Ludicious Zurich Game Festival

The Zurich Convention for Swiss Video Games took place again this year. "Ludicious" took place. Over the course of four days, games were presented, workshops attended, lively discussions held and fascinating presentations listened to in the Kassernenareal.

We VR enthusiasts were of course particularly interested in the games on show, such as Meantime and Myria, especially the games Bright Eluja and Virtual Space Port. Hell Eluja is a VR horror game that is played in pairs and was therefore perfect for our team of two on site. While one player is released into a dark dungeon with VR goggles in search of the key to the exit, his opponent can get behind a tablet and make life difficult for his team mate with monsters. The building and strategy game Virtual Space Port also offered us something new in the field of virtual reality gaming. Almost a little like a god, or at least like a giant construction crane, the player floats in space to build his own space harbour and, to make sure it doesn't get too easy, to protect it from approaching enemies.

The presentations on augmented and virtual reality also offered some exciting insights into the future visions and plans of developers in this sector. Robert Summer, for example, spoke about augmented creativity, a way of using AR to allow children to express their own creativity while focussing on actions in reality. Janina Woods presented her work on an intuitive toolbox for professional work with the help of VR, and Joe Davis presented with Volcano a solution to eliminate the known rendering problem in the VR sector.

Despite the icy cold between the two event halls, the "Ludicious" provided a relaxed atmosphere and easy access to the world of video games for business people and families alike.