Playtopia

Words: Tara Boraine

We enter through a white tunnel that feels like boarding a spaceship - a threshold between what is and what could be. The Homecoming Centre spits us into a cavern of nerdy delight. The arcade glows with more games than my (already deficit) attention can settle on.

Part international indie gaming festival, part experimental art exhibition, Playtopia has once again created an unparalleled space for exploration and interaction. It’s a sensory-rich experience for gamers, artists, and creatives, designed to inspire, connect, and engage. Under dancing lights and between humming screens, players from across the city gather to delight in the digital dream. There is an echo of nostalgia in the amount of computers in one room - like an early 2000s LAN party on steroids. The space is transformed by the multimedia art installations - lily pads, jellyfish made of recycled goods, fiber optics, and giant luminous mushrooms. Each installation and game station feels like its own small universe waiting to be explored. At Playtopia, local developers showcase alongside international talents, 

creating a unique fusion of perspectives and possibilities.

The whimsy had me hooked. I started with a Norwegian word game with Sudoku undertones, while my friend Dan Charles tackles an impossibly cute Korean game about helping a smiling sun birth planets.

Nearby, strangers become instant teammates in “Sheep County”, as two digital dogs herding sheep across the old-school arcade screen. The collaborative chaos is infectious - strangers shouting directions and cheering each other on. A giant fortune cookie in the corner puffs smoke and spits prophecies when prompted, adding to the mysteriously playful atmosphere.

Project Breakdown serves pure Cape Town punk nostalgia - managing a local metal band through point-and-click chaos, complete with anxious musicians, bedroom shrine posters, and perfectly-timed dad jokes. It’s local gaming at its most lovingly specific - and almost too close to home for Dan and I, who are both in the music scene.

The real mayhem erupts around Stick Fighter - a multiplayer with physics so deliberately broken that button-mashing and laughter become the only viable strategy.

But it’s Skate Story that steals my heart. You play a holographic demon skater grinding through an underworld of glass and chrome, heading for the moon because it looks tasty… and you’re hungry. Peak absurdity, experimental lo-fi visuals… My kind of weird. It’s the perfect example of how indie games can push boundaries while remaining completely playable, how digital art can be both profound and ridiculous.

Deeper in, the installations abound. In the cave of “As Above, So Below,” touching the hanging silver leaves conducts ambient electronics while people zen out to manipulated TV static. The space feels like stumbling into a techno-fairy grove, a rest point for a weary traveller.

But we must not rest for too long! More adventures await. A scrying chamber reimagines divination, twisting visitors’ faces in real time, while a gaming cube stands like a digital monolith, inviting both circumambulation and play.Through VR lenses in “Convergence”, our city’s dump sites become dystopian immersion - the future we’re racing towards or, more hopefully, racing to prevent. It’s eerily beautiful, this transformation of the familiar into something strange and haunting. I really enjoyed seeing artists using new tools to examine old wounds and current truths. Perhaps it’ll inspire us to imagine different possibilities?

When my body reminds me of its limits, we find sanctuary in the upstairs theatre. Here, beanbags cradle festival-goers while generative art glitches across curved screens. It’s the kind of space you could lose hours in, cocooned in cool darkness, ambient music and subtly glitching visuals. A contemplative counterpoint to the arcade’s energy below!

We circle back to the foyer to grab onigiri and potato samoosas from NotSadFood Co, a collaborative foodie pop-up. This mix of cuisines feels perfectly at home in a festival that celebrates hybrid forms. I marvel at how historical weight and future dreams coexist here.

Founded in 2018, Playtopia stands as Africa’s first annual indie games festival, but in my opinion it’s evolved into something more - a gathering of dreamers, makers, and players pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. I could think of no better venue than the Homecoming Centre, itself a space dedicated to history and community.

We end on the rooftop, sipping Fokof Lagers and talking about sci-fi. The 360-degree views sweep from City Hall’s spires to Table Mountain’s towering presence - ancient stone watching over the new dreamers.

That’s what Playtopia really is - a glimpse into emerging possibilities. Not just for games, but for storytelling, for community, for African creativity finding new forms while interfacing globally. Under the mountain’s stoic gaze, this international cohort of indie creators experiment with coding new futures. And what better way to meet the future than with one weird, wonderful whimsy at a time?

playtopiafestival.co.za