by Tobias Winnerling In June 2025, the CH Ludens team had the pleasure to welcome Tobias Winnerling (Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf) for a guest lecture at the University of Bern as part of our yearly workshop. This year’s workshop, organized by the Bern team of CH Ludens, focused on historical source criticism and the problems and possibilities of historical sources such as games, gaming magazines, and oral history interviews, and we started with said guest lecture, titled “Digi...| Confoederatio Ludens
by Beat Suter The research team CH-Ludens specialises in researching Swiss computer games from the 1980s and 1990s. While searching for Commodore C64 games developed in Switzerland, CH-Ludens discovered several interesting titles. Robox (1986), for example, is a graphic adventure game developed by Laro Schatzer and Marc Pilloud (fig. 1). Adrian Demleitner, PhD candidate of the HKB researched it in depth and made two interviews with the developers. The German-language game features numerous ...| Confoederatio Ludens
by Aurelia Brandenburg, Addrich Mauch, and Kevin Negele In April 2024, the Bern Team of CH Ludens announced that we were starting to collect gaming magazines relevant to our research as part of our GameLab, which in turn is a collaboration between the Bern Academy of the Arts and the University of Bern at the … Continue reading From Zero to Kilo: Status report on the Bern GameLab| Confoederatio Ludens
von Beat Suter „A Walk on the Wild Side“ hiess ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der Jugendszenen in der Schweiz, das 1997 vom Stapherhaus Lenzburg herausgegeben wurde. Es war eine umfassende Darstellung der Jugendkulturen der Schweiz im 20. Jahrhundert, die auch in zwei Ausstellungen in Lenzburg und Bern gezeigt wurde. Jugend wurde von den Autoren als Seismograph der Gesellschaft verstanden, die sich herrschenden Normen und Kultur widersetze sowie Aufbruch und innovative Kraft in sich vereine....| Confoederatio Ludens
by Beat Suter So far, CH-Ludens has only been able to identify and archive just four listing games that were created in Switzerland. All four oft hem were printed as winners in computer magazines and therefore available as printed source code in archives that preserve computer magazines. These are the games Jagdszene Chicago (1985) by Christoph Cronimund, Cave Flight (1985) by René Straub, Top Tennis (1985) by Bernhard Dalle and Muri (1987) by Markus Wild and Marius Wey. Of course, in the ea...| Confoederatio Ludens
by the CH Ludens Team Anyone who has already worked on a scientific project knows that an interim scientific report has to be written for the funding body halfway through the project. This is probably one of the less popular text genres. You are under time pressure and the number of readers is very limited. … Continue reading Where we stand: Our scientific mid-term report| Confoederatio Ludens
von Beat Suter Verpackung für Videogames ist obsolet geworden. Heute werden 90% aller Spiele als Daten gestreamt oder übers Internet heruntergeladen. Nur ein kleiner Teil der Videogames erhält noch eine Verpackung und wird in Elektronikläden in die Regale gestellt. Früher war das ganz anders. Ein Videogame wollte inszeniert sein, es musste durch seine Verpackung Aufmerksamkeit … Continue reading Eine Box ist nicht nur eine Box: Game Verpackung im Wandel der Zeit| Confoederatio Ludens
by Beat Suter Packaging for video games has become obsolete. Today, 90% of all games are streamed as data or downloaded via the internet. Only a small proportion of video games are still packaged and placed on shelves in electronics stores. It used to be very different. A video game had to attract attention through … Continue reading A Box is not just a Box: Game packaging in the course of time| Confoederatio Ludens
by Adrian Demleitner & Eugen Pfister Setting the Stage “The Vintage Computer Festival Zurich is committed to the preservation and revitalisation of historical computers and technologies and brings past eras of computer technology to life.” (https://vintagecomputerfestival.ch/ translated by the authors). The first Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) took place in 2013, originally in Winterthur. In 2016, the festival moved to Zurich, where it is still held annually today. Here former and curren...| Confoederatio Ludens
by Arno Görgen, Addrich Mauch & Kevin Negele “I think I’ll be holding a controller in my hand until I drop dead. And you can’t take this from me anymore. It’s a bit of a way of life, all these cultures.” (Sascha Böhme, I29, 19.07.2024, 01:26:43)1 1. Introduction While many of our colleagues at CH … Continue reading Diving into Early Swiss Player Cultures with Swiss Gamescapes Plus – Methodological Approach and Early Phase Report| Confoederatio Ludens
von Beat Suter Der Video Game Publisher Black Legend wurde 1992 in der Schweiz von Richard M. Holmes gegründet. Holmes lebte in Uster, war hier aufgewachsen und hatte gerade die KZO Wetzikon abgeschlossen. Der 20jährige Jungunternehmer wollte Spiele für Amiga Computer produzieren und auf den Markt bringen. Er sah sich in der Schweiz nach Mitstreitern … Continue reading Richard M. Holmes und die Hochpreisinsel Schweiz| Confoederatio Ludens
by Beat Suter LINEL – Swiss Game Publisher:Part 1 – A comprehensive list of LINEL’S gamesPart 2 – Collaborations and unreleased gamesPart 3 – People and Work at LINELPart 4 – Publishing and Marketing (expected) The following text originally appeared here. LINEL was a software developer and game publisher based in Switzerland. The label was … Continue reading LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher 3: From Eureka! to the Neverending Story – People and Work at LINEL| Confoederatio Ludens
by Beat Suter LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher: Part 1 – A comprehensive list of LINEL’S games Part 2 – Collaborations and unreleased games Part 3 – Working for LINEL – is in progress The following text originally appeared here. (First published on CH Ludens on 19.10.2023, now in a new, significally extended version … Continue reading LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher 2: Collaborations and Unreleased Games| Confoederatio Ludens
by Beat Suter LINEL – Swiss Game Publisher:Part 1 – A comprehensive list of LINEL’S gamesPart 2 – Collaborations and unreleased gamesPart 3 – Working for LINEL – is in progress The following text originally appeared here. (First published on CH Ludens on 11.10.2023, now in a new, significally extended version from 29.05.2024.) LINEL was … Continue reading LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher 1: A complete list of LINEL’s games| Confoederatio Ludens
by Pierre-Yves Hurel Context : This paper is part of a dossier about “Computer” exhibition. In the first part (link), I detailed my methodological choices, presented the corpus of newpsaper sources and a chronology of the “Computer” exhibition. In the second part (link), I have shown to what extent show was integrated into a context … Continue reading The “Computer” exhibition of Lausanne. Part 4: On the margins of “Computer”: cultural production| Confoederatio Ludens
