next year in the event that the world is
still battling the pandemic, or even run
alongside the physical event in a kind of
“hybrid” formation, as Wiedemann
suggests. After all that’s happened in the
past year, we wonder if the official
mascot of A Maze ought to evolve, too:
from a flamingo to a phoenix, perhaps.
You just can’t keep this thing down.
But one thing about the future is for
sure. “The physical version of A Maze
Berlin is not replaceable,” insists the
press release that we’re initially sent (it
also explains that tickets bought for this
year’s event will remain valid for either
the 2021 or 2022 festivals). “A Maze
is a lot about hanging out together,”
Wiedemann explains. “It’s grouping, it’s
about hugging, it’s about high fives –
and also playing games together and
talking about the games, and reflecting
on what is happening, what happened
in the past and how A Maze is involved,
how the people are involved. I mean,
there’s a lot of people, from 2012 until
now, they were coming [to the festival]
all the time – and the way they do
games now has completely changed.
This is something that you probably can
only have when you really go to a
festival, and be there, and hang out
with like-minded people. You have this
feeling that you’re part of something
bigger. You’re not alone.” Q
Lena NW’s Nightmare
Temptation Academy
(above), a dating sim that
deals with a number of
provocative themes,
scooped this year’s ‘Most
Amazing Award’; Saam
Pahlavan’s Pre-Shave (left)
is one of our personal
favourites of the show. A
digital format made it
impossible to include
certain installation and
alternative controller games
up for awards: we had
hoped we might see a
virtual version of Adriaan de
Jongh’s forthcoming musical
party game Secret Shuffle.
Alas, it was not to be