Bologna Game Farm 2022: press conference

Farafter, Monster chef, The first hand, Ryoko are the 4 winners of the 2022 edition of Bologna Game Farm, a project financed by the Emilia-Romagna Region and coordinated by the Municipality of Bologna

The selected teams will begin the acceleration program from January at the Serre dei Giardini Margherita in Bologna

Bologna, 1st of December 2022 – Four new teams of developers from Emilia Romagna join the ranks of the second edition of Bologna Game Farm, the project for the development of the videogame industry promoted by the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Municipality of Bologna, coordinated by the Municipality of Bologna as part of the support actions for cultural and creative industries in collaboration with IncrediBOL! and ART-ER S.Cons.p.A and created with IIDEA – Italian Interactive & Digital Entertainment Association.

The 4 teams selected through a public call, as it was for last year’s pilot edition, will receive a contribution of 30,000 euros each and a tailor-made acceleration program to develop videogame projects with an adequate marketing strategy with the help and guidance of professionals from IIDEA.

A report on the videogame field in Emilia Romagna carried out in 2021 reports that 18% of Italian videogame development studios reside in Emilia-Romagna. Some of these operate on mobile, the largest and fastest growing segment in the videogame industry, which can allow one to develop relationships with the innovation ecosystem by favoring collaborations with other fields and industries.

Here is the list of winners:

Sabatino Panella (Cesenatico – FC) with the FARAFTER project, an open-world, single-player RPG videogame with a turn-based combat system. The game, with graphics based on pixel art, focuses on the player’s ability to influence events in the game world with different choice trees and complex morality systems.

Gregorio Zanacchi Nuti (Bologna) with the MONSTER CHEF project, a hack and slash roguelike video game with resource management components. Players impersonate Pranzo, a novice of the Order of the Good Fork, a prestigious organization of warrior cooks. The aim of the game is to help the protagonist manage an inn and satisfy the palates (refined and not) of the inhabitants of the world of Delizia, creating dishes that use fantasy monsters as ingredients.

Nonstudio (Cesenatico – FC) with THE FIRST HAND project, a humorous roguelike deckbuilder video game that takes the player into the original world of Zirria where, after centuries of peace, something is changing and it’s up to the player to investigate: exploring, creating his own small empire, increasing his power and defeating his enemies with rock, paper and scissors.

Kodama Studio (Sant’Agata Feltria – RN) with the RYOKO project, a scrolling adventure puzzle game with platform parts. The protagonist is Ryoko, an apprentice priestess of light capable of using torii to reach a parallel reality to the known world: the world of spirits.

The acceleration process will begin in January at the Serre di ART-ER, a space dedicated to innovative startups and hubs of the regional ecosystem to support business creation. The coaching will be managed by IIDEA through local members, with the coordination of Ivan Venturi and the tutors Luca Marchetti and Gerardo Verna and the involvement of the network of IIDEA members.

The objectives of Bologna Game Farm, one of the first video game accelerators in Italy, are the consolidation and professionalization of the videogame sector in Emilia-Romagna, the importance of this industry as a cultural factor and an element of economic growth of the regional production system as well as socialization and inclusion. Furthermore, the relationship between the videogame industry of Emilia Romagna, the other productive sectors of the area and the players in the regional innovation ecosystem is constantly promoted through the Bologna Game Farm.