May 14-17 A MAZE./ Berlin 2025 – 14th International Games and Playful Media Festival will open its doors at silent green Kulturquartier and Panke Culture, Berlin Wedding. Today, A MAZE. is pleased to announce some of the festival highlights.
For the 14th edition A MAZE. has created a 3,5 days program. Just to mention a few highlights: Opening performance AFTERLIFE by Only Slime, a performance duo from Norway who acts between music, game design, AI-assisted art, performance and 3D animation.
The performance HOLY SHIT. A MULTIMEDIA PROJECT TO SAVE THE WORLD von Evy Schubert & Partners in Crime where games meet performing arts. Our second cooperation with HAU to bring Total Refusal, game performance collective from Vienna on stage. Talks by Somi, last year’s Most Amazing Award winner; Aluta Null, A MAZE. Awards judge and an artist commentary play session by Josef Martinovsky, creator of the game Keep Driving. Conversations will tackle topics such as childhood trauma, meaningful design from a cultural perspective and the curation of non-commercial games. A couple of experimental sessions sprinkled throughout the program will bring some playful surprises to the festival. New this year is a cinema block where the documentaries Weird Games Manifesto and The Blood on Our Controllers are shown.
Welcome, Sokpop!
Ten years and over a hundred games: Time for a retrospective. A MAZE. invites Dutch video game collective Sokpop to show a selection of their works – and some brand new things – made just for the festival! Video: Sokpop x A MAZE. Berlin
Sokpop is the collective of game designers Aran, Ruben, Tijmen, and Tom from the Netherlands. They started out together, making one game per month for their Patreon. Financing Sokpop with this monthly support of loyal fans, they chose not to worry about the competitive games market but instead focus on making fun, inventive, and charmingly weird little worlds – games that surprise the players and sometimes leave them wondering. A MAZE. / Berlin being the place where it all started years ago, A MAZE. is thrilled to have the “video game boyband from the future” over in the studio expo space (down the ramp and up the stairs) and together explore the curious world of Sokpop.
Workshops
A MAZE. has managed to create another neatly filled workshop program with 16 workshops. The workshops cover a wide range of topics. From XR coding in p5.js, to what does the color pink sound like. From a workshop on self publishing an indie game, where you can get actual feedback on your project, to crafting game controllers for groups.
Here is the full workshop program: https://amazeberlin2025.sched.com/overview/type/Workshop
Judges, Categories and Performers at the A MAZE. Awards
After the nomination of this year’s 25 games and playful media works, the judges spend the last weeks reviewing and discussing all of them. From today, the categories of the nominations are decided.
Get to know the Judges
Read all about them HERE
- Aluta Null (they/she, South Africa)
- Luis Díaz Peralta aka Ludipe (he/him, Spain)
- Sarah Reimann (she/her, Germany)
- Somi (he/him, Republic of Korea)
- Tanja Tankred (she/her, Denmark)
A MAZE. Award Show
After seven years, Tim Rogers will return to moderate the Award Show on May 16, 8pm. He plans to wear his best suit and will leave nothing uncommented, just as in his video essays. For the musical support, Dogshow will invite the audience to a ritualistic ‘howling at the moon’ ceremony. These two full-bodied canine brothers are on a mission to create the ultimate party experience.
Public Play Day, Saturday, May 17th
is for the whole family to explore the amazing alternative and independent games and playful media world of A MAZE. / Berlin. Kids until 12 getting in for free, family passes are available. A MAZE. shows the best of arthouse gaming including alternative controller games, vr experiences, indie games. There are some community talks and game design workshops for everyone interested in game creation. This year there is also a local multiplayer tournament, an analog market and special crafting workshops: nerdy masks and temporary tattoo making. Get your scissors and pencils ready, set, go! program: https://2025.amaze-berlin.de/schedule/
Panke Culture
After the silent green day program in four nights we invite festival goers and visitors to Panke Culture to celebrate the future of arthouse gaming with a lineup of eclectic music and games.
Highlight is the exhibition by the parisian Game Art Collective Distraction.fun. Their game show Comfort Me is playable in the Panke Gallery. Plus, Robin Baumgarten will install Quantum Wobbler and Free Lives from South Africa will present their local multiplayer game Sex with Friends.
Music highlights: Dogshow / https://www.dogshowdisco.com, Miss Tigra & Leo Solter / https://www.misstigra.com, RAMA / https://linktr.ee/rama_snd, and YUI / soundcloud.com/nofakeid/sets/yuranotowo
