Sofia Game Jam
Philip Tarpov
Cinematographer & Community Organizer
Sofia, Bulgaria
Philip is a cinematographer and a game development community organizer from Bulgaria. He has shot two short films and worked as a cinematographer and editor on a range of film projects. For eight years, he was the head, mind, and soul behind Sofia Game Jam’s events, from hackathons and game art exhibitions to conferences and career fairs. Not a game developer himself, he has spent years around game jams, getting a close look at how teams form, ideas evolve, and games get made. Basically, he’s spent a lot of time watching people make games. Now he wants to talk about why some games never make it to the finish line, and what makes others succeed.
Talk
100+ Games Later: Why Your Game Might Die Before You Make It
After eight years of watching hundreds of games being made, Philip has seen a pattern: projects that stand out are rarely the ones with the most features. They’re often the ones with an unconventional idea, a focused scope, and a team that knows what it is actually trying to make. Game jams are one of the best places to learn how to make games. Instead of spending months alone at home trying to build your dream game, you can test an idea, make mistakes, get feedback, and discover what works. SUPERHOT, for example, started as a game jam prototype before growing into a full game. So what can we learn from the strange little games that have come out of game jams in Sofia over the years? A 1980s spy thriller where the entire game is about listening in on rooms and waiting for a mafia deal to unfold. An FMV bar-management game with customers from all over the world, where you have to figure out what they want to drink despite language barriers and drunken rambling. This talk explores what successful teams do differently, which mistakes can kill a project before it gets going, and why making a smaller game can give you room to make a bigger, stranger, more memorable idea.