GodotCon 2024 - how it was?
Some thoughts and pics from Berlin's colder and darker edition of the Godot conference.
By Ivan and Marta
Crunching for the showcase that didn't happen
When in June '24 the GodotCon tickets were made available for sale, Marta readily got us a couple and we started planning for the trip to Berlin.
The main goal was to showcase Junkyard Space Agency once again, this time packed with a lot more features and some real gameplay. The game far evolved from the textured sphere and lipstick-looking rockets flying around it, although the core gameplay wasn't complete yet. Notably, we wanted to show the procedurally generated asteroid and allow players to rendezvous and dock in orbit around it, in multiplayer. The date was set, and there was a lot of work ahead, so we started investing more and more of our free time to complete the planned scope.
At some point in July, the organizers communicated the necessity to submit a proposal for those willing to showcase their games. We promptly filed it, and now that the commitment was real, the hours poured in soon started to count hundreds per month. That, with both of us having daytime jobs, and Marta even completing the studies in meanwhile. Nevertheless, those were just pure drive, along with some anxiety that we might not make it in time.
And then, right when the loose ends were coming together and we were becoming more confident that what we planned to show was achievable, we got rejected. That was a surprising blow, without any explanation of why and what criteria we didn't meet, just a plain "we cannot accept your proposal". Since there was just a paragraph of description of our game, with no links or videos requested by the organizers, we were puzzled at least, hurt, to be honest. From our point of view, there seemed to be zero transparency about how the selection was made and what criteria we needed to meet.
Nonetheless, we decided to continue to wrap up the build and to attempt a sneaky showcase at some free table, if there was any. We also thought about preparing some merch to get the attention of the space geeks wandering in the conference halls.
The conference
Fast forward to the 12th of October, and there we were, at the entrance to the venue. Marta wanted to attend the workshop about procedural generation, as it definitely could have been useful for getting ideas for making more realistic celestial bodies in Junkyard Space Agency. We thought that being there at 9:00 was early enough to get to the workshop in time. But it took us half an hour to get through the queue for registration, and in the end, Marta missed the workshop.
The venue itself was in some sort of an underground bunker with no windows. Although might be OK as a setting for some futuristic first-person shooter with horror elements, we didn't find it cozy and comfortable, especially the daunting darkness and the lack of fresh air.
Main conference hall. Photo by Laura Heimann
On the positive side, the main hall had enough room for everyone, it was easy to access and the equipment was good.
The games showcase area, which we wanted to get to so badly, was kinda cool too, although a little difficult to navigate around in the narrow space between the booths.
One game in particular, PVKK, got our attention because of its awesome 3D interactive controls and no-interface approach. Served as a great inspiration for spacecraft controls in Junkyard Space Agency.
Outdoors there was a green yard and we even got some sun during launch breaks. Speaking of which, this year at the event there wasn't any free catering, snacks, coffee or even water. Despite cafés with good options and prices inside and near the venue, not even offering water for a €90 ticket was disappointing.
In addition to the very nice golden badge for the supporter-tier tickets, we secured also some t-shirts at the merch booth. This year there was plenty of stuff and it was nice to see that people were eager to buy some merch.
The talks
The opening talk by Juan Linietsky and Ariel Manzur was also one of the most interesting. Getting to know the project founders and listening to how the decisions related to engine development are made was pleasant and somewhat reassuring. Understanding how, with an ever-increasing number of contributors, the proposals and the PRs are evaluated, accepted and rejected, was insightful. Considering that we plan to open-source Junkyard Space Agency, these insights about what made Godot a successful project were very valuable.
Almost all the talks we attended were interesting and well-delivered. These are the favorites that we'd suggest watching, once the recordings come out:
- The process of creating Godot Engine and making it thrive - Juan Linietsky, Ariel Manzur 🔗
- Indie Publishing 101 - Daniel Lyozov 🔗
- Building a 3D game using real geodata (lightning talk) by Alexander Pantiukhov 🔗
- PVKK: Behind the scenes - Raffaele Picca
- Shaders and magic - live examples - Leszek Nowak 🔗
- W4's role in the Godot Ecosystem - W4 Games
- Using SwiftGodot: Godot on iPad - Miguel de Icaza 🔗
- A post-mortem on Kamaeru: organizing your project from A to Z - A. Condomines 🔗
- How to contribute to the Godot Engine - George Marques 🔗
The workshops
Unfortunately, we missed both of the workshops that we wanted to attend, about procedural generation and GDExtension usage. To get on a workshop, one had to wait for some 15-20 minutes in a live queue in front of the workshop room, and that quickly filled up. Usually, at conferences this is solved by having a pre-registration for workshops, aiding both organizers and attendees, rather than letting people wait standing there, obstructing the passage of other attendees.
Ivan managed to get a seat on the Practical tips for multiplayer game development workshop by Davide di Staso, although that seemed to be more beginner-oriented, for Junkyard Space Agency we needed some more advanced help in getting right the multiplayer architecture for making the game playable over the Internet.
The networking
Why go to conferences, if not to get to know the people of the community? A big thanks to Marcel Visser for organizing an after-conference meetup in one of Berlin's pubs, where we got a chance to know some of the awesome people from the conference.
Unexpectedly, we even managed to do an improvised showcase of our game and get some valuable feedback! Right there, in the pub, with laptops among beer bottles. So, in the end, the goal of showcasing our game can be considered achieved!
Final thoughts
In our opinion, this year's GodotCon edition was more OK-ish rather than great, and didn't match the expectations set by the last year.
On the positive side, the talks were interesting, on schedule and almost without technical problems. The venue was easy to reach and it was nice to see the number of attendees more than doubled since last year.
On the negative side, the venue itself could be better chosen. The most basic ticket was 70 euros, which is way too expensive for a conference without even basic catering.
But what we really missed was the Fireside Chat. For some reason, the organizers decided to not have the Q&A session this year, although there was plenty of time. The closing was a quick "Thank you all and please fill out the feedback form".
To us, this seemed like a missed opportunity to express openness toward the community, answer questions and hear words of gratitude.
Still, looking forward for the next GodotCon!