From November 7th to 9th, we attended the video games and game development convention GameOn in Lithuania. This was our fourth time visiting the convention. It is always cool to see different games from universities, indies, and larger studios side by side. GameOn also has a very nice conference section that includes very informative talks from successful game developers or people closely connected to the industry.

Friday started with Lithuanian success stories like Human Fall Flat and Cooking Fever. Then there was a talk on how to get EU funding for creating a narrative in a game project. Later in the day was a presentation about the three best games from the Baltic countries. It was nice to meet Rein Zobel again, who talked about Bootstrap Island. The best game from Latvia was The Case of the Golden Idol, which innovated on the detective adventure puzzle game mechanic. From Lithuania, it was Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit, which has incorporated real-world places in Lithuania and Lithuanian culture into the game world.

Near the end of Friday were two very cool talks. First, Tom Hall, one of the original creators of Doom and id Software, talked about how to get new ideas for making video games. Namely, it is important to be in an environment without any distractions – a creative place, where one can focus solely on letting ideas come and combining them gently inyo new ones. Taking a shower or driving a car also produces that state of mind. The second presentation was from 11 bit studios, who had switched from their own in-house engine to Unreal Engine for making Frostpunk 2. The talk was about the struggle to pick Unreal Engine instead of Unity or the in-house Liquid Engine used for the first Frostpunk game. The day ended with an amazing concert, where a live orchestra and a metal band played known songs from video games!

The talks on Saturday were on broader topics like cosplay. Tom Hall also did another presentation about the early days of id Software. On Sunday, he was giving autographs, and we got a signed Doom poster for the University of Tartu.

We went to the event with two of our master’s students, who showcased their games in our booth. It is essential to provide students with firsthand experience with real players. Observing how someone actually learns and plays a game is a crucial aspect of game development. Students received a lot of useful feedback to help them make their games even better.

Townfall

There are many city-building and strategy games. One very interesting mechanic that is not that popular in them is when the play area changes throughout the gameplay. Townfall is a game developed for a Master’s thesis that plays with that concept. As with other such games, the goal is to gather resources and build buildings for a growing population. However, as the game progresses, parts of the world will get destroyed as new unpopulated areas spawn. This keeps the player always planning ahead and expanding their city.

Nullis and Werewich

Werewich you might already be familiar with as it is the winner of the last UT Pro Game Jam, which had a theme of Estonian mythology and folklore. The game was developed in two days by a team of experienced game developers, including a master’s student who showcased it on GameOn. Another game that she is solo-developing is Nullis. This is a puzzle game, where you have a limited number of moves to destroy all the zeroes on a field. Similarly to Tetris, when the zeroes are destroyed, the columns above them drop down. Playing Nullis requires planning ahead and making smart moves. The game is planned to be released on Steam in 2026.

Overall, it was amazing to talk to different game developers, institutions teaching game development, and, of course, young people aspiring to study and become game developers.

GameOn is really a great video game convention to learn a lot about the current industry and play some cool games.
See you next year, Lithuania!