GameDev Areathis projects is a part of GameDev Area initiative

Schedule

Schedule for this year is packed with big names which stand behind countless legendary games. Plan your time carefully so you don’t miss the opportunity to learn from the best.

Nicholas Lovell
GAMESbrief Business Masterclasses

Open garden
Údolní 567/33, 602 00 Brno
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Game Access Workshops

South Moravian Innovation Centre
Purkyňova 127, 612 00 Brno, Czech Republic
  • Unreal Engine 4 is now widely known engine, praised for its awesome graphics, great productivity and more. In this workshop we will together build a game to explore these great features of Unreal Engine 4 with some tips and tricks from "real world" game development. Lets experience the Unreal!

  • Experience the design process under the supervision of senior designers.

    We will divide participants into small groups (3-5 ppl) to work on the concept of the board game. The gameplay mechanics will be brainstormed, designed and the result prototyped. We should be able to playtest the game on the end.

  • Creating next gen model of a weapon with textures - everything from looking for references through highpoly modelling to finalizing the model for export to Unreal Engine.

    Practical demonstration of various stages of a model creation, including tips & tricks for achieving the best results. Participants will have the opportunity to test what they've learned on their laptops and discuss with the lecturers.

  • Come to find out about the many possibilites Google AdMob offers and to learn how to utilise them the best.

  • Workshop about project planning and management for beginners.

  • There are many ways in which the cloud can be useful to you, and in this practical workshop we will look into three:
    • Compute - take whatever software you currently use (or develop a new one) and deploy it to raw compute power, which scales automatically as you need.
    • Data - saving game state for roaming between devices, saved games or leaderboards. We'll see what major data-related services are there and how to use them.
    • Analytics - know what's happening with your game in real time and visualize it.

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May the 4th Party

Brno Observatory and Planetarium
Kraví hora 522/2, 616 00 Brno, Czech Republic
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Game Access Conference - Day #1

Sono Centrum
Veveří 113, 616 00 Brno, Czech Republic

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  • 09:00

  • 10:15

  • Red Hall

    May 5, 2017

  • 09:00
    Registration & Welcome coffee

  • 10:15
    Conference opening

  • 10:30 - 11:30
    This lecture presents a collection of 20-30 game design principles accumulated in the past two years across a number of projects and - hopefully - shows the fun you can have with them.
    Games Chris worked on
    Fallout: New Vegas
    Fallout 2
    Prey
    System Shock

  • 11:30 - 12:30
    Mafia III's Nathan Cheever (Lead World Designer) and Petr Zavesky (Lead Architect) share the history, process, and challenges creating New Bordeaux, their fictional version of New Orleans. Topics for Hangar 13's project will include the collaboration of art and design, the role of architecture, landmarks, 1960's culture, and player accordance. The city became more than a place -- it became a unique character!
    Games Nathan and Petr worked on
    Mafia III

  • 12:30 - 13:00
    Nicholas Lovell, author of 'The Curve' shares his insights on the future of business that requires us to share the love as much with those who want stuff for free as with our biggest fans.

  • 13:00
    Lunch Break - Daily offer available in SONO Restaurant

  • 13:30 - 14:30
    Why and how to make mistakes in economy design and how imperfect economies can help us make better games.

  • 14:30 - 15:30
    A look at how Crystal Dynamics successfully rebooted the Tomb Raider franchise and the techniques used to transition our community through changes to the iconic character. Although tailored to Tomb Raider, this talk includes best practices for growing and engaging your community – established or otherwise – through one-on-one interactions, intimate fan gatherings, and global programs.
    Games Meagan worked on
    Tomb Raider
    Avengers

  • 15:30 - 16:30
    During this lecture we will take a look at Ylands, a voxel-based sandbox game that allows players to design and share their own adventures - custom games ranging from tweaking the existing gameplay to creating different game genres. We will also go over some of the design and technical challenges the team has encountered so far and best practices of overcoming those.
    Games Aleš worked on
    Ylands
    Arma Tactics
    Arma III

  • 16:30
    Coffee break

  • 17:00 - 18:00
    Bill Harms, Narrative Director at Hangar 13 and Lead Writer of Mafia III, discusses the challenges involved in creating a video game set in New Bordeaux, a fictional version of New Orleans, during the tumultuous time-period of 1968. Bill will delve in to the research and development process that informed the game's characters and overarching narrative, and the decisions that drove the inclusion of sensitive issues such as the era's racial tensions.
    Games Bill worked on
    Mafia III

  • 18:00 - 18:25
    Vikings: Wolves of Midgard is brutal isometric action RPG released just recently. Its development was also brutal and it teached us a lot. You wanna know the tough lessons learned from cruel Vikings gods? Come and praise Odin!
    Games Peter worked on
    Vikings: Wolves of Midgard
    Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms
    Kult: Heretic Kingdoms

  • 18:25 - 18:50
    What's the history of Craneballs? How did a love-project of three friends became a 20-people big affair in just two years? What were the pitfalls and what were the moments of glory? How has an independently-run studio without pressure from publishers or shareholders managed to stay in business for years? Take a peek behind the curtain of Ostrava-based game-developer studio where twenty-something youngsters keep attacking the top positions of global leaderboards.
    Games Daniel worked on
    Planet Nomads
    Bomb Hunters
    Overkill 3

  • Blue Hall

    May 5, 2017

  • 09:00
    Registration & Welcome coffee


  • 11:30 - 12:30
    Best practices, myth busting, exciting formats, and optimisation tips around app monetization.

  • 13:00
    Lunch Break - Daily offer available in SONO Restaurant

  • 13:30 - 14:30
    From dealing with motion sickness to technical challenges of using Unreal Engine 4 with VR headsets – Carbon Studio wants to share their experience in developing VR games during the early days of the technology.

  • 14:30 - 15:30
    Is it still possible to succeed on mobile if you release your game without a publisher? The field study from FGL game development community (which consists of 45 000 developers) says yes. This talk considers the question of game promotion, community building time and money investment, which lead to success. To avoid survival bias we analyzed the fail stories as well, so, you'll get a weighted view to the question: to release independently or with a publisher?

  • 15:30 - 16:00
    An outline of how I developed the music for Tomb Raider, and how we develop interactive music for games today.
    Games Nathan worked on
    Tomb Raider
    Silent Hill: Downpour

  • 16:30
    Coffee break

  • 17:00 - 17:30
    Mobile games studios face a challenge in varying prices of IAPs across the world. Ixty’s free to use platform typically adds 20% or more to top line revenue by optimising IAP prices to maximise revenue in 70 territories. The most dramatic uplift is usually seen in low income economies. You wouldn’t spend a whole day’s salary on an IAP, so why expect someone in India to?


Castle Party

Špilberk Castle
Špilberk 1, 662 24 Brno, Czech Republic
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Game Access Conference - Day #2

Sono Centrum
Veveří 113, 616 00 Brno, Czech Republic

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  • 09:00

  • Red Hall

    May 6, 2017

  • 09:00
    Morning coffee

  • 10:00 - 11:00
    Lecture will describe process of quest design in The Witcher 3 - our pipelines, issues we encountered and our solutions to those. It'll contain both our assumptions from early stages as well as practical examples from the development process.
    Games Mateusz worked on
    The Witcher
    The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
    The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

  • 11:00 - 12:00
    What kinds of themes are doing well at the moment? What might the future successes look like? A look into recent gaming trends.
    Games Karoliina worked on
    Cities: Skylines
    Cities in Motion
    Cities in Motion 2

  • 12:00 - 13:00
    How are cinematics created? And how does each step from script to motion capture, through editing and lighting contribute to support story and characters? We will go through our pipeline and explore how each step can help build tension and express your story.
    Games Valentin worked on
    Mafia III

  • 13:00
    Lunch Break - Daily offer available in SONO Restaurant

  • 13:30 - 14:30
    Getting the best vocal performance into a game is the objective of every developer but the obstacles are many. This session examines how the secret services influences the methods used for the production of dialogue.
    Games Mark worked on
    Horizon Zero Dawn
    The Witcher
    Game of Thrones

  • 14:30 - 15:30
    During prelection we will see what are the stages of designing immersive, readible and believe characters. Video games became responsible medium of telling stories and building emotional impact between cause and player. We build impressive worlds and tell it's story through characters and cohesion with whole project. Presentation will show us how we became more responsible, sensible and efficient creators and see complete process of designing interesting characters.
    Games Konrad worked on
    Hellraid
    Dead Island
    Call of Juarez

  • 15:30 - 16:00
    How to write a press release? When to start promotion? Move on, if you’re looking for answers to these questions, Uncle Google will be happy to help. But if you’d like to know media expectations, when it comes to delivering assets, following up or pitching a story, then this talk is for you. Based on answers gathered from over 100 journalists and mixed with case studies; this short guide will show you PR is a “beast” that can be tamed.

  • 16:00
    Coffee break

  • 16:30 - 17:15

  • 17:30 - 17:55
    Can you earn money in VR? Blue Effect VR postmortem. Future of VR industry from DIVR perspective.

  • 17:55 - 18:20
    How to launch a mobile game BIG TIME? Do you think it is impossible? Well, then you need to come to Filip's talk and get some inspiration from the incredibly long soft launch of What The Hen and it's huge fails and modest successes.

  • 18:30 - 19:00
    Game Access Awards

  • Blue Hall

    May 5, 2017

  • 09:00
    Morning coffee

  • 11:00 - 11:30
    You have the idea, you have the team, you have a product. How to define what is a good path to go from where you are now. Look into your business deeper to define the goal and understand what you need to achieve it.

  • 12:00 - 12:30
    As a game developer, you’ve probably failed and you know how it hurts to see thousands of hours and $$$ flushed down the toilet. The natural tendency is to jump on a great idea and start creating an awesome game. Yet it might be a good idea to look at the data first and verify how big the audience is, what are the category trends, how much it will cost to acquire a user, which markets are the best fit or even what’s the best name for your game, icon or visual style. So, come and hear tips & tricks on how to increase your chances for success!

  • 13:00
    Lunch Break - Daily offer available in SONO Restaurant

  • 13:30 - 14:30
    In a small company, especially when you are indie, located in the middle of nowhere, and your core team lacks certain skillset it’s very hard to fill the gap without hiring somebody experienced on site which is often not an option. My company was in such a situation regarding video game design and I wish to share how we handled this particular situation and how my team was able to grow rapidly in skill without spending too much money.
    Games Nathan worked on
    Detached

  • 14:30 - 15:30
    In 2015 Imperia Online won the 14th place of Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe Award for revenue growth of 592% in Central Europe. We tripled our sales by a few small tricks ONLY on the payment page. The attendees will learn how to hack players' brains and manipulate their decisions on buying. The session will benefit the audience by giving it a summary of what neurological scientists discovered about how irrational and predictive human behavior is.

  • 15:30 - 16:00
    The lecture will help you understand the scope and risk of modern game backends so you can make the right decision when considering a backend technology for your projects.
    Games Adam worked on
    Doom

  • 16:00
    Coffee break

  • 16:30 - 17:10
    Tapping into the virtually unlimited power of „THE CLOUD“ can level up your game. In this talk we will look at some of the technology Microsoft provides to game developers to achieve global scalability, better resource management, large data storage, compute infrastruture, smart analysis and AI. Specific examples included.


After Party

Charlie's Square
Masarykova 25, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic
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