Second day of Digital Dragons Conference 2025 revolved around great events held in even larger halls of ICE Kraków Congress Center. Lectures, panels, PHOTOmodeBOOK exhibition, meetings in Business Networking Zone, developers and publishers with their projects in Expo Zone and Indie Zone – all of that was open for participants ready to immerse themselves in the incredible world of video games. Not to mention the cherry on top of the whole conference, which was the Digital Dragons Awards Gala powered by Activision.
It was a really smart move from organizers to start the day from a press conference in Media Corner. Not only did they officially greet everyone and introduce themselves, but also gave us a little tour on the main area and its attractions. Thanks to that, we reached the zone dedicated to lectures, where we also stumbled upon a fascinating exhibition of videogame screens taken in photographic mode by Rafal Szrajber. The PHOTOmodeBOOK vol. 1-18 was a project that really got imprinted on my memory, as I was still thinking about those cinematic shots on my way to the first lecture.
Bringing Games to Life with Sound and VFX
Now pardon my French (horn), but I didn’t expect the presentation on transforming midi files into live recordings to be so interactive. Iavor Pachovski, a composer who participated in the production stage of projects like Darksiders Genesis, FrostPunk and The Witcher series, shared his tips on mastering the art of video games’ music by playing the initial audio files and complete orchestral recordings.
Following each step of composing, we managed to observe the whole process of creating live music and later implementing it into the project, which was an absorbing topic also for people who were not fixated on composing.
Monday was definitely dominated by game music, since our next stop was at another lecture conducted (pun intended) in Commercial Audio Hall. This time however, we had a chance to look at the very specific example – the soundtrack of Kingdom Come: Deliverence II. Jan Valta, a lead composer for KCD I & II, spoke about his ways of telling the narrative through music.
Attendees could listen to most recognizable musical pieces from the game, such as Saint Barbara Theme or Sasau Monastery track, accompanied by comments from the author himself. And like many games, the lecture ended in a cutscene, which showed us how balancing emotional music with silence made the whole experience even more memorable.
While music plays a vital role in video games, let’s not forget the importance of having attractive visuals in your project. To learn more about it, we visited the lecture prepared by Paweł Charzyński, an expert VFX artist from 11 bit studios. His presentation was focused on spawning systems in Frostpunk 2, their optimalization and characteristics from the creator’s perspective. While the whole talk was intended mostly for people with some knowledge of VFX effects, for me it was interesting to learn that Niagara in gaming doesn’t actually refer to a waterfall.
Indie Gems and Awards Gala Highlights
Besides the lectures, we also found some time to look around Indie Zone. While it wasn’t easy to choose amongst almost 50 games, I managed to check out some captivating titles. First, I entered the world influenced by dreams in pixelated point-and-click Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken. Next I moved into virtual reality in order to guide the flock of sheep in Sheep Fall Flat.
Then it was time to change the atmosphere, which I did by trying cozy horror Vale’s Echo. And the last game on my list, but certainly not least, was a roguelike tower defense titled Wandering Monolith. A great variety at the start, and we had so much more to discover on Tuesday as well.
The last event of that day was an iconic Awards Gala. Consisting of musical performances and announcements of winners in this year’s competition, it surely evoke a lot of emotions in all kinds of video games fans. You can read more about results and the whole gala in our article here.
Eventful, Entertaining and Educational – our second day at Digital Dragons Conference 2025 prompted us to invent the EEE category in terms of inspiring events in gaming community. This however didn’t stop us from attending the last day of the conference on Tuesday, which enhanced our previous experiences and impressions to a new level. And you’ll soon see why.
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