Program

Time	Event	Link
From 12:30 to 16:00 Scandic Billingen	Spelbranschforum During the day, we will bring together the Swedish games industry, regional game clusters, and representatives from regions, municipalities, and other key stakeholders to discuss one shared question – what will it take for Sweden to remain a leading game development nation in the future? For invited only.
From 13:00 to 18:00 Skövde Kulturhus	Doors Open!
From 13:00 to 17:00 Freja	Sweden Game Pitch Sweden Game Pitch brings 13 teams to the stage to pitch their games to investors, publishers and other games industry professionals. Everyone is welcome to join and watch the pitches.
From 13:00 to 17:00 Expo	Opening of the Indiecator 30 indie teams from all over the country showcase their newest playable builds.
From 13:00 to 15:00 Kulturiet	Game Educator Summit This year’s theme is “Game Production Research and Practice – Together at Last”. The symposium will feature Casey O'Donnell, who conducts research into Studio Studies and Games Production Research at Michigan State University. His lecture will also take the form of a workshop exploring how the productive intersections between "vocational" and "academic" work can enrich one another and contribute to better approaches to game development.
From 13:30 to 14:00 Valhall	Opening of Sweden Game Conference 2026!
From 13:40 to 14:00 Valhall	Start Up Panel
From 14:30 to 14:50 Valhall	Indiecator Spotlight The Edge of Water + Goblin Getaway + Departure of Darkness
From 15:10 to 15:30 Valhall	Indiecator Spotlight A Corporate Machine + Furball Fortress + Moss Dwellers
From 15:50 to 16:10 Valhall	Sponsor Spotlight Mi5
From 16:30 to 16:50 Valhall	Indiecator Spotlight Seeking Home + Starmax + Kroon: Cold Case
From 16:50 to 18:00 Valhall	Mingle!
From 18:00 to 20:00 Coffee Stain Studios	Pitch Mingle Investors and publishers mingles with the pitching teams. For invited only.
From 19:00 to 22:00 Scandic Billingen	Industry Mixer Join the Industry Mixer to mingle and connect with other industry professionals. For all non-student.

Time	Event	Link
From 09:30 to 19:00 Skövde Kulturhus	Open doors!
From 10:00 to 11:00 Odeon	Talk: The (Dis)Advantage of Climbing Giant Shoulders - A Postmortem for Esoteric Ebb Scraped together over the course of eight years, Esoteric Ebb lives in the shadow of the greatest narrative RPGs of all time. Somehow, it didn’t end in complete catastrophe. Come and listen to Christoffer Bodegård, CEO of Sudden Snail, as he attempts to explain why.
From 10:00 to 11:00 Freja	Panel: Cash Rules Everything Around Me - Funding Game Development in 2026 We gather some of the sharpest minds on the front lines of games funding to ask them what they think of the current funding landscape, and how indies can use risk assessment to improve their chances of raising capital.
From 10:00 to 11:00 Kulturiet	Talk: Build an Investor-Friendly Game – Legal Takeaways What should game studios and founders know when seeking investment? In this session, Otto Gullberg, Partner and Lawyer at Rosengrens law firm, and Hanna Hansson, is an Associate Partner, Attorney at Law and European Trademark and Design Attorney at AWA, will share legal perspectives on investments, due diligence and intellectual property, with a focus on game studios and founders seeking investment.
From 10:00 to 17:00 Expo	Indiecator Area Opens
From 10:10 to 10:30 Valhall	Opening Panel Thoughts and tips from local veterans
From 10:50 to 11:10 Valhall	Indiecator Spotlight Branch by Branch + Räfwen - The fox spirit + Starball Pachinko
From 11:00 to 12:00 Odeon	Talk: How to Make a Hit on Roblox What makes a Roblox game go from a promising idea to a long-term hit? In this session, Brian Span, Game Designer at The Gang Studio, will break down the strategies behind successful Roblox experiences, using Prison Pump as a case study alongside lessons from games like Strongman Simulator and other top-performing titles from The Gang Studio. Whether you’re interested in game design, LiveOps, growth, or the future of UGC gaming, this talk will offer practical insights into building experiences that can thrive in today’s Roblox ecosystem.
From 11:00 to 12:00 Freja	Panel: State of the Games Industry 2026 Business leaders discuss current topics and trends: regulation, AI, VR winter, friendslop, UGC/PCC, budget cuts/layoffs, and the indie explosion. Listen, nod, or disagree – and feel free to bring your own topic to the Q&A.
From 11:00 to 11:30 Kulturiet	Talk: Running Our Own Studio - Three Ways We Made Money How do you keep a game studio alive before the games start paying the bills? Linda Kiby Zetterman, CEO of Roden Games, will share her experience with three very different revenue and funding models: friends and family investment, a publisher deal, and consulting. She’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and what she learned along the way.
From 11:30 to 11:50 Valhall	Sponsor Spotlight Hjo Folkhögskola
From 12:00 to 13:00 Freja	Talk: Making Games Like Rocky Would Yiğit Doruk, Co-founder and Game Maker at TENSTACK, will share his journey from aspiring game design student in Turkey to moving to Sweden at the age of 19 and eventually founding TENSTACK. He’ll talk about how his experiences in both countries, and in the games industry, shaped TENSTACK and why he decided to release a game every month for almost two years. He’ll also share how it all led to the success of his latest game and TENSTACK as a whole – with a bit of luck along the way.
From 12:00 to 13:00 Odeon	Talk: Too Many Notes: A Creative Approach to Music Scoring in Witchspire League of Legends, Metal: Hellsinger, Vermintide 2, Angry Birds 2, and Witchspire – what do these games have in common? In 2012, two game development students – one from the University of Skövde and one from Futuregames – met through a metal band that was looking for a new bassist. A handshake, a promise, and many years later, Elvira Björkman and Nicklas Hjertberg have become known as Two Feathers, a multi-award-winning composer duo nominated for Best Music at The Game Awards 2022. In this talk, Elvira will share unique insights into their journey and creative approach to composing, with a focus on their latest game, Witchspire – featuring a fully orchestral soundtrack for the debut game from new studio Envar Games.
From 12:30 to 12:50 Valhall	Indiecator Spotlight Stick Together + Imperia Borealis + Starball Project Paradox
From 13:00 to 14:00 Odeon	Talk: The Power of Niche Sebastian Forsström, Publishing Director at Living World, will explain why Bruce Lee and Arrowhead were right, and how being niche has always been a winning formula in the games industry.
From 13:00 to 13:30 Kulturiet	Talk: No Longer Free to Play Existing and upcoming regulations for game developers will change how games can be monetised and what design decisions developers are allowed to make. Why do in-game currencies and policies around payment options matter to everyone, and not just mobile game developers? In this talk, Johanna Nylander, Head of Analysis and Deputy Managing Director at the Swedish Games Industry, will explore how to navigate a changing global market, how to get paid for creating great games, and who will pay for games in the future.
From 13:00 to 14:00 Freja	Talk: Keep Driving Retrospective – How to Lay Pieces Without Knowing the Puzzle A retrospective talk with Christopher Andreasson and Josef Martinovsky, founders of YCJY Games, about the development of the road trip management role-playing game Keep Driving. From failure and confusion to mundanity and security, to mania and catharsis.
From 13:10 to 13:30 Valhall	Interview Valheim 1.0 - the journey
From 13:30 to 14:30 Kulturiet	Talk: The Invisible Player: How to Market to Users Who Don't Identify as Gamers Despite the fact that over half of the American population plays games, only 10% actually identify as "gamers." For women, you can cut that in half. So, how do you market a game to someone who doesn't resonate with the medium? Or even rejects the label? Especially if they need a 300$ + console. In this talk, Parker Barry, CEO and Creative Director at Mugwort Studios, deconstructs the "Invisible Player" and concrete ways studios can reach them, by speaking their language.
From 13:50 to 14:10 Valhall	Indiecator Spotlight Constriction + The Two Body Problem + No Tithe for Olaf
From 14:00 to 15:00 Odeon	Talk: Balancing the Chaos: Systems Design for a Co-op Survival Townbuilder Romestead mixes many different elements in its unique take on co-op survival townbuilding. In this talk, Samuel Blomqvist, CEO at Beartwigs, explores the interesting design problems, the tough decisions and how the team made the overlapping systems feel coherent without overwhelming players.
From 14:00 to 15:00 Freja	Talk: Marketing is Dead - Long Live Marketing The new media landscape has changed the marketing game. Time is no longer linear, storytelling is fragmented, and brands matter more than ever – while building one is hard as heck. In this talk, Malin Castegren, Marketing Manager at Coffee Stain Publishing, will explore which lessons from the past are still worth keeping and how we can set ourselves up for success when our fate is increasingly ruled by algorithms.
From 14:30 to 14:50 Valhall	Sponsor Spotlight Room to Be Wrong: Getting Prototyping Right at Avalanche R&D
From 14:30 to 15:30 Kulturiet	Q&A Session: Sweden Game Startup Business Developers from Sweden’s leading startup program for game developers, Sweden Game Startup, will present the program, explain what to expect when joining, and answer your questions.
From 15:00 to 16:00 Freja	Talk: The Art of Helldivers 2 Helldivers 2 wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but creating something new from all of them wasn’t always easy. Throughout its ten years of development, the project and the art team faced many different challenges. In this talk, Viktor and Magnus Nyström, Senior Artists at Arrowhead Game Studios, will share the twists and turns they faced along the way, as well as some of the broader challenges of working with art in the games industry – and how to overcome them.
From 15:00 to 16:00 Odeon	Talk: Insert Coin There’s no single right way to fund a game, but there are many wrong fits. During this session, Ali Farha, Venture Capital Investor at Behold Ventures, will unpack the key financing options available to game founders today, what each one requires of you, and why the smartest studios build hybrid funding stacks rather than relying on a single source of capital.
From 15:10 to 15:30 Valhall	Indiecator Spotlight Be Gray, Do Crime + Hollowtone
From 15:30 to 16:30 Kulturiet	Talk: Open Sorcery: Making Games for “the Culture” and Preservation with Passion Open source is something many developers and consumers tend to take for granted, even though we interact with open-source technology almost every day. It’s also a term surrounded by misconceptions and misunderstandings. In this talk, Jacob Akpinar Olsson, Game Sound Designer & Composer at Sonigon AB and Co-Founder of dofhouse AB, will explore what you can do with open-source tools and demonstrate how sound is designed and implemented in the upcoming open-source game project: AMICA.
From 15:50 to 16:10 Valhall	Sponsor Spotlight Coffee Stain Studios
From 16:00 to 17:00 Freja	Fireside Chat: RV doing this right? Welcome to this open conversation and/or cross-examination with Tim Badylak, Co-founder and CEO of Nuggets Entertainment, creators of the vastly popular co-op game RV There Yet?
From 16:00 to 17:00 Odeon	Talk: Asia Is Not One Market: Bringing Western Indies to China, Japan and Beyond Seeing strong wishlist numbers from Asia but struggling to turn them into sales? Wondering how to reach Japanese players, or whether to trust that publishing offer from China? Drawing on real case studies from Neon Noroshi, Tomoko Miya, founder and CEO of Neon Noroshi, will share how to convert Asian interest into revenue, what Asian players actually look for, and how to vet Asian publishers before you sign.
From 17:00 to 18:00 Valhall	Award Ceremony Who wins this year's SAGA award, Pitch of the Year and Indiecator of the Year?
From 19:00 to 22:00 Husaren	SpelUtvecklarPub SpelUtvecklarPub (GameDevPub) brings game devs and game dev students together to meet, chill and network.

Program

Schedule: Sweden Game Conference schedule