Name: Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2025
Start: 2025-03-17T15:00Z
End: 2025-03-22T00:00Z
Location: Moscone Center

2020 Selected Controllers

Far Away Cage (Team Nuestromo): Far Away Cage is an immersive experience (heavily inspired by Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien) in which you play as a mechanic trapped in the escape pod of his spaceship. A creature roams in the hallways of the ship, and you have to guide the last survivor to your location in order to escape!
Plug-Plug (François Iakouchev, Matthieu Chapeland, Thomas Giuliani, Adrien Six): A multiplayer game made with love.
People of the Moon (Jean-Pierre Chastagnol, Maëlle Fanget, Simon Giraud, Jérémy Guarober, Morgan Jobbins, Louis le Gacq): A two-player cooperative game, People of the Moon lets you glide above a partying island to collect a maximum of lights. Once you have as many as you want, the people of the island can go to sleep. Now it's up to you to share those lights with other players, as stars and galaxies in the night sky.
Kaleida (Benjamin Mora-Davison, Justin McKague, Mary Andrea Arroz, Xinran Ma): Kaleida is an arcade-style alternative controller game where players must blast incoming enemies by pumping and tilting the Kaleida. Tilting the Kaleida rotates the game space, and pumping fires a laser that destroys enemies.
Neck 'n' Neck (Paraxonia Productions): Neck ‘n’ Neck is a 2D side scrolling “giraffe” racing game focused mainly towards children. Speed is controlled by dodging obstacles by moving the “giraffe's” neck up and down and jumping over ground obstacles.
The Unfathomed Voyager (Chenchen Ava Tan, Ruoxi Li, Boyi Liu, and Matthew Bofenkamp): Three players work together to pilot a malfunctioning submarine with the hope of capturing a blobfish. Each player has a unique control panel and one instruction to operate one control (which may or may not be on their control panel) in a specific way. Players must work together to make sure all tasks are followed.
Ready? Set. Haiya! (Geeky Planet Studio): Ready? Set. Haiya! is a motion-based fighting rhythm game, where players use an alternate controller, which is a live sized kung fu wooden dummy as the input, and try to imitate various kung-fu poses displayed on the screen on the wooden man, to eventually achieve a high score. The closer the match is, the higher you score.
Vincere (Red Planet Games): Vincere is THE top-down roman chariot racing game that puts players in control of their own chariot, using actual reins and balance boards. Prove your worth to the Roman Empire as a racing champion in the legendary Circus Maximus!
Guilty Smells (Molleindustria & Heather Kelley): Guilty Smells employs a custom made 4-channel scent diffuser controlled by an Arduino board. The Government has taken a major step in opposing foreign influence in our way of life. Starting today, the possession of UnAmerican food is illegal. You are a sniffing dog for the Department for the Enforcement of the American Diet. Your job is to approach the suspects, sniff them, and bark if you detect foreign food smell!
Our Sutured City (Tabitha Arnold, Corey Arnold, Richard Vallett, Andrew Cotter): An interactive tapestry game inspired by the golden age of point-and-click adventure games.
Wizard's Warehouse: The Magick of Retail (Mike Salyh): Do you have what it takes to run the busiest store in the kingdom? Wizard’s Warehouse is a collaborative, immersive, shopkeeping game. Wield a barcode scanner and get ready to serve up potions, swords, and mutton!
Pat Pat Please! (André Ruiz, Leticia de Vicq and Lucas Lima): Pat Pat Please! is an alternate control game in development! You can play the game by patting a dog! Here's it's trailer!
Ozone (Ozone Project): A game about communicating to survive, developed by students participating in a hackathon on the theme of alternative game controllers.
MAD - Mutually Assisted Destruction (Clément Amendola, Nicolas de Castro, Adrien Dourgnon, Emile Chuffart, Emmanuel Lataste, Samuel Tunnell): A cooperative game about an aircraft crew working together to take out enemy bombers.
Hug Machine (Gel Pen Collective): A silly game built with a dress form torso game controller.
Twined (Tissue Drop Games): Twined is a game about cooperation, climbing and the curious connection between the two player characters. Grab whoever is closest and master the challenges thrown at you.
Cursed! (WeHaveNoCat): A two-player game of competitive alchemy, replete with swirling cauldron.
Buy! Sell! (Mouse & the Billionaire): Buy! Sell! is a fast-paced multi-player stock trading game that uses analog telephones as game controllers. Watch a terminal full of charts, graphs and breaking news and make split second decisions to buy or sell stocks like, pizza, candy and gold. Dial the number for a stock and shout “Buy!” or “Sell!” into your phone before your competitors do. Their transactions will affect the stock price. The player with largest portfolio at the end of the trading day wins.
Milk!That!Cow! (MTC Industries): Introducing MTC Industries' groundbreaking competitive milking simulator!
The Sword (Takahiro Miyazawa): A great sword rests in an ancient stone. Can you free it?
Bruce and Box (Wataru Nakano x MIYAZAWORKS): Bruce and Box is an action game operated with a cardboard.

2019 alt.ctrl.GDC Exhibitors

Cathode Mk 1 (Public Games) Using multiple CRT monitors, Arduinos, Unity and a bunch of cables and soldering, Public Games' Ryan Mason was able to build a game console prototype that offered an entirely new space for game design.
The Book Ritual (Alistair Aitcheson) Because The Book Ritual is played using a book and shredder, players must do something that no purely digital game could ask them to do: permanently destroy something.
Guitar Wizards (Ben McInnes, Adoné Kitching, Jason Sutherland, Luc Wolthers) Guitar Wizards is a unique take on a rhythm game that lets players make music together. It can be played competitively, as players try to out-maneuver one another or it can be played cooperatively, as players settle into a groove and find a flow.
Plünge (Darryl Feniquito, Gavin Nelson, Jackson Lanaus, Sebastian Scaini, Sprite Man Vuk, Xin Zhang) This game is designed to be controlled via the unique motions and functions of a household toilet plunger. Interesting one-button game design keeps the mini-games fresh and exciting, while short play sessions allow people to come, plunge and leave without much commitment.
Table44 (Alon Adda) Table44 is a table designed for a number of participants, who play either as opponents or in collaboration. The game does not make use of conventional means of control such as a mouse or keyboard. It is played by touching sensors located on the table.
HOT SWAP: All Hands On Deck (Peter Gyory, Clement Zheng) HOT SWAP: All Hands On Deck is a two-player cooperative arcade survival game were players must swap out and trade inputs on their controllers survive the onslaught of approaching enemy ships.
Koo-Koo (Overtimers) In Koo-Koo you control a flock of mechanical birds with the mechanism of a cuckoo clock. The birds all move in their own tempo, which encourages the player to jump from clock to clock to give new commands.
ReLeap (Orbit Break) ReLeap is a casual 2D arcade runner game where you leap over rooftops and dodge obstacles to complete the level. The controls in ReLeap focus the player’s experience by capturing the game’s intended aesthetic goal: anticipation and release.
OVERTIME (Josh Delson, DePaul University) Based on the positive feedback from Extra Credits (YouTube channel), the team challenged themselves in creating an accessible alternative controller from a basketball toy. Partnering with the Idea Realization Lab in Chicago & DePaul University, OVERTIME was able to implement hardware the recorded player's movements with the alternative controller.
Machinaria (Black Mamba Studio) This game was designed specifically to be played in a retro-futuristic console studded with text readouts, knobs, buttons, and flashing lights. With this device, Machinaria is meant to give players the feeling of being an operator in charge of manipulating information to influence the public opinion.
Roambot (Jack Ford) A robot has fallen asleep in an armchair, and by adjusting his slumbering shell (including his twin antennae) you can explore his dreams via a nearby TV. It's designed to be played as a two-person cooperative game, with one player handling the antennae and the other the robot's arms and legs.
Neon Nemesis (Marcus Ford, Alexander Peck, Adam Olsson, Anton Berglund, Anna Malkan Nelson, Patrik Lindkvist, Petrut Raileanu) Neon Nemesis is a seemingly normal arcade game, sporting a colorful screen with 4 sets of joysticks and buttons awaiting players. But what you wouldn’t expect is that the game has a secret… a hidden entrance behind the arcade booth.
Ruins Climber (Takahiro Miyazawa) A game about the pleasure and the pain of climbing rope, replete with actual rope controllers.
Coal Rush (Team Moon Moon) Coal Rush is a game built around the physical experience of shoveling coal. Less emphasis is put on the game screen, which displays racing steam engines more as a motivation to the player to play and compete.
Cook Your Way (Enric Llagostera) Cook Your Way is very open about its political argument and sardonic humor, and the controller is central to that argument. Similarly to how the narrative and system focus on an immigration process that feels a lot like a cooking reality show, the controller extends that with a cooking set that feels very much like an inadequate, commodified version of migrant foodways.
Continuum Bacterium (HNRY) Continuum Bacterium uses two custom-made face shield 'controllers' paired with two custom fabricated control panels. In order to give each player their own "split-screen", the face-shields flicker a voltage-dependent privacy film at (safe) varying rates.
EXTRAREALITY CODEBREAKER (FLEB) A single-player puzzle game where each puzzle is designed in two parts. The first part uses a dial to interact with a small game, while the second part requires the player mimic that interaction outside of the controller.
Octopad (Patrick LeMieux) Instead of one controller with eight buttons, what if there were eight controllers with one button each? Instead of a single-player experience, what if Tetris was a team sport?
HELLCOUCH: A Couch Co-op Game (Carol Mertz, Francesca Carletto-Leon) Hellcouch subverts the idea of “couch co-op” local multiplayer video games by cutting out the video part of the game, moving the entire experience onto the couch itself. LED lights and audio serve as multimedia feedback as players interact with the couch cushions, which act as the game’s controller.
Tied Escape : Curse of Cortez (ATE Team) Tied Escape is characterized by simple instructions, but constrained capacity of movements. The orders are simply shown on a screen, but the buttons of the controller are scattered around the room, and the players have to move toward them hand in hand, while staying tied up on their chair, creating a true experience of two captured individuals trying to make the best of their situation.

2018 alt.ctrl.GDC Exhibitors

Striker Air Hockey (Guerrilla Nouveau) Guerrilla Nouveau has been hard at work on a new touchscreen technique. We made air hockey to demonstrate the possibilities of this low-resolution touch screen technique but couldn’t resist throwing in some extras.
Too Many Captains (And Not Enough Wire) (Avi Romanoff, Giada Sun) A game where two or more players work together to pilot a spaceship through outer space. The engineer has the controller, and they plug colored wires into panels on the game's controller. However, the engineer can't see the screen -- they need to rely on the other players, the captains -- to guide them to victory.
Vaccination (Installation Required) Two players must work together to keep the patient alive for as long as possible against the onslaught of bacteria racing towards the patient's heart. One player is in charge of scanning the body, on the lookout for the bacteria and relaying what vaccine and where the other player, equipped with the injector, should administer.
Clunker Junker (HNRY) Clunker Junker is an experimental arcade game in which two players attempt to keep their space transport intact as they outrun space pirates through an asteroid field. As the ship takes damage in-game, physical panels will fall off of the ships 4 main modules, disabling them until they are repaired using the custom-made repair tool.
Grave Call (Totally Not a Game Studio) Grave Call is a time-based, asymmetrical multiplayer game based on communication between two players, one is buried alive and one is a police dispatcher. A phone holds clues for the coffin’s location, which has to be identified before the phone battery runs out.
Living Orb (Jonathan Giroux) - Living Orb is a tangible game console, with which you can easily create your own enlightened games. The device is a sphere covered by LEDs. It's like its surface is the screen! And you only control it by rotating it, that's all. This allows for unique games!
Wind Golf (PepijnWillekens) - A game where you play golf by blowing on physical sensors!
Puppet Pandemonium (Fluffy Games) - A puppet show video game that uses the puppets as the controllers and has an element of audience participation.
Disco is Dead! (Third Floor Games) - Disco is Dead!is a 2-player buddy cop comedy horror arcade game that follows the story of Reggie and Kenny -- two disco-loving cops who must save their city from a zombie outbreak with their ultimate handy dandy weapon… slapping! The game plays with slappable zombie heads and disco ball controllers for a more immersive experience!
Voiceball (Alex Turbyfield, Stephen Borden, Ilya Polyakov, Talal Alothman, Ali Yaldrim) Voiceball is like foosball played with your voice. Using microphones, players hit the ball with a waveform representation of their voice. Make sounds to create waves to hit the ball into the other player's goal in this party game pitting your vocal skills against your friends.
Wobble Garden (Robin Baumgarten) - Wobble Garden is a hand-crafted arrangement of sensing springs combined with reactive lighting. Players wobble springs to interact with the installation and play games. It creates a unique visual and tactile experience and will be scalable to a several meters large installation.
Unicornelia (The Sad Rainbows) - A game about the life of a young unicorn with an office job, played by mounting a horn on your head and inserting it into special motion-sensing compartments while also managing emotions via special pressure-sensitive pillows.
Mark Wars (MatthieuAlves, Louis Bernot, Alessandro Cheinisse, Gaëtan Cloarec, Florian Eschalier, Matthias Johan, Pierre Llanusa) - Our intention was to make a game accessible for a wide audience using no screen and one instinctive button. With Mark Wars, using a marker pen, the players will be able to trace their own unique path! This path will be followed by the player's small model ship (either a TIE Fighter or X-Wing) and can be altered by the opponent.
Pump the Frog (7 Holy Frogges) - Pump the Frog is a 2d-puzzle-platformer where you control the Frog and your environment, roll, slip and squeeze around the levels, devouring any fly in your path!
Bot Party (Phoenix Perry and Frieda Abtan) - Bot Party in an interactive sound experience for humans. The bots have a problem. They have no way to communicate with their friends. Can you help?
Yo, Bartender! (Kraken) - Yo, Bartender! puts you in the shoes of a modern-day bartender mixing cocktails in a bustling city. Survive the night rush by mixing and serving as fast as you can while making sure you always have the orders right. Do you have what it takes to be a bartender?
Doors to the City (Looking Glass) - An artist is lost in the divisions of his mind as he attempts to organize the vast arrays of his own creative process. The planets of his mind, NYC-LA-Newark-Oakland, take shape as he comes to battle them in their own respective ways.
Lemonade (Jing Sun, Yaying Zeng, Yuchen Huang, Ziqiang He) - A two-player game in which each player controls one (real) water pipe they can use to control the angle and flow of virtual on-screen water pipes. Shoot lemons, avoid cupcakes, make lemonade!
Hi-5 Heroes (Bobby Lockhart and Marty Meinerz) - Hi-5 Heroes is a 2-player cooperative rhythm game where two people high-five, low-five, and fist-bump to the beat.
Scissors The That Than and Shcocoococo VS (Miyazaworks) - One is a a game played with huge scissors controller. Use the joystick on the left to move, press the button on the right to search nearest enemies, cut the enemies in order to survive. The other is a multiplayer game in which you use special soap bottle controllers (modified with a Raspberry Pi) to control an on-screen soap bottle bird. Depress the soap bottle nozzle, and the bird will shoot liquid at germs!

2017 alt.ctrl.GDC Exhibitors

Orpheus Quest (Anibal Hormeche, Raul Palavecino, Laura Palavecino) A video game experience with a unique control method, where the participant of the experience must control Orpheus in the Underworld.
Schadenfreude (Courtney Snavely, Seung Whan Lee, Paul Frank Mallon, Kevin Constantino) Schadenfreude is a game staged on a physical controller about that one asshole on the elevator that can’t seem to remember their floor or presses all of the wrong buttons ON PURPOSE. Fun for all ages. Game play short enough to not destroy friendships.
Fear Sphere (New Arcade): Fear Sphere is an experimental game aimed at bridging the gap between the real world and the digital world--without the use of VR.
F.O. Bellies (Miyeon Kim, Yue Lin, Xianghan Ma, Xiaomeng Tang [Maximity]): A color trick game that requires the players to find the color of the word, not the text of the word itself.
Superbrin (Studio Bruyant) A reinterpretation of traditional games from Picardie (France).
Cylindrus (Jerrytron) A game of light played around a cylindrical field of play. Up to four players move wirelessly around the cylinder of 600 LEDs as they attempt to control the battlefield, shrouded in a natural fog-of-war.
Shape Fitter (Haptic Controller) A game for the Haptic Controller. It explores intricate manipulation of 3D geometric shapes of varying complexity. The player needs to move and orient the shapes in 3D space to fit through a corresponding shape-cradle in a moving wall.
Doggy Tug-Of-War (Martín Sebastián Wain): Physically pull a real, responsive string to play tug-of-war against a virtual dog. The stubborn "dog" is a motor that pulls and releases with different force settings at intervals and synchronizes with precision with a video in a monitor. Especially fun for children.
Victor the Loser (Chuck Kuan, Chao-Hui Tu, Yumeng Wang, Magnus Pind, Xianghan Ma) Victor the Loser is a game controller that you play with it, and it is a bad loser. Seemingly a regular home arcade game machine, Victor only reveals its true colors when it feels threatened by the player’s imminent victory, at which point it will try to sabotage the player’s progress with an arsenal of tools.
vinylOS (Josef Who? & Jonas Bo): vinylOS is an alt.ctrl game console and media art installation based on a DJ turntable. The turntable is transformed into a screen by projecting onto it from above. Simultaneously it takes on the role of the input-device: by spinning, scratching or rewinding the vinyl you can control a game or other interactive content.
Emotional Fugitive Detector (Alexander King, Samuel Von Ehren, Noca Wu): A two-player cooperative game which uses the human face as both its primary controller and screen. One player’s face is scanned for emotions by the installation robot’s face tracking technology. The other tries to determine which emotion is being scanned for.
Zombie Crawler (Anders Karlsson, Ida Andersson-Junkka, Louise Fändriks, Linda Thern, Erik Nord, Adrian Lavrell) An arcade Zombie Game controlled by crawling on on a treadmill-like controller. Goal is to get the human at the end of the corridor.
Objects in Space (Flat Earth Games) A modem-punk stealth space-trading game for PC, Mac and Linux set in Apollo – a huge cluster of star systems dozens of lightyears away from Earth. You are a lonesome ship’s captain, buying and selling wares in order to keep your bucket of bolts afloat and stay one step ahead of pirates, organized criminals, corrupt governments and shady laws.
Spacebox (James Keats, Amanda Ledwidge, Jake Pierce, Robin Shafto, Ricky Rizzo, Dennis Dysart) Childhood is a magical time when we make believe, taking ourselves on any adventure we imagine. Our submission to the Alt.Ctrl.GDC is meant to bring that childhood wonder to life.
Sand Garden (DigiPen Team Psylight, DigiPen Institute of Technology) An experimental game using a physical box of sand as its primary input device. The world of Sand Garden is populated by several villages. As the sculptor of this land, you are trying to make as many villages as possible happy by growing them.
Super Furry Neon Cat Heads (The Super Furry Neon Cat Heads) Played in a furry VR Cat Head, using a sensor filled cat tower as a controller, for a “meow-mixing” rhythm game.
Cryptogram (The S. Crew) A horror-themed puzzle-game inspired by the hidden door behind a bookshelf-trope. When finding themselves trapped inside a strange house, the player has to go from room to room, each containing a puzzle.
RotoRing (Gregory Kogos) The hardware circular puzzle-platformer with pretty lights and clicky knobs.
Close the Leaks (to prevent imminent death) (Henning Steinbock, Samuel Chapman) Four players are needed to close a spaceship's air leaks to keep breathing. Releasing air however is the only way to steer the spaceship.
The Heist (Setapp) You know that scene from The Matrix where Neo is talking with the operator looking for a telephone box? They both need to rely on each other but can only talk to get out of The Matrix. We took that concept and built a game around it.

2016 alt.ctrl.GDC Exhibitors

Wiz (Minds N Hands [Toi Ngee Tan, Yuichiro Katsumoto, Kesaku Kawauichi, and Liew Feng Ming]) Described as the world's first transformable controller, the folks behind Wiz will be demonstrating the bendable, twistable, swingable controller with a selection of games.
Crank Tank (Henry Lam, Andrew Genualdi, Jaeseong Yi) Crank Tank is a multiplayer arcade game utilizing two custom built crank-controllers which players must use to drive their tanks and destroy the enemy base.
Little Book (CNAM-ENJMIN) Little Book is a highly immersive game who works with an Oculus Rift and a real book to offer unique feelings.
Ziff (Alejandra Molina [with illustrations by Line Birgitte and music by Nifflas]) Ziff is best described as a game that blurs the lines between toys and screens, as players explore a virtual world by building and reconfiguring a physical toy.
Disruption (Spooky Elephant, Hull University, UK) Two familiar games with a novel symbiotic interaction through a custom built, customizable controller.
Hello, Operator! (Mike Lazer-Walker) Hello, Operator! is a game about being a telephone switchboard operator in the 1930s, played by connecting calls with patch cables on a physical reproduction of a manual telephone exchange.
The Von Neumann Personality Test (Matt Hudgins) Over the phone, discover your true self with the help of a deranged automated psychiatrist.
DOBOTONE (Maximo Balestrini and Hernan Saez [Videogamo]) DOBOTONE is a 4-player video game console by Videogamo, specially designed for parties, in which each player has only a two-button controller with no joystick, and the possibility of choosing between different built-in party games, selecting playing modes and modifying gameplay by using the console's physical control board's features, such as speed, gravity and glitching, among others.
Operator (Killigan Industies) Operator is a fully accurate simulation of the typical working day for a Killigan Industries Orbital Extermination Satellite operator.
Suck My Rainbow (Triband) A colorful vacuuming experience!
Planet Licker (Azuria Sky, Frank DeMarco, Otis Denner-Kenny and Mouth Arcade) Planet Licker is an action game played by licking flavored ice pops in real life on a USB-connected controller.
Petitwo (Steph Caskenette) Petitwo is a collaborative game in which players take turns controlling an electronic zoetrope to lead a flock of migrating birds across North America, with each playthrough advancing the overall journey home.
Disc Jockey Jockey (Mildmojo) Disc Jockey Jockey is an audio game about listening to a handful of radio DJs and keeping them on-air after massive equipment failure.
Please Stand By (Jerry Belich and Victor Thompson) Please Stand By is an interactive story about the past, using the body of a vintage 1951 Capehart television and its dozen-plus controls as an expressive medium, including adjusting the rabbit ears and physically striking the device.
ROTATOR (Robin Baumgarten and Petri Autio) A multi-purpose force-feedback controller of three concentric wheels.
Threadsteading (Gillian Smith, April Grow, Chenxi Liu, Lea Albaugh, Jen Mankoff, and Jim McCann) A single-line, two-player, territory-control game for quilting and embroidery machines.
Palimpseste (Le Chant du Cygne) Palimpseste is a first person exploration game played with a custom FR (filtered reality) helmet that enables players to change the color filter through which they look at the screen.
Fabulous Beasts (Sensible Object) Fabulous Beasts is a mixture of physical tabletop game and digital game; build a tower on your tabletop out of beast-shaped pieces, then see them pop into a fabulous world on the screen of a connected device.
Slap Friends! Dispute Resolution Simulator (Pretty Fox Games) Put on a custom "Wear-A-Buddy" fashionable-hat-friend-cuddly-game-controller and compete in our virtual slap fight simulator!
OCTOBO (Yuting Su) OCTOBO is an interactive storytelling plush octopus companion that will respond to storybook cues and player interactions.

2015 alt.ctrl.GDC Exhibitors

Line Wobbler (Robin Baumgarten)
Venus Box (Petri Autio and Robin Baumgarten)
Book of Fate (Akshay Ramesh, Jaekyun (Brandon) Kang, Yeongmin Elizabeth Won, Shengze Zhang, Nigel Randall, Timothy Staton-Davis)
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (Steel Crate Games)
Robo Mama's Cooking Kitchen (Kristina Durivage and Jerry Belich)
Desert Mini-Golfing (Glitchnap)
F.T.E.R.G.L.O.W. (Jerry Belich)
Ferdinand Laboite (Team Ferdinand)
What Hath God Wrought? (Mike Lazer-Walker)
TriPad (Alexander Krasij)
Deluxe Turbo Racing 360 (Super Soul)
Unknown Radio (Anthony Kozak)
Homies (Sam Sheffield)
Hexed Heart (Sam Sheffield)
Butt Sniffin Pugs (Space Beagles)
DodecaLEDron (Alan Zucconi)
Spacebro Justice Rocket (Rad Sandwich Games)
Snail Run (ENIAROF)