Today marks the beginning of Czech & Slovak Games Week, an annual event that celebrates games created by studios based in the countries of Czechia and Slovakia. Our studio has been around for over 25 years, witnessing the major growth of the local games industry. During our humble beginnings, there were less than than a hundred individuals creating games on a professional basis in our countries. These days, well over 2,000 people in the region are making a living creating games, and making quite an impact on the global gaming scene. What a ride it has been! We may not be the oldest studio, but we are proud to be a part of this growth from the early years, and we are honoured to partner up with so many fantastic and creative studios during this week-long celebration.
Many of the games participating will be celebrating by offering cool discounts on Steam and any platforms where players can find them. Unfortunately, we used up our available discount slot recently on the launch of the West Balkans DLC, and we will only be able to do a promotional sale around the time of the Kansas DLC launch (wink wink). Still, we wanted to support the CZ & SK Games week in some way on Steam and give the people exploring the vast offering of locally produced games a bargain to try our titles as well; Or to catch up, in case they already own one of our flagship truck simulators, but were looking for an excuse to try the other one. We have found a working solution on Steam - a dedicated bundle may do just the trick! We are aware that most of our readers probably know our games in and out, but it may still be a good way of growing our fanbase.
[Check out the Czech & Slovak Games Week Bundle here] One part of Czech & Slovak Games Week that always stands out is the unique and beautiful artwork that accompanies it. Anna Vokov, one of our talented 2D artists, continues to be the main driving force behind the creation of these wonderful designs. We spoke with her to learn more about the process on creating artwork for such an event. "This is the fourth year I've volunteered to create artwork for the event, and I feel like with each year I continue to challenge myself more and more in terms of the art's vision and composition." Annie explains "It's always my job to design everything, from start to finish, which is a very challenging job and a huge responsibility, but to see it done, see the event up and running, is such a rewarding feeling. I'm very proud of what we've accomplished together with my teammates at GDACZ."
"The theme I've chosen for this year's event is "togetherness". Czechia and Slovakia have a very warm relationship and I wanted to represent it in the artwork. The two characters - a Czech girl and a Slovak boy - play through a platformer together to reach a common goal, while munching on some popular local snacks. The platformer itself also pictures various landmarks from both Czechia and Slovakia. I really wanted the artwork to have an educational impact as well - it tells you a little about the culture of both countries." "The cover art took around 30 hours to design, sketch, outline, colour, and polish. The details and clean, intricate lines are mostly to blame. I did most of the work on my iPad, which I like to take to cafs for a little change of scenery. And no, I really don't wanna think about the cost of all the large Starbucks coffees I had to consume to get it done!" We are proud of the work Anna undertakes in her own time for this special event! The Czech & Slovak Games Week takes place between November 13th and November 20th and features a number of discounts for locally created games across a multitude of platforms, along with digital events and online streams. We urge you to check it out for yourself! You can find the Czech & Slovak Games Week Steam page right here.