{"id":1496,"date":"2022-09-22T07:37:46","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T05:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/81.95.125.200\/~geekypen\/?p=1496"},"modified":"2025-08-27T15:21:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:21:30","slug":"festival-international-jeux-cannes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/festival-international-jeux-cannes\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannes, Baby!!"},"content":{"rendered":"[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”]\n\t\t\t[et_pb_row admin_label=”row”]\n\t\t\t\t[et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]\n

Ah, the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur\u2026 Where dreams are born, beers are ridiculously expensive, and the rich and famous walk the red carpet. For weeks, I\u2019d been looking forward to doing some networking and jetsetting in the South of France.

On the morning of my departure though, several heavy storms were sweeping across Belgium. On one end of the country, people\u2019s basements were overflooding and on the other, shingles were flying off of people\u2019s roofs. Naturally, this caused lots of delays with public transport, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Off to a Great Start<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because of the emergency weather conditions, public transport was considerably delayed. My train to the airport arrived late, and I managed to stumble through the airport gate exactly 1 minute before it closed. I was literally the last person on the plane as I rushed across the tarmac, the wind and rain lashing at my face. It was close, but I had made it!

Well, almost\u2026

We still had to wait inside the plane for an entire hour before take-off, because there was a problem with one of the engines\u2026 I didn\u2019t let it get to me though.

After all, I was going to Cannes, baby!!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Blue skies over Nice<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Magical, relaxing beaches everywhere!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A little under two hours later, I was rewarded for all my struggles. From the plane we could already see that the skies in Nice were blue and the weather was a sunny 19\u00b0C. I ended up spending two wonderful days in Nice before hopping on the train to Cannes, where all the magic was about to happen..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visiting Clients New and Old<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I arrived in Cannes on Wednesday, one day before the start of the festival. People were already lining up at the ticket office to pick up their professional badges and complementary tote bags. Everyone was already in good spirits, and I ended up spending the rest of the day admiring the amazing coastline.

The next morning, my batteries were fully recharged. Thursday is the opening day of the fair, and it\u2019s dedicated solely to professionals. The general public isn\u2019t allowed in until Friday, so it was the perfect time to casually stroll past the booths and have some informal conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Preparing for the storm<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Discovering the fair on Thursday<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I dropped by some of our clients\u2019 booths, and it was fulfilling to see some of the games The Geeky Pen has been working on over the past year. I ran into my contact Ludovic at the <\/em>Helvetiq<\/strong> booth, and he showed me the final versions of <\/em>Oh My Ring!<\/em> (which we localized into English, Spanish, Italian and Dutch), and <\/em>Art Robbery <\/em>(Spanish).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next stop: the team over at <\/em>Geek Attitude Games<\/strong>. I\u2019ve been working for these guys since 2016 and it\u2019s always been a breeze. They invite me over to <\/em>their headquarters<\/a> whenever they have new prototypes, and since they\u2019re Belgian, they\u2019re always up for a few beers. They were showing off their brand new releases <\/em>Aquarena<\/em> (for which we did English, Dutch and German) and <\/em>Magellan<\/em> (English, Dutch), a card game with an interesting twist on bidding.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Oh My Ring! (Helvetiq – EN, ES, IT, NL)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Trek 12: Amazonia (Geronimo Games – NL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Last but not least, a special place in my heart goes out to <\/em>Midnight Murder Mysteries<\/em> by <\/em>Multifaces \u00c9ditions<\/strong>. I\u2019ve been working on and off on the English version of the game for a few years now, and it\u2019s definitely a labor of love on the part of the publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Players are detectives on a cruise ship, trying to solve a murder that takes place around midnight. They have to figure out who was the culprit,  under what circumstances the victim died, and what the killer\u2019s motive was. They do this by interrogating suspects, bribing each other for information, and cross-referencing the evidence they find.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Midnight Murder Mysteries comes with over a dozen cases in the base box, and we\u2019re constantly working on new cases for the expansions as the crowdfunding launch date for the second edition draws closer. People who enjoy detective style adventure games should definitely keep an eye out for this game when it launches on Kickstarter later this year.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Magellan (Geek Attitude Games – EN, NL)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Midnight Murder Mysteries (Multifaces \u00c9d. – EN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eyecatchers of the Fair<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There were also two games I was desperate to try. IKI<\/em> is the latest release from Sorry We Are French<\/strong>, which The Geeky Pen translated into Dutch for Geronimo Games<\/strong>.

IKI is actually a modern-day reprint of a game from 2015, with upgraded components. The game takes place in Japan\u2019s Edo era: players are moving around a marketplace in a rondel-style fashion, hiring merchants, constructing buildings and trying to put out fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
IKI (Geronimo Games – NL)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Living Forest (Asmodee – NL)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s Living Forest<\/em> by Ludonaute<\/strong>, which we translated into Dutch for Asmodee<\/strong>. Both games were nominated for the As d\u2019Or<\/em>: the French game of the year award. On Friday night during the award ceremony, Living Forest actually won the family game category!

Living Forest is a family game that combines deck building and push-your-luck. You can keep drawing cards from your deck as much as you want but if you bust, you basically lose half of your turn. There are plenty of ways to mitigate that though, and there are three very different ways to win the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Games, Debates and Other Quirkiness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s so special about the Festival International de Jeux (FIJ) is that Cannes is a relatively small town, and the festival\u2019s atmosphere was palpable as I was walking around the city.

Billboards were present all around town to let people know there\u2019s something special going on, and you could even play an outdoor version of Micro Macro Crime City, by looking out for signs and scanning QR codes near several of the city\u2019s important sightseeing locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Life-sized Micro Macro Crime City!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, there were also a number of interesting panels and debates. We attended one about Instagram and board gaming, and discovered that many publishers are starting to realize the value of this social media platform for advertising.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the FIJ offers more than the traditional publisher booths. There were tournaments with fun prizes, a booth with retro arcade games, and even initiation lessons on how to fight with a lightsaber.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cannes skyline from the castle<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Lightsaber fighting initiations<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions After a Week of Heavy Networking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I spent many hours running from one booth to the next, setting up meetings, handing out tons of business cards and meeting some amazing and passionate designers and publishers. I arrived back home tired but satisfied, and guess what \u2013 even the weather had cleared up!

My week at the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur was absolutely magical \u2013 better than I could have ever imagined! It\u2019s safe to say that The Geeky Pen will be attending the festival every year from here on out.

Besides, I made a new friend\u2026 So I definitely have to return next year to tell him all about the crazy adventures we\u2019ve been up to!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hitting it off with Chewie!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column]\n\t\t\t[\/et_pb_row]\n\t\t[\/et_pb_section]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur\u2026 Where dreams are born, beers are ridiculously expensive, and the rich and famous walk the red carpet. For weeks, I\u2019d been looking forward to doing some networking and jetsetting in the South of France.On the morning of my departure though, several heavy storms were sweeping across Belgium. On one end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n

Ah, the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur\u2026 Where dreams are born, beers are ridiculously expensive, and the rich and famous walk the red carpet. For weeks, I\u2019d been looking forward to doing some networking and jetsetting in the South of France.

On the morning of my departure though, several heavy storms were sweeping across Belgium. On one end of the country, people\u2019s basements were overflooding and on the other, shingles were flying off of people\u2019s roofs. Naturally, this caused lots of delays with public transport, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Off to a Great Start<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because of the emergency weather conditions, public transport was considerably delayed. My train to the airport arrived late, and I managed to stumble through the airport gate exactly 1 minute before it closed. I was literally the last person on the plane as I rushed across the tarmac, the wind and rain lashing at my face. It was close, but I had made it!

Well, almost\u2026

We still had to wait inside the plane for an entire hour before take-off, because there was a problem with one of the engines\u2026 I didn\u2019t let it get to me though.

After all, I was going to Cannes, baby!!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Blue skies over Nice<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Magical, relaxing beaches everywhere!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A little under two hours later, I was rewarded for all my struggles. From the plane we could already see that the skies in Nice were blue and the weather was a sunny 19\u00b0C. I ended up spending two wonderful days in Nice before hopping on the train to Cannes, where all the magic was about to happen..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visiting Clients New and Old<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I arrived in Cannes on Wednesday, one day before the start of the festival. People were already lining up at the ticket office to pick up their professional badges and complementary tote bags. Everyone was already in good spirits, and I ended up spending the rest of the day admiring the amazing coastline.

The next morning, my batteries were fully recharged. Thursday is the opening day of the fair, and it\u2019s dedicated solely to professionals. The general public isn\u2019t allowed in until Friday, so it was the perfect time to casually stroll past the booths and have some informal conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Preparing for the storm<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Discovering the fair on Thursday<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I dropped by some of our clients\u2019 booths, and it was fulfilling to see some of the games The Geeky Pen has been working on over the past year. I ran into my contact Ludovic at the <\/em>Helvetiq<\/strong> booth, and he showed me the final versions of <\/em>Oh My Ring!<\/em> (which we localized into English, Spanish, Italian and Dutch), and <\/em>Art Robbery <\/em>(Spanish).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next stop: the team over at <\/em>Geek Attitude Games<\/strong>. I\u2019ve been working for these guys since 2016 and it\u2019s always been a breeze. They invite me over to <\/em>their headquarters<\/a> whenever they have new prototypes, and since they\u2019re Belgian, they\u2019re always up for a few beers. They were showing off their brand new releases <\/em>Aquarena<\/em> (for which we did English, Dutch and German) and <\/em>Magellan<\/em> (English, Dutch), a card game with an interesting twist on bidding.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Oh My Ring! (Helvetiq - EN, ES, IT, NL)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Trek 12: Amazonia (Geronimo Games - NL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Last but not least, a special place in my heart goes out to <\/em>Midnight Murder Mysteries<\/em> by <\/em>Multifaces \u00c9ditions<\/strong>. I\u2019ve been working on and off on the English version of the game for a few years now, and it\u2019s definitely a labor of love on the part of the publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Players are detectives on a cruise ship, trying to solve a murder that takes place around midnight. They have to figure out who was the culprit,  under what circumstances the victim died, and what the killer\u2019s motive was. They do this by interrogating suspects, bribing each other for information, and cross-referencing the evidence they find.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Midnight Murder Mysteries comes with over a dozen cases in the base box, and we\u2019re constantly working on new cases for the expansions as the crowdfunding launch date for the second edition draws closer. People who enjoy detective style adventure games should definitely keep an eye out for this game when it launches on Kickstarter later this year.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Magellan (Geek Attitude Games - EN, NL)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Midnight Murder Mysteries (Multifaces \u00c9d. - EN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eyecatchers of the Fair<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There were also two games I was desperate to try. IKI<\/em> is the latest release from Sorry We Are French<\/strong>, which The Geeky Pen translated into Dutch for Geronimo Games<\/strong>.

IKI is actually a modern-day reprint of a game from 2015, with upgraded components. The game takes place in Japan\u2019s Edo era: players are moving around a marketplace in a rondel-style fashion, hiring merchants, constructing buildings and trying to put out fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
IKI (Geronimo Games - NL)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Living Forest (Asmodee - NL)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s Living Forest<\/em> by Ludonaute<\/strong>, which we translated into Dutch for Asmodee<\/strong>. Both games were nominated for the As d\u2019Or<\/em>: the French game of the year award. On Friday night during the award ceremony, Living Forest actually won the family game category!

Living Forest is a family game that combines deck building and push-your-luck. You can keep drawing cards from your deck as much as you want but if you bust, you basically lose half of your turn. There are plenty of ways to mitigate that though, and there are three very different ways to win the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Games, Debates and Other Quirkiness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s so special about the Festival International de Jeux (FIJ) is that Cannes is a relatively small town, and the festival\u2019s atmosphere was palpable as I was walking around the city.

Billboards were present all around town to let people know there\u2019s something special going on, and you could even play an outdoor version of Micro Macro Crime City, by looking out for signs and scanning QR codes near several of the city\u2019s important sightseeing locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Life-sized Micro Macro Crime City!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, there were also a number of interesting panels and debates. We attended one about Instagram and board gaming, and discovered that many publishers are starting to realize the value of this social media platform for advertising.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the FIJ offers more than the traditional publisher booths. There were tournaments with fun prizes, a booth with retro arcade games, and even initiation lessons on how to fight with a lightsaber.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cannes skyline from the castle<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Lightsaber fighting initiations<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions After a Week of Heavy Networking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I spent many hours running from one booth to the next, setting up meetings, handing out tons of business cards and meeting some amazing and passionate designers and publishers. I arrived back home tired but satisfied, and guess what \u2013 even the weather had cleared up!

My week at the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur was absolutely magical \u2013 better than I could have ever imagined! It\u2019s safe to say that The Geeky Pen will be attending the festival every year from here on out.

Besides, I made a new friend\u2026 So I definitely have to return next year to tell him all about the crazy adventures we\u2019ve been up to!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hitting it off with Chewie!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-geeky-adventures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1496"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3153,"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions\/3153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geekypen.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}