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Five teams won the Games Lift Awarding Committee with their game project. The Games Lift Incubator, a unique program for support in Germany, will begin on September 11th. The program includes a mentoring and workshop program for one year with international industry experts, as well as 15,000 euros of financial support and room to collaborate and exchange with other participating teams.
The Games Lift network brings together more than 30 experts from various fields, including game design, product creation, pitching, marketing, business development and press relations. They will help the teams get their projects off to a good start. Gamecity Hamburg organizes and implements the Games Lift Incubator on behalf of Free and Hanseatic City Hamburg.
The fourth Games Lift Incubator received applications from 24 teams, including solo developers. The awarding committee consisted of Mareike Ottrand, Professor for Interactive Illustration and Games/HAW Hamburg), Ole Schaper, Managing Director The Sandbox Hamburg(Sviper GmbH), Heiko Gogolin, Managing Director Rocket Beans Entertainment and Amanda Fortsch.
Schaper stated that “each year, Games Lift Incubator receives more applications from talented teams with exciting project ideas.” The passion and dedication of the developers has always impressed me. Hamburg’s academic institutions and the vibrant indie scene ensure that creativity is never stopped.
Five winning projects and teams of Games Lift Incubator:
* Chaos Royale By Monodot
Dottobeau, Dottobeau
Markus Koepke’s Journey Beyond the Edge of the World
* Map Map by Kopfkino – A game about maps
Bagpack Games: We the Valarii
chaos royale is a free to play battle royale with shooting mechanics. It features eccentric and fantastic characters. The use of different weapon combinations, and the ability to improve your own shooting power, turn 16-32 player matches into fast-paced battles.
The Dottobeau team formed at HAW Hamburg in order to create a classic adventure game that allows players to solve difficult puzzles by altering the atmosphere of the world within the game. As players complete more puzzles, they will find more items. They can then manipulate the plot and continue on to the next part of the sensitive adventure.
Journey Beyond the Edge of the World is a first-person musical adventure game that tells a story through five atmospheric music pieces. The story spans three different time periods and is set on a mysterious fishing boat that has a history to uncover. This low-poly, nostalgic game world has a number of puzzles that need to be solved.
Map Map- A Game About Maps is a cozy, exploration game that combines puzzles with the relaxed atmosphere of a hike. The unique mapping mechanism allows players to interact in a new way with the atmospheric world of the game and its various elements.
We the Valariiby Bagpack games is a couch co-op racing game with a literal twist. The unique motion physics of the game are created by rotating the stick or mouse. It’s not about competition, but about overcoming obstacles together and defeating bosses.
You can find out more about the incubator projects by visiting https://gamecity-hamburg.de/incubator.
The incubator program is designed to meet the needs of each developer with a comprehensive set of workshops, mentoring sessions and coaching. The incubator program offers workshops and mentoring sessions in the areas of project management and marketing, as well as business start-up.
The teams will then present their findings to a large audience in December 2023, after completing the workshop program for three months. The second phase will begin immediately and run until September 2024.
In the first year of the incubator, mentors selected by the team will be working even closer and supporting them directly and according their needs. These mentors are: Manny Hachey, Chief Operating Officer at THREAKS; Bjorn Bergstein, Coach and Consultant in Management and Leadership; Daniel Marx (Chief executive officer and game director for Osmotic Studios); Soren Lass, Business Development Consultant; and Steffen Rühl (Expert on the digital and analog gaming industry). They will offer advice and support to teams in periodic personalized mentoring sessions. The Games Lift Network will also provide assistance to the teams participating in the competition. This network, which includes more than 30 industry experts, will help them with specific questions relating to all aspects of development and marketing digital games. The teams will also receive communication support from an indie game PR agency.
You do not want to miss out on the Games Lift Incubator registration for 2024? Then sign up for our Games Lift mailing list at https:// airtable .com/shrHJMH96v6fYe2yQ.
Additional funding opportunities via Gamecity Hamburg
In addition to its Games Lift Incubator program, Gamecity Hamburg offers prototype funding for developers and game companies in Hamburg. A total of 400,000 euros is available each year for projects in the games industry from Hamburg. Up to 120,000 euro can be allocated per game. The next round of applications will begin in spring 2024.
