Art and gaming come together this December at Cape Town’s Playtopia MGA

Are you keen on locally-produced video games and art? Based on the response to our Boet Fighter review at least a few of you are. If you’re in the Cape Town region in early December (and you really should be — we hear it’s lovely this time of year), it’d be a plan to check out Playtopia MGA.

If you want to play the game…

Like last year’s event, Playtopia MGA is set to be an arts and gaming festival celebrating what local talent can do in those spheres. There are a range of events and experiences planned for the weekend of 5 to 7 December. Like last year, Playtopia takes place at the Castle of Good Hope. More than 40 indie games, interactive experiences, or so-called ‘digital adventures’ will be on offer, as well as a range of talks (which cost extra — see below).

Artists will be exhibiting (and those exhibits won’t be what you’re expecting) and there’s also a roster of local and international game developers conducting talks over the weekend. In the case of the latter, there’ll be folks from Devolver Digital, Ubisoft, and Unity, among others.

…you have to pay the price

Keen? Of course you are. Tickets are available via Quicket at present, and sales are still open for Phase 2. That’ll set you back R160 for a single day pass and R320 for a three-day pass. If you dally past 26 November, Phase 3’ll kick in. Then, a day pass will cost R180 and access for the weekend will run you R340. Something to bear in mind? None of these tickets include access to any of the extras.

There are also Delegate tickets, which include access to everything except MGA talks. You’ll be able to frolic around  all of the Playtopia talks, the games arcade, art exhibits and entertainment areas, however. Those start at R250. There’s also an MGA All-Access ticket that’ll cost between R1,250 (one day) and R5,000. If you’re a budding developer, you might want to look at shelling out a little extra for the weekend.