beings, without any objectification, with their own boundaries, personality, and motivations. As players, we take on the role of the rigger, and with it, responsibility for her own decisions, as well as their consequences. The character of the model is depicted as an equal entity, reacting to her own discomfort. The game also portrays human diversity, the queer community, and gender identity with the same respect and sensitivity. It's a mix of a walking simulator with elements of narrative, point-and-click, and hypercasual gameplay.
Friday May 16, 2025 12:00 - 14:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Open Screens are back! Following the success of previous years, our goal remains the same: to provide a convenient platform for developers to showcase their creations to the press and their peers. These exhibits will be on display at the physical A MAZE. venue.
You were always worried that AI would take your job. Well, what if it takes everything else instead? Fulfillment. Security. Happiness. Balance. You will perform! You will be content! You will deliver!
Friday May 16, 2025 14:00 - 16:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Keybound is a 2D platformer whose main feature is that the key bindings randomly change while playing, so the player has to adapt to the new controls on the run. “Your usual 2D plaftormer right? Guess what, now you have to press SPACEBAR to move right, P to move left and L to jump. GL with that!”
Friday May 16, 2025 14:00 - 16:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Play as Doggo, the debt-ridden dog in search of part-time jobs, friendship and love in a magical, late-capitalist world. On their adventures Doggo meets desperate fan-fiction writers, awkward ghosts, Angelo (the sexy fish) and loads more.
riprip is also presenting their accessible game-making tool that they used to create 'doggoworld'!
Friday May 16, 2025 16:00 - 18:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
A short visual novel set in the world of a monster-collecting RPG. Grappling with their ability to perceive reality through an RPG lens, Mush navigates their way to a job interview for the enigmatic title of “Dome-King.”
Friday May 16, 2025 16:00 - 18:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Inspired by the works of Moebius, Jodorowsky, Laloux, and Métal Hurlant, Hommage is an interactive odyssey through surreal landscapes and philosophical depths. Players begin in the dreamlike world of Arzach, confronted by a formidable Loc-Nar, an ominous force of corruption and power. To escape, they must follow the Loc-Nar's words, mount Arzach's companion, Zoch, and navigate this world in pursuit of the fabled Incal. Along their path, Players may be invited to a cryptic gathering where a Jodorowsky-inspired figure imparts esoteric wisdom, bending perception and reshaping intent. Others may wander different roads, uncovering hidden truths and encountering a trapped Djinn—a being whose fate is uncertain, bound to choices yet to be understood. Players must unite to unravel the ultimate revelation, which transcends the journey and embodies themes of liberation, enlightenment, and artistic legacy.
Friday May 16, 2025 16:00 - 18:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
A beyond screens project where a multiplayer 2D game is projection mapped and everything is synced with music including custom made LED lights. In our submission for the A MAZE. Award we said our setup would take 6 hours and need either a room to itself or a curtain. Fortunately the mystic arcave is scalable, and we can do a much simpler pop up setup where we take over the corner of a room if something like that would be doable. We're very happy to work with the team to make sure our install is streamlined while maximizing for fun and amazement.
Friday May 16, 2025 16:00 - 18:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Truer than You is a choice-packed visual novel about love, loss and being lost in life. In an attempt to run away from the past, Rin arrives in an unfamiliar city, hired as a gig-working actor to play roles in real-life situations. But is escaping from yourself really possible - or could playing someone else bring you closer to who you actually are?
Friday May 16, 2025 16:00 - 18:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
All work no play makes Murm wanna smash things!!! Happy Puppets! Kill! Kill! is a physics-driven, rogue-lite dollhouse crawler. Imagine Cuphead and the Muppets had an angry child, and you let that child wreak havoc in a physics-based game world.
Friday May 16, 2025 18:00 - 20:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
‘I Write Games Not Tragedies’ is a narrative-driven rhythm game that pays homage to British emo and goth subcultures. In the game’s narrative levels, the player experiences the story of Ash, from “baby bat” in the 2000s to “elder emo” in the 2020s via a period of addiction in the 2010s, with awkwardness, humour and romance along the way.
‘I Write Games Not Tragedies’ features rhythm levels with three original songs composed by the developers and their friends. These rhythm levels give the player the opportunity to exorcise their own angst, teenage or otherwise. In the verses, there is a distinctive rhythm game mechanic where players hit musically considered beats within the lyrics. In the choruses, players are invited to sing or scream into the microphone, and the louder they vocalise, the higher their score.
Friday May 16, 2025 18:00 - 20:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Off-Score is a game that tells the stories of 3 songs. From a piece of paper striving to survive in the society of a copy machine, to a hunter of elephants that struggles with regrettable memories, and lastly a song-sized universe that unfolds as you change your point of view, these songs will bring you to 3 different worlds of fantasy and secrets.
Friday May 16, 2025 18:00 - 20:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Symbiosis/Dysbiosis: Mutualism invites audiences to slow down and experience an interconnected, psychedelic forest adventure through whimsical storytelling live performance within an evolving soundscape. Reminding us that the future depends on our ability to recognize our connection to the non-human world. Combining real-time fungal biodata streams with EEG data from Players, haptic sensations, and scent emitters triggered by the living fungi create an environment where participants see, feel, and interact with the microscopic connections formed within us, on us, and around us. Within the expanded reality installation, Nanotopia creates an evolving soundscape with living Mycelium that is directly connected to a custom synthesizer and bio-electrically connected to the virtual environment. A large spherical, sealed terrarium holds locally cultivated living Mycelium within the installation/performance space. Electrode wires grown within the Mycelium lead to a custom synthesizer system and into a PC, bringing the bio-electrical data into the VR experience.
Friday May 16, 2025 18:00 - 20:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
Velvet 89 is a hidden-object game that tells the story of ordinary people taking part in the peaceful demonstrations that changed the course of history. Big crowds hide those, who want to tell you why they took to the streets.
How did the communist regime in Czechoslovakia fall? What do people making a stand against the unjust regime dream of? What do they fear?
Velvet 89 takes you on a trip across the revolting country – from cautious ecology-themed protests to huge crowds. Investigate the moments before police brutally attacked a peaceful demonstration and unveil the stories of those who decided to speak up.
Velvet 89 was developed with experts from the renowned Czech project Stories of Injustice. Every piece of the story in the game is based on actual testimonies. It shows how the revolution gained momentum, from the border regions onto the squares of Prague and further.
Friday May 16, 2025 18:00 - 20:00 CEST Betonhalle [Silent Green]Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, Germany
