Learn directly from industry leaders

This talk breaks down the shader-driven approach behind Ambrosia Sky’s volumetric destruction system and fungus animation pipeline. It covers how we overcame technical constraints while creating dense, reactive fungus species in our environments to meet art, design and gameplay goals. Through examples from development, it explores a hybrid pipeline of Houdini and Unreal Engine, using Vertex Animation Textures (VATs) alongside shader-based vertex deformations in Unreal to achieve visual complexity in reactive environments.

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This presentation will cover how video game communities - across game workers and players - have grown to expect more from studios in the combating of sociopolitical injustices. While these communities may form online, they then go on to participate in other parts of civic life and have the power to wield influence. Looking more closely at this will highlight what it is that makes games inspire players to be motivated to take what they have learned through gameplay and game communities and to incite change on and offline through narrative analysis, identity formation, and community building.

Originally from Darjeeling (India), Namkha spent more than a decade as a generalist engineer moving across several industries, including medical devices, SaaS, commercial robotics and autonomous aviation, specializing in building high-performance, scalable systems and leading cross-functional teams. Today, he runs his own independent gamedev studio and writes about portfolio careers, the process, and the philosophy of building creative things without burning yourself down in the process.

Cultural consultants have become a hot topic in game development, but are they being used to their full potential? This talk introduces dramaturgy—a centuries-old theatrical practice—as a framework for integrating cultural research into game narrative. Hope Yoon and Amari O’Connor explore the difference between consultants and dramaturgs, and share practical dramaturgical techniques for narrative designers. As game design evolves to be more sustainable, this cross-disciplinary talk posits that consultants can be a transformative tool when harnessed as creative fuel, not just damage control.

We'd love to talk about making a video game about hope, dreams and grief. About confronting the self, overcoming loss at your own pace, making better a difficult day with simple tasks, deep friendships and the embrace of community. The mechanics, design and narrative that went into making a slow, tender and reflective experience. Fishbowl talks about the creative pursuit and how challenging it can be to express yourself and put yourself out there. It is a big part of the story we tell, through monotony, failure, encouragement and confrontation. It is about the nostalgia of growing up and the melancholy of a time gone by. In making this game, it felt like we were making a game for humans and not algorithms, to have players sit with and submerge themselves in it at their own pace.

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In this talk, Adrienne Bazir talks about how using constraints in all areas of your game can make it easier to make, more focused, and perhaps even enhance the experience for the player. Using examples from their black and white game In Stars and Time, their time doing game jams, and even their experience with the yearly event 24 hour comic day, this talk will help you keep your game small and full of Good Thematic Juice(tm).

Tanya Kan draws on her 13 years of experience in game development and 8 years as a lead and studio owner to discuss the framing and mindset that has helped her best in project management. These tips aim to support developers from the moment of the prospective interview through to the launch of long-haul projects. From compassion, to building trust and good communication, to actualizing goals, Tanya covers an intersection of cozy production, professional care, accessibility, and shared responsibility.

Of Floating Isles is a new collection of essays by Kawika Guillermo about their lifelong attachment to video games and the role they play in our lives. In this talk, the author will explain their writing method as “machphrasis,” a way of interweaving memoir, cultural critique, and poetic explorations of video games. Machphrasis can help understand how games shape our identity and reframe play as a quest for a different community, where people can feel seen, heard, and understood.

The talk highlights how anchoring music early allows developers to build a recognizable brand language that stands out in an oversaturated market.
It also addresses real-world development challenges, including production pauses, soul creative blocks, and the process of re-entering a project after time away. Finally, the session emphasizes music’s role as a narrative force that operates alongside visuals, shaping emotional interpretation and player immersion. By positioning music as part of the player’s “life soundtrack,” the talk reframes game music as a long-term engagement tool that fosters connection, retention, and memorability. Attendees leave with a deeper understanding of how intentional, early-stage music design can transform a game from a product into an experience that resonates beyond play.

This session explores the conceptual development of A Heavy Morning, detailing the iterative journey of transforming a branching animation into an immersive interactive experience centered on mental health. The talk will dive into the specific design challenges of bridging two distinct mediums, focusing on how to balance cinematic cutscenes with playable elements to foster player empathy, and how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) mechanics were integrated as core gameplay.

People talk a lot about the next generation of game developers, but how often are they looked at through a lens removed from capitalism, big expectations, and a college institution? In this talk, Geneva will share their findings and experiences with teaching grade school students and how games can be another way for students to express themselves through writing, visual arts, and music. They will also touch on the importance of healthy working habits for educators and the students they interact with.

Freelancing is unstable and it may seem that you’re at the mercy of those who might hire you. However, that does not mean that you must undersell yourself. To have a lasting career in the games industry as a freelancer, there will be times that you must say NO! Refusing exploitative contracts can actually help you pace yourself for a long fruitful career. This talk will go depth on the long term repercussions of exploitative contracts and how event the short term ‘benefits’ may become irrelevant.

The games industry is facing unprecedented uncertainty. In the wake of layoffs, limited funding, and labour issues related to oppressive structures, we asked ourselves: how might we build a better, human-centred games industry?

This talk interrogates the roots of oppression in our industry, and explores how we might reconcile capitalism with worker-centric business models. We reflect on our ongoing journey in building Cozy Comet Games, Alberta’s first games worker cooperative, including hard-fought battles, ongoing struggles, and the potential of a worker-controlled future.

What happens when limitations cease to be obstacles and become initial design conditions? In this session, Nahir Fajardo—Social Worker, CEO, and Producer—challenges the industry’s traditional narrative regarding "talent" and "access". Drawing from her lived experience as a mother and developer working within the socioeconomic context of Latin America, Nahir explains why survival is not an act of luck, but a methodological system built under pressure. Through the lens of development in the Global South, we will explore how navigating a lack of infrastructure and funding has trained a new generation of creators in adaptive problem-solving and pattern recognition.

What is a memoir game, and what makes them creatively fulfilling? Game developer Emma Kidwell discusses what memoir is, and how making personal games are both a powerful artistic statement and a tool for narrative designers to trust their intuition when designing a story that resonates with people.

This talk shares the process and ideology behind the making of a narrative adventure game, And Then We Go Party at the Shore, developed over the past year using handcrafted materials such as felt, clay, and papercuts. It explores how working with physical textures and emphasizing their artificiality can create a different kind of immersion—one rooted in experimentation, care, and uncanniness rather than realism. Drawing on ideas from Donna Haraway’s speculative fabulation and Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, the talk connects these frameworks to practical questions of game design, examining how material choices shape narrative meaning. It also shares insights into building and integrating physical assets into a mixed-media game pipeline.

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Let's discuss decolonial narratives and  how traditional cultures can be represented in gaming.

Our job as game designers and developers is to create experiences for all peoples. But what happens when we were all educated in a system that excludes many cultures and enshrines others?

Let's discuss how we can position ourselves through games to confront years of lack of diversity, as well as validated strategies for representing cultures and how to avoid cultural appropriation.

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In their talk, Creative Collaborations with Young Artists, Bloomzeye shares what creative autonomy can look like for children and teens when collaborating with adults in artistic projects. In hostiles environment where young artists are told not to be who they are or create what they want, it's vital for adults and experienced creatives to meet children, teens, and young people in their communities at their own level, and to show them that if that you as an adult made it here and are still going, so can they!

This talk is for any dev, artist, musician or otherwise navigating a period of grief in their lives while trying to stay creatively healthy. About finding a way to channel your grief into positivity and maximize your creative output when under pressure from the world. Also ideal for indie game composers navigating the intersection of personal identity and cultural authenticity in their work. The insight they leave with is the realities of freelance composition, from creative struggle to funding loss and how to find a path forward.