Video games combine language, images, sounds, and player choices to create a unique storytelling experience. Because making games can be expensive, creators often rely on familiar symbols and stereotypes to quickly connect with players. However, these shortcuts can unintentionally reinforce negative perceptions about groups of people who already suffer from being “othered” by society. This talk explores how game creators can leverage player expectations, biases and narrative stereotypes to tell stories that are enrichening, supportive and inclusive.

How do you prepare your game’s files for localization? How do you select the right contractor? How do you collaborate productively with your translators? And what do cats have to do with all of it? Anett and Andreas—two industry veterans with more than 25 years of combined experience in video games localization—will be your guides on the exciting journey through the process of getting your game ready for launch in multiple countries. Andreas will discuss the technical intricacies of localization, as well as what translators will require from you to deliver a polished, accurate, and immersive localization of your vision. At which stage in the development process should you begin thinking about your game’s localization? What data structure is best for your dialogues? What’s a good character limit for your UI, and which supplemental materials should you provide? Anett’s focus will be on the communicative aspects of working with freelancers: How do you assemble your team? How do you utilize their various skill sets and passions? How do you brief them concisely? How do you provide constructive feedback so they can produce the best possible translation—and what constitutes the best, anyway? Together, your guides will explore best practices, and assess what might have gone wrong (or right) in previous projects. Join them on this exciting journey—and behold the cat.

This talk will look at common development mistakes that make your game a nightmare to port (and probably will cost you a fortune). Spoken by a senior console porting producer with multiple five-platform ports under his belt, and 40+ game projects produced.

In this talk I will introduce you to some ways you can infuse your Monsters and Critters with a sense of purpose and believability. We will go over some basic brainstorming techniques, learn ways to fuse existing anatomy parts together to create a cohesive design and also find out how to balance believability and the "rule of cool".

We all love our darlings, and we know it's damn hard to kill them. In this talk, I take you on a Product Journey and tell you why it is beneficial that your Game becomes a product and what the difference is. I will share some strategies and questions you have to ask yourself if you want to improve your Game for YOUR specific audience. And don't worry; this process is much more creative and cheaper than you think.

I just released my first game a few months ago called Children of the Sun published by Devolver. I've been working on the game mostly by myself. Doing all the art, animations, programming and designing. I'm not a specialist in any of those fields, but I think it might be an interesting topic. Talking about this journey and how I believe that gut feeling was an important factor for me and the process might be interesting.