How do you go about designing a game that satisfies the expectations and fantasies of many different people? In this talk, Troy Johnson, Advanced Game Designer at Avalanche Software, discusses the process of designing Hogwarts Legacy for a worldwide audience of fans and gamers.  He’ll outline questions and tips that developers can use to help their game resonate with the widest range of players.

There are many ways to utilize a composer in your game development workflow. Throughout my career I've had the opportunity to be "on the ground floor" in development while being very close to the team. I've also experienced the opposite where I was writing in a vacuum with no connection to the team. And I've experienced everything in between.

This talk explores the working relationship between development team and composer, and why in 2023 and onwards, having someone on the music team who is closely connected to the game will result in a more tightly synergized gaming experience. It will use examples from my own career, including Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Darksiders Genesis and the Ruined King : A League of Legends Story. It will also highlight scores from other games where I know the composer was involved in the earliest parts of game development. These will showcase musical ideas that almost certainly wouldn't have happened had the composer not been close to the game.

It will explore the benefits and the disadvantages of different ways of working, and by the end of the talk you will have a clearer understanding of ways in which the composer <-> develeper relationship can be maximized.

For composers and musicians attending this talk, you will have a better understanding of how to extract the most from your development team. 

For audio directors, music supervisors, and creative directors attending this talk, you'll learn the importance and benefits (as well as cost/benefit analysis) of having a composer be closely involved from as early as pre-production, where it's a AAA title or indie. You'll understand better how to extract the maximum from your composer - irrespective of their personality - without being overbearing.

Ultimately all attending will gain insight into my own creative process, the results that came from that process and the things that I have learned over the years working with AAA teams and small independent studios. Those experiences will be streamlined into a talk that gives clarity on enhancing the unique relationship between music creators and developers, and using that to deliver the best possible soundtrack for a game that players will remember.

Zdeněk Záhora will be chatting with David Mullich, the director of Heroes of Might & Magic III and IV, about his career, life and experience.

Is your engineering team constantly running low on mana? Are your other departments "waiting on tech" like it's on cooldown? Is your studio starting to feel less like creative mode and more like a battle royale? Do not miss this talk!

Join an accomplished lead programmer as they explore tactics for fighting uncertainty head-on, implementing fast and flexible engineering practices, and strategizing for the long term. Learn from real-world stories about how other studios succeeded, failed, and ultimately leveled-up their team's abilities.

Join us and equip yourself with the tools to dismantle development bottlenecks and unleash the full force of your studio's creative potential!

Aleš will be giving a talk on how the development team successfully revived Ylands, a game that was once considered dead but is now gaining popularity. He will cover the strategies that led to a 30+ percent increase in recent reviews and the radical measures taken to regain players' trust, as well as mention the biggest mistakes they made in the past.

The speech will cover the results of over three years of our studies, which resulted in a UX estimation method with precision over 82% with actual user data gathered from hundreds of users. Our solution in based on image analysis and processing of level walk-through or gameplay. Currently, the only way to verify the design of a virtual environment are tested with users, which due to the large time requirements and the number of participants needed are very expensive. For this reason, these tests are usually carried out at the production stage, where each change is also costly. Our method is a direct solution to this problem and can be used regardless of the technology and the video / VR game engine used, as well as at all stages of virtual space production. The feasibility of the project has been confirmed in our previous research (published in highly rated scientific journals) showing the effectiveness of the use of image analysis to estimate the user experience of virtual space.

Often times Functionality, Certification, and Technical QA is considered to be more of a numbers game - allocate testers at a product once it’s “QA ready” and  find all the bugs. In reality, QA is much more than that and can add valuable input, feedback, and risk analysis/mitigation during the production and development cycle from both a QA and consumer/end user lens.

In this talk we’ll go over some benefits of having these QA teams involved as early as pre-production, things to consider to make the team’s day to day easier, and how valuable QA feedback can contribute to driving quality and success leading up release.

The role of a producer is not well defined in game development companies, the job description and especially the responsibilities can be very vague and the expectations range from non-existent to astronomical.

But this uncertainty has its benefits.

This talk will focus on finding your own production style, walking the fine line between project and people management, and how to take advantage of the chaos that can take over teams and projects.

Ewoud van der Werf, the main developer of SCHiM, explains how the art of SCHiM has evolved throughout the development of the project. A broad talk about what SCHiM is about, and the first versions of the SCHiM art style leading up to the current art style.

Fictional worlds in video games are the result of narrative and game mechanics working together. As a space is active in the narrative, using the world to reinforce the player's experience is an important skill to master for narrative designers, writers, and anyone involved in game design.

With examples coming from video games, virtual reality or amusement parks, we will wander fictional worlds and identify leads to create believable and immersive fictional worlds.

Diversity is a hot topic in every industry these days, but specially in the gaming industry. Every person one talks to is up for including and equity, however scandals keep on popping and our offices and the games we make are not yet that diverse. Why and what can we do?

Andrés Ortiz Suaréz (Deck Nine)
Gabby Llanillo (Riot Games)
Linda Komsic (Square Enix)
Hosted by: Cristina Vega (IO Interactive)

Creating 3d characters is a very important part of Film and Games, you can express a lot by presenting your characters in a certain way which will bring appeal to your projects,

I will share some insights and tips on how I approach my professional and personal work to add personality and essence to them.

I will be sharing a Character breakdown from my Personal Project and how to avoid mistakes and also solve them by doing rough 3d concepting before making any final calls for finishing the asset in 3d.

In this talk I will cover how we made some of the character effects for our dark sci-fi shooter Returnal. We'll go through the process starting from concept art all the way to finished product. We will have a look at what worked and what didn't from visual perspective. In addition to that I'll discuss the technical aspects of developing our own vfx toolset to match the needs of the game technically and artistically.

This talk will focus on the numerous technical challenges, in terms of both programming and design, of creating a true crossover between modern Shooter and classical Strategy while staying true to each genre.

Veteran Game Designer Tom Hall has spent 35 years making games, including Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, and DOOM. In this talk, he shares tips about how to "get creative", provides two tools to spur game ideas, and discusses how scoping down and working bottom-up leads to better works. The talk will pull in examples of both techniques from creative leaders from Rick Rubin, Neil Gaiman, Sting, Stephen King, the founders of id software, classic artists, and more, and show how The Philosophy of Dense Fun both informed his previous titles and in hindsight made it clear when excess and stress led to a less-focused vision.

"Building a sustainable art career" is a talk designed for aspiring concept artists and illustrators who want to pursue a career in the video game industry. 

The talk will cover various aspects of the industry, including the different types of jobs available, the skills and qualifications required, and how to create a strong portfolio that showcases your work. Additionally, the speaker will discuss practical tips on how to stay healthy, avoid burnout, and maintain a work-life balance in a demanding and fast-paced industry. Attendees will learn actionable steps to secure a steady stream of work and income while prioritizing their well-being.

Let's approach art creation strategically and efficiently, without sacrificing passion!

This talk is about how we at Rovio audio team approach game audio production, development and design as a central team, catering to multiple mobile game studios and projects. Participants can expect to learn tips on how to handle a large number of projects and overlapping schedules efficiently while aiming for world-class content quality. Topics on solving specific challenges in live-ops audio development will also be mentioned. 

The presentation will dive into several topics, such as:

• Types of projects we handle and challenges we face
• Structure of the audio team
• Production approaches and tools
• Tech pipeline and approaches
• Design strategies
• Challenges and privileges of mobile game audio

Some supplementary areas of audio work will also be touched upon:

• Branding, marketing, licensing and monetization
• UX, analytics and accessibility
• Creating, fostering and promoting an audio culture within the team, the company, and for audiences

Writers' rooms have been a staple of TV production for more than half a century, but they're relatively new to game development. Veteran cross-media writer Antony Johnston (ATOMIC BLONDE, DEAD SPACE, RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE) explains how to recruit and run a successful writers' room, why it's more than just a writing team… and why you should use one if you don't already.

In this presentation I walk you through Fingesoft's Hill Climb Racing games' monetisation history from the early days of mobile games and cross-promotion to today's customised user experience with segmented IAP offers and different ad formats. I'll cover some ups and downs along the way and give you a small glimpse of the new titles coming up in the future. Fingersoft's hit titles Hill Climb Racing and Hill Climb Racing 2 have accumulated over 2 Billion installs across platforms and over €180M in NET revenue.

Award wining enging Glacier, Io-Interactive's propietary engine powering the Hitman games, it is not only remarkable efficient in terms of performance, but also in terms of development. Glacier is developed by a central team of about 60 very skilled programmers working with 3 concurrent project at a time - and no, we do not do overtime (like ever!). If you'd like to hear more, drop by this talk, I'll walk you through the insights of our organizational processes and tools that enable our teams.

It's common now for games to be in active development for many years, both before and after the initial launch.  As time passes, it takes effort to keep both the design and technical elements from collapsing under the weight of new features.  How do we build our games to withstand time?  Tarn Adams will discuss lessons learned over two decades of work on Dwarf Fortress, and why it didn't join the pile of failed projects that preceeded it.

In this talk I will share the process behind creating large & detailed game environments within a smaller team, the talk will specifically revolve around the stylized environments of Lost In Random. I'll showcase work in progress material and talk about things like asset creation, performance, idea to concept, general tips & tricks. All of this will be from the perspective of a smaller team so things like efficiency and prioritization will be some of the corner pillars in this talk.

Can only RPGs succeed in Japan and South Korea? What are the obstacles of user acquisition in these countries, how to overcome them, and how to start profitable UA in the third and fourth biggest mobile markets in the world.

To bring the characters of Rockay City to life, we need to utilize AI systems of Unreal Engine 4. We will introduce its basic principles - Perception, Behavior Trees, Navmeshes and Environment Queries - and explain how we used and extended them in our project.

We will also talk about other essential systems needed to craft Combat and Stealth.

The talk is intended primarily for developers interested in creating AI for their projects. But no prior experience with AI systems is required and anyone interested in how AI is made in video games is welcome to join.

Let's support and reward the best of our Indie teams in categories of Best Game, Best Art, and Best Gameplay. And yes, you can vote too! The ballot box at the reception will be open on Friday + Saturday morning.

One of the most difficult questions every developer has to face is whether to release the game with publisher (if you can pitch it properly and get them interested), or try to self-publish it? No-one can make this decision for you; but we can share our opinion of more than years of experience working with publishers, summarize pros and cons and answer your question.

WARNING: This talk won’t make your decision any easier!

Work-life balance and community as tools for making great games – a southern Sweden perspective”
Despite the games industry producing some of the most engaging and fun products on the planet, the industry is facing challenges in the workplace, like many other booming industries; male dominated workforce, high work load, stress/crunch, perceived challenges and lack of opportunities and other challenges.

In this talk, you will hear how the games industry in southern Sweden work to with work-life balance and community to, not only solve these challenges, but also grow into a global hub for game development.