Casual Connect and Indie Prize, a global conference dedicated to bringing casual gamers and indie developers together, have recently launched a pretty awesome Facebook contest. In this contest, one lucky indie developer from Easter Europe will get a fully paid trip (flight/housing accommodations) to Casual Connect’s Tel Aviv conference from October 19th to 21st. Better yet, the winner is also guaranteed to have a table at the conference to showcase their game.

From what it looks like, the rules are pretty simple. To enter in the contest, all you need to do is upload your game’s banner, screenshot, logo, or icon to the “CONTEST: Indie Prize | Tel Aviv 2015” photo album on the Facebook group. Then you’ll need to like Casual Connect’s Facebook page, and share your game’s photo you uploaded earlier to the page’s timeline. Lastly, the winner will be chosen August 1st and is determined by who has the most likes on their game’s photo.

For those interested, you can check out our previous coverage plus tons of photos of Casual Connect here. Continue reading this post ->

With Casual Connect Europe in Amsterdam, Netherlands all wrapped up and the Indie Prize winners selected, it’s time to officially announce who won. Out of the 200 Indie Prize applicants, only 120 were admitted to the conference and only a mere 11 walked away with an award. The competition was fierce and there was some debating amongst the judges, however, it all worked out fantastically.

In total, the prizes for winners are worth over $500,000 and included the following: Unity licenses, 5K in Google Cloud Services, Photon Cloud services, headsets from Plantronics, various devices from Amazon, free advertisements from us, free highlights from BlogsRelease, and plenty more. Lastly, the two Best In Show winners also receive $1,000 stipends from Casual Connect which can be used towards the trip to Casual Connect Asia in Singapore in May.

But without any further to do, here’s the list of winners along with their respective category.

• Best Art – Lumino City by State of Play Games
• Best Audio – Amphora by Moondrop
• Best Narrative – Herald by Wispfire
• Best Game Design – LA Cops by Modern Dream
• Most Promising Game in Development – Guild of Dungeoneering by Gambrinous
• Best PC Game – Guns, Gore and Cannoli by Crazy Monkey Studios
• Best Multiplayer Game – Move or Die by Those Awesome Guys
• Best Mobile Game – First Strike HD by Blindflug Studios
• Director’s Choice Award – Shadow Puppeteer by Sarepta Studio
• Best in Show: Critic’s Choice Award – Party Hard by Pinokl Games
• Best in Show: Audience Choice Award – Replay: VHS is Not Dead by Neko Entertainment

The games were judged by critics — Henry Oh from CNN, Zoya Street from Gamesbrief, Dan Oravasaari from PlayStation LifeStyle, Aaron Whitfield from PocketFullOfApps, Rai Sewgobind from Eye For Games, Jurjen Tiersma from Power Unlimited, André Bernhardt from Indie Advisor.

On the other hand, the prize judges included Nick Berry from Facebook, Christopher Hamilton from Rovio, Oscar Clark from Unity, Candy Yang from Aarki, Aaron Walz from Walz Music, Jamison Selby from b Spot, and over a dozen more people or organizations. Continue reading this post ->

With Casual Connect Belgrade in the books, it’s time to turn our focus on the next big event. Taking place at the Beurs Van Berlage in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Casual Connect Europe will take place from February 4th through the 6th. Almost three times the size of Casual Connect Belgrade, this event will be home to 2,000 professional attendees, 170 speakers, and 120 Indie Prize teams.

Out of the 120 Indie Prize teams, only a select handful will walk home with one of the much coveted awards. That said, there’s a lot more at stake and the competition will be fierce this time around. That only means one thing though — we get to play a lot of fantastic games from numerous indie developers that deserve a chance at making it big. Those interested can check out the official Indie Prize website for the Amsterdam event here.

Just like our coverage of Casual Connect Belgrade and San Francisco, we’ll be doing regular reporting of the event with pictures, interviews, updates, round ups, and much more. I’ll also be down on the Indie Prize floor judging some of the games, so be on the lookout for me and be sure to say hello as well. With Causal Connect Europe being roughly one and a half months away there are plenty of updates that we’ll share with you as the event approaches, so be sure to stay on the look out. Continue reading this post ->

The Casual Games Association, a world-wide organization for the video games industry that hosts the Casual Connect conferences, has finally ended after a fun and eventful successful show at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Belgrade. Those that missed our coverage last week can check out the full archive here along with photos here and here. Earlier in the year we attended Casual Connect USA which took place in San Francisco. The full archive of our coverage for that event can be seen here.

Here’s some highlights from the Causal Connect Belgrade event:

• This conference marks the first time Casual Connect Eastern Europe has been held in Serbia.
• Over 1,000 professionals from 51 countries in attendance.
• Over 400 developers in attendance, with 24 countries represented in the Indie Prize Showcase.
• More than 60 lectures from companies including Nordeus, Eipix, Mad Head Games, Creative Mobile, Facebook, Seriously, Wooga, HeroCraft, Fun 2 Robots Ltd., as well as Unity who provided a full Developer Day.

Lectures at Casual Connect Belgrade included a wide range of topics like industry insights, the indie experience, and game development across platforms from mobile, PC, console, as well as web.

Select Speakers

1. Mirko Topalski, Eipix
2. Vladimir Funtikov, Creative Mobile
3. Bob Slinn, Facebook
4. Leonid Eletskikh, App Annie
5. Nick Berry, Facebook
6. Connor O’Sullivan, Nordeus
7. Katya Nemova, Wargaming
8. Vladimir Zivkovic, Eipix
9. Alina Brazdeikene, Signus Labs
10. Jaroslav Stacevic, Nordcurrent

For the full list of speakers, be sure to check out the official Casual Connect Eastern Europe website here. Additionally, some of the videos from the conference can be seen at Gamesauce.org. Looking towards the future, Casual Connect turns their focus their next conference — Casual Connect Europe in Amsterdam on February 4th — 6th, 2015. Similar companies like Unity, Gamepoint, Glu Mobile, Playtika, and others will attend which we’ve seen previously at the San Francisco and Belgrade event. A full list of speakers can be seen here.

Last but certainly not least, PocketFullOfApps also hopes to attend the event and be apart of a panel for a change of pace. While we’ll still do our typical coverage with photos and recaps, taking part in a panel discussion would be a lot of fun. The Indie Prize winners will also get a nice prize from us as well just like previous conferences. Continue reading this post ->