devcom announces first round of speakers for 2019 edition

Today the organizers of devcom are excited to present the first selection of speakers. Additionally, the  Call for Papers has started and industry representatives are invited to submit their talk, panel and workshop ideas to the Core Advisory Board of devcom 2019.

First Speakers Announced
In anticipation of devcom’s 3rd edition, the team of devcom is proud to reveal a first glimpse on some of the amazing speakers in this year’s lineup, which includes some true industry legends, like Noah Falstein and David Fox, two of the creators of the legendary Indiana Jones game, Catharina Bohler, creator of award winning My Child Lebensborn and Japanese game designer legend Ryūichi Nishizawa, creator of Wonder Boy and Monster World.

“I’m extremely stoked about this year’s event! We have the opportunity to celebrate the 30th birthday of Indiana Jones, a true videogame classic with two of its creators.”, says Nico Balletta, devcom’s Head of Program and continues: “I’m also enormously proud to welcome Catharina Bohler from BAFTA winning Sarepta Studios (My child Lebensborn), to talk about their yet unannounced  current project, which I couldn’t stop thinking about since I first heard of it. Last but not least, we’re honored to bring Wonderboy creator Ryūichi Nishizawa onto the stage to talk about his cooperation with Game Atelier and FDG Entertainment on Monsterboy and the Cursed Kingdom.“

devcom 2019: Call for Papers – open until May 31st
The Call for Papers will be open until Friday, May 31^st. Those interested in becoming a speaker at devcom 2019 can easily access our submission tool via the official website (https://www.devcom.global/#callforpapers) and present their ideas and approaches in regards to the topic frame we designed in close cooperation with our Core Advisory Board. The topics interested parties can apply for are:

• Game Design
• Arts & Visuals
• Leadership
• Tech & Programming
• Audio
• Production & Team Management
• Business & Marketing.

devcom Early Bird – safe up to 20% on all tickets until April 30th
We would also like to remind our attendees that our Early Bird special only lasts until April 30^th. Until this day, all ticket prices for devcom 2019 will still be reduced by 20%, of course without any limitation to the services included:

• all attendees have access to the entire conference program, including talks, panels, roundtables and workshops, Matchmaking, the Sunset Party, our award show, and of course the devcom Developer Night
• all attendees will get some delicious snacks and beverages for free on both conference days
• all attendees will have access to our new Award Show (more details coming soon)
• Every All Access Pass holder as well as the first 100 Business Pass holders can join the devcom networking dinner on Saturday evening
• All Access Pass holders have access to the devcom Guest Club even during gamescom

Catharina Bohler is the CEO and co-founder of the award-winning indie company Sarepta studio. She has been working in the games industry for eight years, primarily in management and game design. Sarepta Studios aim to create emotionally impactful games. In 2018 they released My Child Lebensborn, a narrative-driven parenting simulator telling the true stories about Children Born of War. In addition to her leadership role at Sarepta Studios, she is Chairman of the board of Norway’s first game developer collective: Hamar Game Collective.

Noah Falstein & David Fox
Two industry legends are about to take us on a journey – back into the year 1989, when Lucasfilm Games published Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure. Noah Falstein and David Fox invite us to celebrate the 30^th birthday of one of the classics in videogame history.

David Fox co-founded Marin Computer Center, the world’s first public-access microcomputer center in 1977. He co-authored the books Computer Animation Primer, Armchair BASIC, and Pascal Primer, before he became a founding member of Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts in 1982. During his 10 years at Lucasfilm, he was a game designer, project leader and/or programmer for Rescue on Fractalus!, Labyrinth, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure. He was also the primary SCUMM scriptor on Maniac Mansion, and experience designer for the location-based entertainment (LBE) project, Mirage. David most recently completed work on Thimbleweed Park, a Kickstarter-funded graphics adventure with ex-LucasArts members Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, where he was a game scriptor/programmer, game designer, sound designer, and writer. He currently heads up Electric Eggplant, creating mobile and AR/VR/MR games with a strong interest in LBVR.

Noah Falstein has been a professional game developer since 1980 and was one of the first ten employees at LucasArts Entertainment, The 3DO Company and Dreamworks Interactive. He has been running a design consultancy since 1996 (with a 4-year hiatus as Chief Game Designer for Google) and now focuses primarily on games for health. He began as a programmer, went on to work as a designer, producer, writer and has re-invented his career several times over. Some highlights of his work include co-designing the arcade game Sinistar, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and contributing to Serious Games such as ReMission and Neuroracer. He was a design contributor to other notable games including The Secret of Monkey Island (1 and 2), Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and Alan Wake. Falstein was the first elected Chairman of the IGDA, design columnist for Game Developer magazine for 6 years and has presented at over 200 conferences.

Ryūichi Nishizawa, Fabien Demeulenaere & Philipp Döschl
In December 2018, Game Atelier and FDG Entertainment released their highly acclaimed title Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. The game was not only officially included into the Wonderboy series, but was developed in collaboration with the series creator: Japanese developer legend Ryūichi Nishizawa, who will join Fabien Demeulenaere from Game Atelier and Philipp Döschl from FDG Entertainment on stage at devcom 2019.

Born in 1964, Ryūichi Nishizawa started working at Tekhan Ltd. in arcade games design and dot graphics (later renamed to Tecmo) at the age of 18. Having taught himself programming, he moved to UPL Co. Ltd. and developed arcade games such as Ninja-kun as a programmer and game designer. He founded Westone (later renamed to Westone Bit Entertainment Inc.) and created many titles such as Wonder Boy (arcade) and Monster World (console), in his role as director and game designer. Currently, he is working as a freelance game designer.

Fabien Demeulenaere is Studio Manager at Game Atelier (Paris, France). He joined the video game industry in 2005, working as a Lead Artist for Vivendi Games and Konami before co-creating Game Atelier with David Bellanco in 2009. Their objective is to develop quality games for everyone, which include adventure, excitement and solid technology.

Philipp Döschl (Co-Founder/Executive Producer at FDG Entertainment in Munich/Germany) co-founded FDG Entertainment back in 2001 at the age of 19. He studied Japanese and graduated in Sound Engineering. Philipp can look back onto a video gaming background of more than 30 years. After a long journey in Mobile Games, his childhood dream of making console games was fulfilled with the release of Oceanhorn on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in September 2016, followed by Switch in June 2017. The release of the critically acclaimed Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, which was co-developed with Game Atelier, marks a big milestone for the whole company. It’s the first continuation of the legendary Wonder Boy / Monster World series after 24 years, which he and Thomas Kern, two of the co-founders, played together in their early childhood days. Since the start of FDG Entertainment, he worked on more than 50 games in various positions, from level designer to sound effect artist to producer, and many more.