AGENDA
08:30 am
VENUE
Registration
Pick up your Badge!
09:15 am - 09:55 am
COPENHAGEN
OPENING!
Opening of the Baltic Dev Days. A great program awaits you during the next two days.
Boris Zander (CEO), Julia Carstens (State Secretary), Ina Göring (Director of Membership & Funding ) Christian Haja (Head of BizDev)
10:00 am - 10:40 am
STOCKHOLM
Jan-Hendrik Pfitzner, Technical Projects Coordinator
DEVELOPMENT (English)
The Farming Simulator Production Pipeline
This talk will provide a comprehensive look into the development and production pipeline of Farming Simulator, showcasing the various processes and tools that we utilize to create and deliver a successful game.
10:00 am - 10:40 am
DANZIG
Adinda van Oosten, Game Journalist
ADVISORY (English)
Indie Dev: Quirks, Contradictions, Challenges and Achievements
This talk is inspired by Indie devs which have been interviewed, weaving unique stories of similar and sometimes contradictory challenges and achievements during the indie game development journey.
10:15 am - 12:45 pm
HELSINKI
Sascha Reinhold, Designer
WORKSHOP (English)
Getting your hands dirty with rules and systems: Hands-On Game Design Workshop
Game Design is a complex field and game production is often moving fast. Rarely we find the time to properly reflect on our experience and fiddle with the inner workings of games on the most basic level – although there is so much to learn and understand. That is why we we are going to take our time and a selection of simple physical games in order to iteratively figure out, how game rules and social dynamics form a play experience. The workshop consists of several activities, discussions, analysis and critique – but first and foremost, we are going to have a lot of fun playing.
The workshop is open to attendees of all levels of experience.
10:45 am - 11:25 am
STOCKHOLM
Kate Edwards, CEO & Founder
ADVISORY (English)
Building More Inclusive Worlds with Game Culturalization
With over 30 years of experience in games and digital media as a geographer and culturalization strategist, Kate Edwards has been involved in the creation of many games, including titles such as: Halo, Fable, Age of Empires, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Tomb Raider, and many others.
10:45 am - 11:25 am
DANZIG
Nathan Sölbrandt, Business Dev. Manager
ADVISORY (English)
The Perfect Pitch - How to Raise Investment for your Game.
Investment and Publishing Landscape, How to build and deliver a pitch, Direct to consumer sales strategy...
11:30 am - 12:10 pm
STOCKHOLM
Marilena Cassetta, Associate Producer
DEVELOPMENT (English)
Production in a Nutshell Series - Easy Access Process Modeling
In this first part of the Production in a Nutshell series we will look at process modelling techniques, which will not only help producers setting up complex pipelines in a simple way but also making these easily accessible and visually appealing for the rest of the development team by combining BPMN and Swimlanes.
11:30 am - 12:10 pm
DANZIG
ADVISORY (English)
Fireside Chat: From Indie to Global Leader.
Danni Pratt (BizDev Manager), Christian Haja (Head of BizDev)
12:15 pm - 12:55 pm
STOCKHOLM
Thorsten Hamdorf, Director Publisher Relations
BUSINESS (English)
Rise of the Nerds - The era of gaming and a new pop culture.
Gaming has cultural, economical and technological impacts far beyond the gaming industry itself. How can non-endemic brands benefit from gaming brands? How can gaming brands grow beyond their core audience? What can advertisers and marketers learn from the games industry?
12:15 pm - 12:55 pm
DANZIG
Lena Falkenagen, Narrative Designer
DEVELOPMENT (English)
Why So Serious? - The Nature of Serious Games.
Serious Games are usually driven by a serious narrative. Lena Falkenhagen, Narrative Director of award-winning game Beholder 3 by Paintbucket Games, talks about themes and their relationship with system and gameplay; and why it is important to make games that matter.
01:00 pm - 01:40 pm
VENUE
Lunch Break
01:45 pm - 02:40 pm
STOCKHOLM
Teut Weidemann, Creative Designer
BUSINESS (English)
Surviving the Mobile Market 2023.
Genres are saturated, competition is fierce, UA is difficult, so what is your plan? I will some advice on your product strategy, which mistakes can be done, what your research should include before you decide developing a game and thus increase your chance of success.
01:45 pm - 02:40 pm
DANZIG
Almut Schwacke, Sound Designer / Composer
DEVELOPMENT (English)
The wondrous world of Foley - manipulating objects and emotions.
Foley is one of the most playful and fun occupations in audio. It is a very graspable craft and never fails to fascinate even those who don‘t know or care much about sound in general and thus is the perfect tool to spark some audio enthusiasm among game developers. I will introduce this art to the audience by going into its history and the differences between Foley in movies vs games.
02:00 pm - 04:30 pm
HELSINKI
Søren Lass, Business Dev. Consultant
WORKSHOP (English)
Financing for Game Developers - Opportunities and Risks.
The workshop will compare the different funding opportunities available for game developers in Europe today - investors, loans, public funding, publishers etc. and their implications. These will be discussed by comparing them, how they can complement each other (or not), and an up-to-date overview over available opportunities will be given together with a few recent case studies. There will be opportunies to discuss current challenges the participants are facing with their own projects and/or companies.
02:45 pm - 03:25 pm
STOCKHOLM
Attila Szantner, CEO & Co-Founder
BEYOND ENTERTAINMENT (English)
Gamers for Science: How to Change the World in Small Steps.
Citizen science, i.e. the crowdsourcing of scientific research and the involvement of the public in the scientific process reigns supreme in science engagement and provides invaluable help for researchers. Unfortunately, it often struggles with attracting participants. Our innovation was the integration of these science microtasks with existing major videogames with the help of expert videogame developers to invite massive gamer communities as contributors. Collaborations, like Borderlands Science or EVE Online’s Project Discovery with high-profile researchers, like Nobel laureate Michel Mayor or Rob Knight co-founder of the American Gut Project delivered groundbreaking results in citizen science.
02:45 pm - 03:25 pm
DANZIG
Kolja Lubitz, Founder
DEVELOPMENT (English)
ALPACA a new adventure game engine.
We released our inhouse cross platform adventure game engine as open source. In my talk I present the technology we used to create ALPACA and present the workflow for creating a scene with ALPACA.
03:30 pm - 04:10 pm
STOCKHOLM
Casilda de Zulueta, Designer
DEVELOPMENT (English)
You are good at drawing, now what? – The technical skills of a game artist.
Game art is a discipline that requires both creativity, practice and an eye for aesthetics, but also in no small part it demands research and technical knowledge. A beautiful game asset is of no use if the target device can't show it.
03:30 pm - 04:10 pm
DANZIG
Mona Brandt, Lead Game Designer
BEYOND ENTERTAINMENT (English)
Striving for Relevance: The Pursuit of Historical Appropriateness in Video Games.
History serves as a compelling backdrop for numerous video games, allowing players to immerse themselves in the rich tapestry of human experiences throughout time. However, many games treat history as merely a superficial and interchangeable setting, focusing on minor details for the sake of authenticity. In this talk, I will discuss the limitations of pursuing authenticity in historical games, advocate for an emphasis on appropriateness, and explore how this approach can enhance gameplay while engaging new target audiences.
04:15 pm - 04:55 pm
STOCKHOLM
Christian Rauda, Attorney / Partner
ADVISORY (English)
Use of Image Generation AI in Game Development: What is legal and what is not?
Can I use AI in game development and how? Does an image creation AI have copyright? Can I infringe copyright when using AI-generated images in my game?
04:15 pm - 04:55 pm
DANZIG
BEYOND ENTERTAINMENT (English)
Games in research and higher education: a co-op knowledge transfer adventure.
Serious games offer a fun and engaging way to study complex concepts and stimulate critical thinking. In this talk, we want to showcase practical examples of games and gamification in higher education and research and share our experiences of interdisciplinary development in two fields of application: (1) to understand infectious diseases and enhance the training of public health professionals, (2) to foster climate education and action through virtual reality and immersive experiences.
Juliane Bönecke (Research Associate) and Maik Helfrich (Scientific Assist.)
05:00 pm - 05: 40 pm
STOCKHOLM
Patrik Wilkens, VP Digital & Entertainment
BUSINESS (English)
Synergies between gaming and social media - and how to unlock them.
05:00 pm - 05:40 pm
DANZIG
ADVISORY (English)
Fireside Chat: Breaking into the industry.
Jana Stadeler (Senior Nerrative Designer) und Jens Bahr (CEO & Founder)
05:45 pm - 06:25 pm
STOCKHOLM
Matthes Lindner, Acceleration Manager
ADVISERY (English)
Press start to grow: How to take your studio to the next level.
Growing, both in size and success, is a challenging process and many studios ultimately fail to break out of the "Indie-loop". At Spielfabrique, we help studios from across Europe and beyond to overcome these challenges. On the way, we have learned a thing or two about where to get started, about dysfunctional beliefs to let go of, and about the vast diversity of solutions, when everything seems hopeless. This talk presents the programs, tools, and strategies that we think work best for studios to professionalize themselves.
07:30 pm - 00:00 pm
Restaurnt BOOTSHAUS 1862
Networking-Party!!!
All participants are invited to join us for snacks, cool drinks and good music while enjoying the view over the Kiel Fjord. Don't forget your Conference Badge!
(Vouchers for snacks and drinks are included for Speaker, Indie Expo, Indie-, Business- and Opening Pass holders.)
Restaurant BOOTSHAUS 1862
Düsternbrooker Weg 16
24105 Kiel