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Welcome to 2024, and welcome to SpilBar: Playtalks.

A Playtalk is an informal short talk, where developers showcase their released game and highlight different perspectives and design choices along the way. 

The format always includes a live demo of the game and never use any slides.

The focus is on the artistic and tech decisions made along the way; like a live "play-mortem", and there is always a specific attention to a chosen area like sound, level design, UI, code or graphics. Not only will these Playtalk-events showcase new games and create buzz around them, but also serve as an interesting insight into various difficult game design decisions, and how/why the developers choose that particular solution.

For this first Playtalk we are delighted to present Thomas Ryder & Erwin Kho, who will playtalk us through the new games Midnight Girl & Cocoon, and Ida Hartmann, who will talk about Stilstand. 

Program:

• 16:00 Doors open + coffee/tea
• 16:30 Welcome
• 16:35 Midnight Girl Playtalk - Thomas Ryder, Italic
  Join us for a trip to Paris in the mid-Sixties, as Thomas Ryder takes you on a tour behind the scenes of the recently released point-and-click adventure Midnight Girl. In this Playtalk Thomas will talk about Midnight Girl's minimalist design and the often simple tricks that have been used to improve the look and feel of the game.
• 17:00 Creating strange new worlds - Erwin Kho, Geometric Interactive
  In this Playtalk, Erwin will share his thoughts on how the concepts of the game influenced his design choices, and how a childhood of watching ALIEN at the age of five, and pouring through books on anatomy, insects, and marine life, ultimately prepared him for designing the strange new alien worlds of COCOON. COCOON was named Best Debut Indie Game at The Game Awards ’23 and was offered the Breakthrough Award at the Golden Joystick Awards ’23.
• 17:25 Short break
• 17:40 Making The Worst Period of Your Life Into a Game by Ida Hartmann, freelance game writer.
  Ida will delve into some of the design decisions from the process of making the interactive comic, Stilstand (Niila Games, 2020), and how she created an emotional game design and art style to depict the autobiographical plot authentically, without losing herself along the way. 
• 18:05 Announcements and news 
• 18:20 Beer and mingling + snacks
• 20:00 Doors close 

BIOS

Thomas Ryder is co-owner of Italic, and is the art director, graphics artist and musician on the game Midnight Girl. He has specialized in making atmospheric point-and-click adventures, and also known for the time traveling sci-fi thriller "The Silent Age". Thomas combines a flat 2D art style with eerie synths to achieve a style which he describes as 'moody minimalism'.

Erwin Kho is art director and art lead for the award-winning game ‘COCOON’, which was released in September ’23 to critical acclaim. Kho has a background in graphic design and illustration, and moved to Denmark in 2017 to join Playdead alumni Jeppe Carlsen and Jakob Schmid at their new studio, Geometric Interactive. For COCOON he was heavily involved in the development; from the earliest visual development and concepts, through to production and leading the art team.