The second year of the Czech & Slovak Games Week on Steam -apkrig begins

Last year, the Czech & Slovak Games Week premiered on the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic on October 28, 1918. The event was a success, so it is no wonder that the organizers of GDACZ (Association of Czech Game Developers) and SGDA (Slovak Gaming Association) developers) to reorganize. This year, however, for a change, it falls on the anniversaries of November 17, 1939 and 1989, and in addition, it significantly expands its scope in terms of platforms, participating games and developers and accompanying events. In addition, there will be an announcement of new games and the announcement of nominations for the Czech Games in 2020.

“The first year significantly exceeded all expectations for us. We wanted to test whether we could prepare a similar event and hoped that it would help at least some of the studios with sales a bit. In the end, most of the participating studios recorded some of the best sales of their games of the year, even compared to other discount promotions on Steam. We also had very positive reactions from the players. Of course, especially from those locals who appreciated that they see a promo with our flags on a global platform like Steam. A lot of people were also surprised by what all Czech games are. They had no idea at all, “said Pavel Barák from GDACZ about the event.

Get ready for the Czech & Slovak Games Week! # CZSKGW21 🇨🇿🇸🇰

💸 Discounts on multiple platforms
👀 Game announcements
🏆 Czech GOTY Awards nominations + game of the decade vote
🎤 Talks + panels at @GameDevSession
🕹️ Game jam results

See you on November 15-22! pic.twitter.com/1zj5tVgmZ9

— Czech & Slovak Games Week (@czskgamesweek) November 9, 2021

Last year, a total of 165 games from 72 Czech and Slovak studios came together, but this time many more creators could participate, which of course was reflected in the numbers. This year, 261 games and 116 developers or studios are involved. While last year the event focused only on Steam, this year it permeates all possible platforms. Steam (November 15 from 19:00) added GOG (November 15 from 15:00), Nintendo (November 15 from 17:00), itch.io (November 15 from 21:00), Xbox (November 16 from 0:00), PlayStation (November 17 from 1:00) and mobile platforms Android, iOS and Huawei, where we can find various discounts.

Awards, lectures, but also new games

However, Czechoslovak Game Week is not just about discounts. Its introduction included the announcement of the GDS Game Jam 2021 and the Bratislava Game Jam 2021, which took place from 5 to 7 November and during which the creators of 32 Czech and 17 Slovak games created in 48 hours. The participants of the jam chose the game Unforeseeable Fate of Official Hynek: The Story About Census on Planet With Unknown Quantity of Wonderful Creatures by Outside the Fox (who are working on the full-fledged game Silicomrades) as the Czech winner. The game CAPTCHAred from the Angelika team won among the Slovak participants and was also chosen by the jury as the overall winner.

Nominations for the Czech Games 2020 will be announced on Tuesday, November 16, and the online presentation itself will take place on December 1. The awards will be presented in the categories Game Design, Audiovisual Processing, Technological Solutions, Free to play, Student Game and Czech Game of the Year 2020. There will also be an induction into the Hall of Fame, but a novelty is the Czech Game of the Decade award, for which players will be able to vote. For example, titles like Mafia: Definitive Edtition, Someday You’ll Return, Shadowgun War Games, Creaks, Proof 111, Medieval Engineers, Jets’n’Guns 2, Ministry of Broadcast, Drive 4 Survival, The Pillar, Street Power Football, Imperiums: Greek Wars, Engine Evolution, Hadr and others.

The biggest attraction is the stream and presentation of hitherto unannounced projects and games on which Czech and Slovak developers are working. We can look forward to these announcements and the Czech and Slovak Games Week Direct Showcase on November 17 from 19:00.

The week will also include a fully digital Game Developers Session 2021, which falls on November 19 and 20. Czech and foreign lecturers will talk mainly about design, production, but also about the legal issues that accompany every development. The event will be accompanied by a job fair.

Behind the curtain of action

Czechoslovak Gaming Week provides a great opportunity to promote not only the games themselves, but also the Czech and Slovak gaming industry as such. The special events will make it possible to show off the entire spectrum of games in a way that simply cannot be overlooked on individual platforms, as they will already attract you on the main page of Steam or GOG. Related to this is a strong visual presentation, which, as in the case of last year, is backed by graphic designer Anna Voříšková from the SCS Software studio. She again took care of all the graphics that appear in connection with the event. We can see, for example, Pold Pankrác, Hadr, one of Bulánky, Tereza from Kingdom: Come Deliverance, Coffee Guy from Blackhole or Mimpi’s dog in the joint scene. They were joined by the games Freedom 1945: Liberation, American Truck Simulator, Silicomrades, Monolisk, Feudal Alloy, Machinarium, Nebuchadnezzar, Space Engineers, Galaxy Trucker, Jets’n’Guns, Blackhole, Jim is Moving Out !, The Flood, Arma III and Beat Saber. Below you can see how the whole illustration was created and its detailed cut-outs, which were exclusively provided to us.

“This year, the main key art is more detailed and more thoughtful, it contains many more characters and other objects from the Czech and Slovak games. When it comes to choosing characters, it’s always very difficult. We try to represent our most famous studios, which represent the Czech and Slovak games on the international scene, but we also want to give space to smaller games that are not well known. In addition, every year I try to somehow incorporate elements from games in the composition, in which, for example, no characters appear at all or do not have a clearly defined appearance, which is not easy at all. I really care that the illustrations accompanying the event look friendly and welcoming. That’s why this year the characters have a good party with balloons and cake! And they invite you all to join them. “

“Valve’s promo has been global for Games Week for several days, so it has been seen by Steam users around the world. Sales of Czech and Slovak games thus increased worldwide during the event. The event did not resonate so much in the foreign media, but we did not expect that, “Barák added to last year and at the same time added what he promises from this year. “We expect the event to be bigger in every way. Compared to last year, the discounts run on ten different distribution platforms. We do a lot of streams and accompanying program. We believe that we will provide even better promotion and visibility of their studies to the studios, even the smallest ones. The event was prepared for almost four months from July and two dozen people were involved in the preparations. Communication and preparations took place in cooperation with the world’s largest companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and, of course, Valve. Everything was really hard to reconcile. I firmly believe that we have succeeded and the event will succeed. “