Speakers and panelists

Producer at Amplifier

After graduating from the University of Skövde, and getting his start in the games industry as a game designer, John has pivoted into the life of a producer after discovering that he prefers the process of supporting others make the best games possible over building them himself.

Creative Director & co-Head of Studio at Wishfully

Creative Director & co-Head of Studio at Wishfully, the studio behind the critically acclaimed Sci-fi Puzzle Adventure 'Planet of Lana'.

CEO & Game Director at Flamebait Games

Mattias is a co-founder, CEO and Game Director at Flamebait Games. He has his humble origins in the University of Skövde where he started the indie studio together with other students. Flamebait is behind the successful Passpartout games, with Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist being recently launched in April 2023.

Software Engineer at Unity Technologies

Working on DOTS, Entities, and the engine. In his free-time he makes games and interacts with the community of Unity. He's taught at many notable Technical University's across Denmark, and for the last 6 years, has taught young adults to make games in the span of a week at a Danish Game Development Camp.

Games User Researcher at Player Research

Irem joined Player Research as a user researcher after and a stint at McKinsey Design, and finishing her PhD research in neuroscience and psychology. She applies her knowledge to deliver insights to game developers into usability, UX, appeal and play of their games. She worked on a range of titles ranging from mobile to VR, and from indie to AAA.

CEO at Starbreeze

Tobias started in the game industry as a programmer in 1996. He was the Studio Head 2001-2004 at DICE during the time Battlefield 1942 shipped. For about 8 years he worked as an agent helping game developers making deals with publishers but since 2012 he have mainly worked in executive roles in the Swedish game industry at Stardoll, Paradox and White Wolf Entertainment. In 2019 and during the reconstruction he joined the board of Starbreeze and in fall 2020 he took the CEO role.

Senior Concept Artist at Remedy

Patrik Rosander is a concept artist at Remedy. He has worked in the entertainment industry for 11 years on titles such as Love, Death & Robots, Warhammer 40k: Darktide, Warhammer Vermintide 2 & The Magicka Series.

Designer at Rare Ltd.

From barista to designer at Rare Ltd – the road getting into the industry wasn’t straight, but has been a lot of fun! Emelie is a designer on the Everwild project at Rare Ltd. She has previously been a producer at Team Junkfish and Fundamentally Games. With a passion for building community and creative spaces, she has organised game jams and loves talking game development with students of all ages. Emelie can be bribed with black coffee and salty liquorice.

Art Director at Thunderful Games

Brandt Andrist has worked as a Concept Artist and Art Director for 12 years, first in Seattle and now in Skövde/Gothenburg. He started his journey as a student at the Digipen Institute of technology. After graduating with a degree in production animation, he went on to work at Gas Powered Games, Wargaming, 2K, and now Thunderful. He is an avid gamer, passionate artist, and teacher.

Lead Weapon & Prop Artist at Facepunch Studios

Thomas Butters is the Lead Weapon & Prop Artist at Facepunch Studios on both Rust and s&box. With over 10 years in the industry Tom has a wide experience from character art to vehicles, weapons and props. He loves post apocalyptic art and his passion is to portray narrative, character and life in his own work, and finally to bring glory to God in all that he does for the enjoyment of others.

Co-owner, Sound & Music Designer at Noknok Audio

As one third of game audio trio Noknok Audio, Oda has done both sound and music design for a variety of indie games. Some of her most recent work can be heard in Viewfinder, and in the upcoming Snufkin: Melody of Moomin Valley and Tiny Glade.

Finding solutions for implementation that leave room for play and experimentation is one of her favourite things, as long as she can have someone else do the code.

CEO and Game Director at Weza Interactive Entertainment LTD

George Odongo Ahere is an enthusiastic game developer with a strong mission: to bring authentic African gaming experiences to life and unlock the immense potential of the African gaming market.

In his role as the CEO and Founder of Weza Interactive Entertainment, George is a driving force in Kenya's gaming industry. His wealth of experience collaborating with game development companies across Europe, Africa, and China has bolstered his determination to expand the horizons of the gaming industry within Africa and on a global scale. George is excitedly pursuing new opportunities worldwide to advance his career confidently and continue leading innovations that will shape the future of the gaming sector.

Studio Narrative Director at EA DICE

Emily Grace Buck has been a narrative designer and game writer for over a decade. She is the narrative director for the live service of Battlefield 2042 and the multiplayer experience for the next Battlefield project at EA DICE. Before joining Electronic Arts, Emily worked for Ubisoft Reflections on an unannounced title, Lucid Games on Destruction: AllStars, Gato Studio on The Waylanders, and Telltale Games on a number of titles including Batman: The Telltale Series, Batman: The Enemy Within, and The Walking Dead: The Final Season.

Lead Living World Designer at Guerrilla

Espen Sogn is a Swedish industry veteran of twenty years. He has worked on Killzone, Enslaved: Odyssey to the west and most recently the Horizon games. Lately his focus has been on how to create cultures in game.

Senior Gameplay Animator at Ubisoft Massive

Marcus is an Animator at Ubisoft Massive with more than 10 years experience in the AAA industry, working on games such as The Division, South Park and Avatar. His responsibilities include everything from Keyframe animation, Directing motion capture shoots and building state machines as well as mentoring junior animators. After starting his Gamedev Journey here in Skövde 16 years ago he is happy to return and give something back.

CEO at Aurora Arts

Tilla is the founder of Aurora arts, a new game studio working on their debut title Fae & Fauna. With previous experience working as an Art director collaborating with Netflix, MGM and Square enix, she knows the importance of combining great art with business. While her heart beats for art, she's equally passionate about fostering inclusivity within the game industry's entrepreneurial landscape.

Senior Technical Game Designer at Flying Wild Hog

Agnar started his game development journey at the University of Skövde and quickly got involved in the town's indie game dev scene. After that he spent several years at Thunderful, and now, most recently, he finds himself at Flying Wild Hog, as a Senior Technical Game Designer. Being a bit of an all-rounder, Agnar takes joy in utilizing and working with all aspects of game development to bring forth the best game feel possible. Non-professionally, he enjoys making music, TTRPGs and generally loves doing anything creative he can get his hands on.

Concept Artist at Stunlock Studios

Viktor has been working as a concept artist at Stunlock Studios since 2017, creating concept art for maps, skins, weapons and avatars for Battlerite, Battlerite Royale and is currently working on V Rising. Viktor hopes to help young artists break into the industry by sharing what his career has taught him so far.

Studio Audio Director at EA DICE

Lydia Andrew is a Game Audio Director with over 25 years of experience in sound. Starting in location sound recording in 1994, moving into sound post-production for film and television in 1999 and into games in 2002. She has worked for EA UK, Ubisoft and EA Dice across multiple titles and genres, working in all aspects of game audio creation and integration. Originally from the UK, she has worked in France, Canada and now Sweden. Her current role is Studio Audio Director for DICE Stockholm.

Sound Designer at Sonigon

Vile Hartman is a freelancer that does audio things on games together with his colleague Victor Engström under the common banner Sonigon. Since 2016 they've worked on acclaimed titles such as V Rising, The Gunk, Goat Simulator 3, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds & many more.

Lecturer at Uppsala University Department of Game Design

Josephine Baird is a Lecturer at the Uppsala University Department of Game Design. Her work spans the intersection of games, identity, trans subjectivities, gender, and sexualities. She is a game designer/consultant, writer, actor/performer, public-speaker, and co-host of the podcast It Is Complicated.

Founders/Artist/Programmer at YCJY Games

We met in Skövde, studying game design together, and made our first game together in 2014. Since then we've made The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human in 2016, Sea Salt in 2019 and Post Void in 2020. Since then we've been working on Keep Driving, an abstract road trip management simulator.

Creative Director at Brikk Studios

Samuel Fast Hurtigkarl founded Brikk Studios in 2011 and currently serves as its CEO & Creative Director. With a background in illustration and animation, Samuel has predominantly focused on producing and directing game cinematics over the past ten years.

Director at Brikk Studios

Björn Johansson, a partner at Brikk Studios since 2012, serves as a Director and Lead Art Director at the company, producing trailers, in-game content, and marketing material for the gaming industry.

Director at Brikk Studios

Philip began his journey at Brikk as an animator nearly eight years ago. Philip has a strong fascination with the craft of frame by frame animation that originates from an almost life long passion for anime. Today Philip is a hands-on director at Brikk and takes every opportunity he gets to animate a few frame.

Senior Network Physics Programmer at Epic Games

Working on bringing multiplayer solutions to Unreal Engine 5 with Chaos Physics. Markus is a self-taught programmer with a history ranging from working as a Lead Network Programmer on Fall Guys to working as a Nurse Anesthetist at the hospital.

Senior Lecturer at Södertörn University

Karl Bergström is a senior lecturer and game designer at Södertörn University, Institution of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies, who focuses on the design- and potential of games, looking for new frontiers beyond the strictly digital.

Community Manager at Stunlock Studios

Jeremy is the Community Manager for Stunlock Studios, currently working on the breakout Vampire survival game V Rising. In a short time he has amassed experience with community building on social platforms, player support, live interviews, copy writing for formal communications, and general marketing support. He loves meeting people, feel free to bother him all you like.

Senior Character Artist at Chief Rebel

Sofia has been a Character Artist for 7 years and begun her career at Stunlock Studios. Followed up she moved to the UK where she made cinematics for Riot Games through the Scottish company Axis Studios. After working with high resolution cinematic models she decided to instead travel 20 years back in time to work for Runescape and Old School Runescape at Jagex, and after 3 years she is now back in Stockholm working at Chief Rebel.

Talent Acquisition Manager at Thunderful Games

Pierre playfully labels himself as a former game design student turned HR professional. He left his game design studies at the university 20 years ago, spent a decade in the tech industry, and never looked back after joining the games industry in HR and Recruitment.

Sound Designer at Sonigon

Victor is making audio for games at Sonigon with Vile Hartman. He has worked for 8 years on 30 games doing sound design, implementation, programming, field recording, composing. Also creator of Sonity, an audio middleware for Unity.

Animator at Thunderful Games

Matilde has a background in film but today, she works at Thunderful games as an Animator on their new city builder: SteamWorld build. She has been working in the gaming industry the last three years, and in her spear time she is either looking for mushrooms in the forest or playing Bridge.

CEO at FRAME BREAK

Joakim founded FRAME BREAK together with two fellow graduates from Skövde University, with the goal of making mold-breaking games in an inclusive and creative fashion. Before long, the company was acquired by Amplifier Game Invest and brought into Embracer Group, setting them up for rapid growth. Joakim has overseen his 3-person startup's journey into a 15-person game studio, adapting to the many challenges of scaling up your business. FRAME BREAK is currently developing the mech farming game Lightyear Frontier, set to release into Early Access in early 2024.

Head of Scouting at Raw Fury

Johan is currently helping out and running scouting for Raw Fury , as well as assorted random projects where he can be useful. Previously biz at Gameport, part of the Blekinge Business Incubator, as well as PR dude with Studio Total etc etc. Also founded and ran Creative Coast Festival and is not very good at Overwatch.

Talent Acquisition Specialist & Office Manager at Piktiv

After finishing her bachelor's degree in Economics - marketing from the University of Skövde, Ida-Maja started working at Piktiv as the Talent Acquisition Specialist & Office Manager. She mainly works with recruiting but also does other things such as planning events and trips, some social media as well as interview booking and administration. In short she does a little bit of everything and is "the spider in the web".

People & Culture Coordinator at Palindrome Interactive and FRAME BREAK

From a previous background as a DSU-student at HiS Johanna changed direction to HR in hopes of combining the two. Johanna is now the People & Culture Coordinator at both Palindrome Interactive and FRAME BREAK, both studios are a part of Amplifier Game Invest and Embracer Group.