HAVC
The results of public calls in the category of encouraging the development and production of video games for 2023 have been published and €250,000 has been awarded to domestic studios, partly to well-known studios (LGM, Ironward, Room-C Games, Gamechuck…) but partly also to debutants (this year this category was also introduced for the first time).
The full list can be found here, in two categories – Development 2023 (from concept to demo) and Production 2023 (from demo to finished game).
Also, HAVC is launching the “Games Croatia” branding initiative as a brand for participation at international fairs and as a potential for greater visibility of Croatian projects. The international debut of this unique brand for all domestic game developers will be at the HAVC/CGDA stand at Gamescom in Germany in August 2024.
ALGEBRA GAME DAYZ
Algebra University organized GameDayz and brought John Romero to lecture Future Perspectives of Game Development. Romero also gave an interview about artificial intelligence for GamePerspectives, a short clip of which you can listen to at the link, but in short, Romero believes that soon everyone will have to learn to live with artificial intelligence!
In addition to that lecture, Algebra also organized an eSports tournament and Global Game Jam Algebra.
GLOBAL GAME JAMS
In addition to Algebra, the Global Game Jam took place at three other locations in Croatia – PISMO incubator in Novska, CTK Rijeka and for the first time at the University of Zagreb. The official website of the globalgamejam competition lists as many as 177 jammers in Croatia who collaborated on as many as 48 video games in 48 hours.
The winners are:
game Office Rush, at Algebra University
game Rise to the Bottom, in CTK Rijeka
game The Life of Bob, at the University of Zagreb
game No Need for Speed, in the PISMO incubator
We are also preparing interviews with all the winners, which you can expect – tomorrow!
CREATIVE EUROPE
Studios all over Croatia, from Pula and Samobor to Novska and Zagreb, applied to the Creative Europe competition, in search of additional funds for the development of the most creative games, in project amounts of over 3.5 million euros.
The deadline for the Creative Europe competition ended on January 24. at 5 p.m., and at least 13 studios from Croatia submitted applications. Development projects ranged from €100,000 to over €400,000, but a total of only €7 million was secured at the level of the European Union for this year. In other words, Croatia is competing for as much as 50% of the entire European fund, which prompts the question – is the fund underfunded, or are we above average creative?
It is true that Croatia is far above average in withdrawing funds from this fund – from 2020 until today, an average of 2 projects from the Republic of Croatia were accepted every year (8 in total), and the most funds were withdrawn in 2021, when Croatia had the largest success rate of all European Union countries (60%). Then, out of the total allocated amount of 3.7 million euros, we withdrew 359,000 euros, that is, almost 10% of the entire amount went to Croatia.
VARIOUS
Pine studio is looking for a mid-level 2D illustrator, and Protopixel is looking for a number of QA positions. You can find all job positions on our careers page.
Zagreb GameDev MeetUp organized DrinkUp #65 in Crni mačka, for the next MeetUp follow them on Facebook.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
In Rijeka, Riviera and 3. zmaj plan to organize “Expo GameRi“, the first gaming expo in Rijeka, from April 6 to 7, 2024.
The Fantastic Gaming Show was also announced on May 31. and 1.6. in the Mate Parlov Sports Center in Pula with an eSports and expo section:
