Access to Games Conference ’24 – Report

This year, the Brno Exhibition Centre once again hosted the Game Access gaming conference, where developers from not only the Czech Republic but also from all over the world meet every year. Visitors were once again treated to interesting lectures, as well as indie games from small teams and individuals who presented their projects here.

First of all, it is worth saying that this is not a classic gamer event like Gamescom in Cologne. Game Access is primarily aimed at developers and students or people who want to get into the gaming industry. It is, of course, an ideal opportunity to connect not only with individuals, but also with entire companies. For example, Czech companies Madfinger Games, Ashborne Games, Hangar 13 and others had their stands here.

In any case, the focus is on the aforementioned lectures, and again, there were quite a few of them. They are held in five stages in total, and usually there is one in each time slot in all of them, so there is definitely a lot to choose from. On the other hand, this means that you simply won’t have the opportunity to listen to everything.

It’s worth noting this year’s talk by Warren Spector, designer of games like Deus Ex and System Shock, who spoke about why games matter. There was also an interesting talk by former Housemarque game director Harry Krueger, who spoke about how he went from being a “regular” programmer to being a creative director. There was also, for example, Remedy game composer Petri Alanko, who spoke about creating music mainly for Alan Wake 2, but there were also more specific talks, such as a technical talk on creating games for multiple platforms or one on mental health, for which the room gradually ran out of space and, unfortunately, there wasn’t even a short video.

By the way, one of the most interesting lectures was given by producer Martin Klima from Warhorse, who talked about how big Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is. The information was so interesting that the article I wrote a few hours after finishing it quickly spread around the world. We discussed and explained this in more detail in the last podcast.

This year, there were over a hundred indie games to try out, not just from professional developers, but also from university and even high school students. Unfortunately, I had little time to play due to lectures, but I did at least try out the very promising train roguelike Fogpiercer, about which I wrote separate impressions, and interviewed Eva Navratilova from Attu Games, the creators of the upcoming embroidery game Scarlet Deer Tavern.

By the way, it won the award for the best art page on Game Access. The best gameplay was awarded to the Polish game Heartbreaker, and the award for the best game was given to Preserve from the Slovak studio Bitmap Galaxy.

The event lasted two days, with three parties and two gaming music concerts, so there was definitely something to see. If you work in the gaming industry or are thinking about getting into it, conferences like these are the perfect opportunity. I will definitely be attending Game Access again next year.