Posted in: Conventions, Digital Dragons, Events, Games, Video Games | Tagged: Digital Dragons 2024, Kraków, Poland

On The Metro To Kraków: We Experienced Digital Dragons 2024

We were brought out to Poland with an amazing chance to check out Digital Dragons 2024. This is what we thought about the event!

A few weeks ago, we were given an amazing opportunity to go out to Poland for a few events, the biggest of them being a chance to attend Digital Dragons 2024. Originally, we went to Warsaw with 11 Biit Studios, where we played previews of The Alters and Frostpunk 2. After that, we hopped on a train and traveled all the way down to Kraków, the city that would play host to this year's convention. We spent a couple of days in the city as we attended the event, took some photos along the way, and had a lot of interesting experiences. Here's our thoughts on experiencing Digital Dragons for the first time.

The event took place at the ICE Kraków Congress Centre, which you can see here. It may look like your average convention center, but it really isn't, as they've managed to utilize the space to feel open and was the perfect location for this kind of event. Well, at least in our opinion having been at several other conventions in Europe where they more often than not feel cramped and uncoordinated. This was a cool location central to a lot of things around the city, with a decent view of Wawel Castle, the Vistula River, and the Kraków Eye Ferris Wheel.

One of the first events we took part in was the opening presentation from Swen Vincke from Larian Studios. While the presentation was being called "Taming The Tadpole," this was secretly being billed as the "absolutely, positively, 100% confirmed final time he would ever talk about Baldur's Gate III in a public setting." The hour-long presentation had Viincke talk about the history of Larian and all of the issues and troubles it went through over the years since its founding in 1996. He talked about the lessons and risks they took as a company throughout the entire Divinity series, many of which he tried to pass onto the filled-to-capacity room, including taking a risk on themselves with a Kickstarter campaign and pushing ahead.

Eventually, he discussed BG3 and the trials and tribulations of working on a major property tied to an iconic franchise. He was fair in giving praise and criticism for working on a system that used the Dungeons & Dragons' 5E system, discussing the challenges it posed while also the possibilities they had in creating something familiar but unique. It was a very eye-opening discussion as to how they managed to create the game, but also why the development and the Early Access periods took so long. At the end, he announced they would open a new studio in Warsaw while also fielding some questions from the audience.

When the presentation was done, I made my way around the ground floor, where the vast majority of the games were on display. They had divided things up into a few areas depending on where each game fit into the conversation for that event. First, there was the Indie Showcase, which highlighted many of the promising games coming out of Poland that were not tied to any major studio.  A lot of them showed promise as we got a healthy dose of narrative titles, as well as a few bizarre ones and a clever game or two that didn't feel like anything else. The second area was the National Showcase, which highlighted games from various countries that were nearby or were invited to take part. These included games from Slovakia, Georgia, Finland, and Indonesia, just to name a few. We got to play a few demos on the floor as well, but every game practically had someone waiting to try it out after the latest person was finished.

We moved up a floor to what I can best describe as the Polish Job Fair. This is where Digital Dragons shine above some of the other conventions we attend because this one has a focus on helping people within the gaming industry (or looking to get into it) find jobs. To be clear, this does exist at other conventions in North America and Europe, but this was by far the most coordinated of the bunch. We walked around and saw a number of studios with their own booth and tables, open and willing to chat with anyone who wanted to drop by and talk about potential careers. As you can see from the images here, a lot of localized studios were available to discuss what their company is about and what kind of projects they work on (without giving anything away) while also connecting with people such as artists, writers, designers, and more who are looking to branch out.

Aside from seeing a lot of people we've chatted with in the past, it was cool to kind of get a sense of where each company was coming from and what they were looking for. As well as how open some of them were to remote work knowing that it may not be so easy for someone to instant pack up and move across the country. It was also kind of interesting to see what studios were actively looking to fill their roster, either be being a new studio or having a project in the works they couldn't talk about.

During lunch, we made our way across the street to the Park Inn by Radisson Hotel, which served as the second primary location for the event. This is where a lot of the attendees and exhibitors were staying, but it also served like a lot of hotels at conventions do for registration, badge pickup, and other off-site activities. One of the biggest uses of the venue was for smaller workshops. If you happened to pay extra money for a workshop ticket, you could attend one featuring some prominent names in the industry for a less formal and more interactive experience. Some of the most popular on the list were writing about archetypes with Tomasz Marchewka, tutorial design by Rafał Cywicki, and talking about worldbuilding with Robert Kurvitz.

We explored a bit more of the conference center, and as you can see from the image here, Digital Dragons used as much of the space as it could to give people a number of locations to attend and hold presentations, as well as find a way to chat with others. It seemed like every floor we went to had something new going on at that point in time, so even if you were just popping into the area to browse, you could find a seat and get some information on a random topic.

That said, another cool aspect for Digital Dragons was the private meeting area on the third floor. Technically, it wasn't too private, but it was the classiest way of setting up business meetings we'd seen in a while. The shorthand to this is that the event used a specific mobile app where you could connect with registered people who had a badge. If you wanted a private space with a reserved table, you could connect and set it up (almost like speed dating) with a reserved table number. Then, the two of you meet up and have a guaranteed 30 minutes in that space to discuss things. As you can see, people borrowed chairs and even made it a group discussion.

This area also had dedicated media spaces for those of us attending as journalists or other members of the press so that we could do interviews in a relatively private space. That included a small sampling of refreshments off in the corner so you could stay hydrated while attending multiple meetings. This entire space was great to hang out in and chat with people. I thought the placement of this was really cool and innovative, as a lot of the time, if you want this, you have to go find a hotel bar or the media room that's been shuffled away somewhere that people can't find. Digital Dragons made it so you could find anyone and connect with them for whatever business you needed.

That evening, myself and others who had been incited out gathered for the Digital Dragons Awards Gala. We were seated in a specific section for those who only spoke English and didn't know a word of Polish, as they had an AI translator tell us what was being said on stage throughout the event. We were treated to an orchestral performance at the start of the evening, as well as a musical performance by Carolin "Wønder" Mrugala, which absolutely stole the show in our opinion. We have the full list of winners from the show:

• Best Polish Game: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (CD PROJEKT RED)
• Best Polish Narrative: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (CD PROJEKT RED)
• Best Polish Game Design: Against the Storm (Eremite Games)
• Best Polish Game Visual Art: Inkulinati (Yaza Games)
• Best Polish Game Audio: The Invincible (Starward Industries)
• Best Polish Mobile Game: Hero Legacy: Adventure RPG (BoomBit Games)
• Best Foreign Game: Baldur's Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
• Special Recognition Award: Marta Fijak

Overall, Digital Dragons is a unique experience that you don't see in a lot of conventions. it feels like they took lessons from other shows and either incorporated the best elements or built upon what others only did on a minor level. It's very clear the organizers take their role in the industry seriously and have gone above what would be expected to highlight, honor, and aid the studios in their country as best they can. Which should come as no shock since we see the same thing happen in Japan, South Korea, and Canada. We didn't even get to some of the out-of-convention things we got to do, such as attending a reception held at The National Gallery, where a bunch of gamers got to chat and eat around tons of artwork that's over a century old. This was a very different experience that's hard to capsulate in a single post and was a joy to attend. If we ever get the opportunity to attend again, we will take it in a heartbeat.

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